SignalsAZ.com Prescott News Podcast - Keeping Our Kids Local: Building the Future Workforce in Yavapai County

Episode Date: March 8, 2026

Send us a text and chime in!In this episode of SignalsAZ, we sit down with Yavapai County School Superintendent Steve King and Dan Brown from the Yavapai County Education Service Agency to discuss a new initiative that helps local students discover career paths earlier than ever.The Yavapai County Future Ready Council is working to bring meaningful career exploration into middle schools, connecting students with real industries, real professionals, and real opportunities right here in Yavapai County.#Yavapaicounty #educationservices #Futurereadycouncil #careerexploration #prescott #prescottvalley #dewey #chinovalley Check out the CAST11.com Website at: https://CAST11.com Follow the CAST11 Podcast Network on Facebook at: https://Facebook.com/CAST11AZFollow Cast11 Instagram at: https://www.instagram.com/cast11_podcast_network

Hey, everybody. Welcome back to signalsaz.com. We are here today with probably the two smartest guys I've seen all week. Really? Well, it is Monday. It's Monday. So we're getting there. So we've got Danny Brown. You do special projects, which sounds so cool with Yavapai County Education Services Agency. And Steve came. And you are the county school superintendent. Yes, I am. Funny you don't go by Stephen. Yeah. My mother calls me, Stephen, my grandma, but usually why I was in trouble. So not too much. I hope I'm trying to stay out of trouble. Awesome.

So you guys have figured it all out. You've cracked the code. We figured out what we need to do. Figure out what we need to do with these kids. What do you have going on with all these special projects? What's going on? Well, my big focus this past school year has been the Yavapai County Future Ready Council. And this was a, Steve came to me, I want to say, back in April of last year and said, hey, they're doing some really

cool things with career exploration in the middle schools down in Yuma County. You want to go down and visit and tour around, see what they got. And so we went down there for a couple days, saw some great things going on in Yuma County, and we decided, let's go for this. And so we have partnered with the Arizona Business Education Coalition, ABEC, the MICTED here, Mountain Institute CED here on this side of the mountain. And we've gotten some funding from Blue Cross Blue Shield. And we have started the Yavapag County Future Ready Council. And the council is two-pronged. The first focus is obviously to get career exploration into the middle schools.

We know that students have a wide exposure to a lot of different industries and job opportunities and things that they can do in high school with the dual credit and with the CTED program. But they don't get a lot of exposure at the middle school. And so we thought, you know, if they get that broad exposure down at the middle school level on different industries, different jobs that are tied to industries, maybe they'll have some sort of an idea maybe of what they want to study and what they want to. And then in the high school level, they can start to look at those more specifically. Feels kind of like a no-brainer, though, right? Yes, I think it is a no-brainer. I would think that, I mean, there's research out there that shows that when schools are exposed to middle school career exploration, their attendance is better, they're more engaged in school, their discipline is better, they feel like they have a focus.

And it's just something that, you know, it should be a natural thing as these students at the middle school level. Sometimes it takes us a little while to figure stuff out, huh? What did you see in Yuma that caught your attention? Yeah. So as Mr. Brown Minch went down and toured Yuma for, it was back in April, May. Some was hot, not too hot, but it was pretty warm. Getting there. But we saw this relationship, I think more than anything else, is starting to build that relationship between business and industry and our schools and recognize that our schools are feeders for our industry.

And when we look at what we have with a lot of our young people here, and as they grow up and they get through, and I just have to put in a word for Mountain Institute as well as V Act, which is the CT career facility and the other side of the hill, doing remarkable things, remarkable programs. And the Appiah College has also been at the forefront of this. And they have a seat at our table as well because we want to see that their table, you know, working collaboratively. But in bringing together business and industry was really, I think, the unlocking the code to what we're looking to do. Because these kids will one day, and they can oftentimes tell people, the only problem with children is they turn into adults, right? I have seen that.

