Washoe County School District: Optimas Silver Winner for Managing Change

The old proverb urges us to look before we leap.

The Washoe County (Nevada) School District could rephrase the familiar saying just a bit: LEAP and then look — at how the district is helping manage the evolution of a high-tech workforce.

Learn & Earn Advanced Career Pathways, known as LEAP, is the result of a yearlong collaboration with a variety of local agencies to address employee shortfalls in advanced manufacturing — an area of employment tagged as the Silver State’s future highest-growth sector.

The district’s program will create a pipeline of workers over the next five years to manage the changing dynamics of the burgeoning tech climate.

The initiative was launched in August 2014 when agencies and stakeholders recognized a problem and planned a strategy to connect human capital resources to a business need.

Because Washoe County School District is playing such an integral role in helping manage the shifting workplace needs, it is the silver 2015 Optimas Awards winner for Managing Change.