Focus Group: Education and Workforce Development

On February 11, 2015, Marin Economic Forum held a focus group from the public on critical needs in K-12, community college, workforce development, and university education resources in Marin County.  The results of that focus group are below.  Please be sure to add your voice to this conversation by looking at the questions in bold, looking at the answer bullets, and then providing any emphasis on those answers or let us know ideas that are missing.  These are draft thoughts and meant for comment and editing.  Thanks for taking the time to add your voice!

We have retained all the information provided by the group on each of the following questions.  We did not discuss how to achieve these goals on purpose, as that would have taken a much longer session and the point of these focus groups is to ignite a broader conversation via our blog and social media.  Please e-mail any comments to the following e-mail: workforce@marineconomicforum.org

What are critical needs for K-12 education as related to workforce development in Marin County?

  • Early Childhood Education: as prep for K-3
  • 21st Century Skill Development: make sure education is relevant
  • Technology Training: are the teachers on the technology frontier?
  • Business Partnerships with Schools: more links
  • Learn Soft Skills: financial literacy, public speaking, etc.
  • Global Learning: exposure through travel and cultural immersion
  • Occupational Training and Development: more depth in preparing for either college or vocation

What are the most critical needs for educational/workforce development infrastructure in the next five years (K – Graduate School)?

  • Housing: need more student housing
  • Transportation: easier and more complete links to all Bay Area educational institutions
  • Remove Cultural Roadblocks: need to understand the cultural difference in the use of infrastructure
  • Facilities: need more classrooms and training spaces
  • Overall Organization: Better partnerships between business & education
    • Sharing Resources
  • Mentors
    • Student facility and peer to peer mentoring
  • Wages: need higher wages to support rationale for education and workforce development

What are critical needs for adult workforce development in Marin County?

  • Clarity and communication on both business and workforce needs
  • Mentoring
  • Internships
  • Older Adult Training/Tech Training
  • Transportation: ease of getting to and from work
  • Access and Programming for Higher Education
  • Business Engagement: programs started by businesses
  • Child Care: recognizing the needs of families who work
  • Housing: stable housing means stable adult workers
  • ESL: need to recognize lack of English skills and the number of people who are not native speakers

What demographic groups will need the most focus for education and workforce development resources in Marin County through 2020?

  • Non-English Speaking Minorities and English Speaking Immigrants
  • Older Adults/Second Career
  • Underserved populations: Disabled, ex-offenders, homeless, High School/College Drop-outs
  • Small Business Entrepreneurs
  • Women: both seeking to start a business or moms that now want to go back to work

Comments (3)

  • Robert Eyler

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    One of the largest challenges we face in education is the balance between hard and soft skills. With more life-sciences businesses coming to the North Bay, especially with the efforts of the City of Novato and the North Bay Life Science Alliance (www.nblsa.com), we need to prepare a workforce for both scientific work and for support in all business categories. Sonoma State University’s array of science and graduate business programs is a regional anchor for such work. #ssuemba

  • Bill McNicholas

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    I see one big critical need is technical training (e.g. craft and skill shops in HS and community colleges) and reduce the emphasis that all have to be college graduates. There is a big demand for these skills and the money is good and there are plenty of opportunities. This type of training could be also for older perople seeking to change fields and develop new skill sets. Veterans need to be included in the demographic groups in the focus for education and workforce development. A service working with vets, to transition their military skills over to civilian life is a must.

  • Jane Winter

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    What are critical needs for adult workforce development in Marin County?
    Marin is the most rapidly aging county in the state yet many mature workers (50+) have outdated technology skills and lack the eduction and experience to work in the most rapidly growing sector in Marin – Life Sciences. Nonprofits and COM need to collaborate to upgrade technology skills and provide opportunities for moving into the Life Science sector.

    What demographic groups will need the most focus for education and workforce development resources in Marin County through 2020?
    In regards to Older Adult/Encore Careers we need to be cognizant that many mature county residents, while well educated, have fallen into low income or poverty levels due to a myriad of factors including the recent economic downturn and the unique susceptibility of older workers to traumatic events including divorce, health issues, caring for parents, etc. that are the basis for their unemployment.

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