high school students an opportunity <\/a>to interact with local business executives. This allows them to learn more about leadership skills, solve real-world problems and explore career opportunities.\u00a0<\/p>\nThese credits will not only be offered to Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay 3DE participants, but young people who are enrolled in the program through sister organizations across the country.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a historical achievement that we couldn\u2019t be more excited about,\u201d Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay\u2019s chief development officer Christina Roberts explained to the Catalyst. The initiative is an \u201cintegrated instructional model\u201d that students participate in throughout all four years of their high school experience.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Freshman and sophmores work on case challenges sponsored by national and local businesses. Juniors create and market their own businesses in collaboration with partners such as the University of South Florida Nault Center for Entrepreneurship.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To culminate the program, seniors are required to participate in a consultancy project that benefits a real company.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cSPC leaders evaluated that curriculum and decided that if a student successfully graduates, they will automatically be able to receive four courses\u2019 worth of credit,\u201d she added. \u201cThree years ago, SPC College of Business dean Emmanuel Hern\u00e1ndez-Agosto reached out to me and said \u2018Christina, I saw an article in the St. Pete Catalyst on the 3DE model and I\u2019d love to learn more.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Roberts explained that Hern\u00e1ndez-Agosto began to mentor 3DE students. Eventually, SPC became the recipient of a senior consultancy project during the 2023-2024 academic year. The young participants developed ideas on how to increase enrollment rates through recruiting international students.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWe saw the opportunity and had the vision to say \u2018there\u2019s no need for making the students go through the same course work when they have already demonstrated for the past four years that they have the talent and capacity,\u2019\u201d Hern\u00e1ndez-Agosto said at the Tuesday event. \u201cThis partnership was something we saw as an opportunity to give back and be a true partner in the community.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
He added that providing 3DE students with college credit can help them enter \u201cthe market faster\u201d and can save them \u201ctime and money.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Implemented in more than 75 educational institutions across 13 states, the 3DE program was first introduced in the Tampa Bay area in 2020. St. Petersburg, Dunedin, Hillsborough and Chamberlain High Schools were the inaugural institutions. Currently, six schools in Pinellas County offer the instructional model.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Pinellas County Schools superintendent Kevin Hendrick explained at the event that collaborating with Junior Achievement was attractive because it provided an opportunity to help students gain \u201ccompetencies\u201d that could be beneficial in any industry. He added that the new partnership with SPC can have an \u201ceconomic impact.\u201d If graduating high school seniors already have credit, this can make them see \u201ccollege as an opportunity.\u201d It can also make them more prepared to \u201ccontribute\u201d to society.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIf there are other students who want to come to the area and enroll at SPC, we would love to see that,\u201d Roberts said. \u201cWe want Tampa Bay to continue to be a thriving ecosystem and we want to make sure that the talent that\u2019s available to every industry is filled with students who are ready.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay website\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"St. Petersburg College and Junior Achievement of Tampa Bay leaders unveiled a new partnership Tuesday at an event…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":223967,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-223966","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223966","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=223966"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/223966\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/223967"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=223966"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=223966"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=223966"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}