I've seen it. But adults, we want our adults to be employed. More than anything, we want them to stay here. Yopai County because too often, too many of our young people, they leave the county. And if they can stay here, then they get embedded with our community and they provide all those vital services and make a decent living and become productive, happy, healthy citizens and hopefully produce the next generation. And it can keep the cycle going. I appreciate you saying that because that is one of the things we talk about with, you know,

we've had so many agencies in here. But, you know, grit specifically is one of those that was, you know, we're raising these kids and we're, you know, trying to give them these opportunities. And it's like, where are they going to live? Where are they going to go to college? where are they going to do? You know, you raise them to send them away. And then after they figured it out and they've got their stuff, they try to come back. Yeah, we're a net exporter of children, right? 100%.

100%. So I think it's brilliant. You know, I just know when I was in school, you know, just a few years ago. And then all my kids that were in school, just a few years. I think we went to school together. I mean, our children. But you wait until you get to high school and then you sit down with a career. counselor and they say, hey, what do you want to be when you grow up? I don't know. I have no idea.

You know, and you've changed your mind a thousand times because nobody's ever asked you before. And so now you're kind of put on the spot and it's like, well, I got to make a decision because it's time. And had you just asked me a few years ago, before one, I'm a jaded high school kid, right? You know, you go to high school and you think you know everything. But junior high, you still got some molding that we can do too. Yes. I think that, you know, you said that the molding there. And I think the more exposure we give to these kids about what industries are out there. Say, for example, healthcare. There are so many jobs that are tied to the healthcare industry. When you think of health care, you think of being a doctor or being a nurse, but there's so many things that are out there

that kids don't really know about, you know, being a phlebotomist. We saw when we toured in Yuma, they had a class down there. It was a phlebotomy class for eighth grade kids. And they were, they took these dummy things, you're going to call them, and they were trying to to extract blood from them. And so just exposing the kids to something like that, you know, it's going to get, you know, kids really interested maybe in the profession in general. Okay. Well, I took a flibon me class when I was in high school. Okay. And we practiced on each other. So good for you guys. Good for them to have an actual, you know, something to play with. And the technology out there is just amazing for kids to be able to work on other than themselves.

But to find that passion at that age because it's, you know, I think there is something to be said that once you're in high school, the pressure of, now I'm in high school and everything counts, these credits counts, I'm old enough now to get a car and a job and all of this stuff. And you're, I can't focus on what I'm going to be when I grow up. I'm just trying to figure out my day to day. Right, right. But when you're 11 and 12 years old and your only responsibility is really, you know, maybe an after school sport or, you know, homework. Right. You know, I was reminded, as Danny was talking right there, is a, there used to be this show on television. And I probably should admit. that I watched, but it was called Beavis and Butthead on MTV.

And I was always thinking about this. Yeah, I just heard about in passing. But there was a scene in there where Beavis and Butthead, they're talking to their school counselor. And the school counselor says, so tell us Beavis and Butthead, why, what are you planning on doing after high school? And they looked at the council and they said, what, school ends? Right?

Right. Because they didn't have the context for understanding that, you know, there is a point to this. And I think that, as Mr. Brown alluded to. to, you know, once these kids see something, and they may not choose that, they may not be in law enforcement, they may not be a nurse or anything else. There's choices, though. But there's choices, and it starts opening up those horizons for them. And I think that's probably the biggest challenge that we have as educators in this digital age

is getting these kids to see, you might be here, but look where you can go if you apply yourself. And then us being the adults should be able to provide those pathways for those kids to move up. And I think that's what Danny's program is doing more than anything else, is actually starting to show that vision to those kids, but also to our educators. There's a way up and out for many of these kids. I think we're also seeing a shift too is you don't necessarily have to go to a four-year university to get a good job that's out there. I mean, and our C-TED programs show that. I mean, there are so many C-TED programs that don't necessarily require a four-year degree.

Another avenue that's coming, it's going to be coming in the near future in Arizona is the chip manufacturing industry. It's going to be huge down in the valley. And we're going to be, we're going need trained people to go down there and be able to perform those jobs. And Young Pye College is already starting to work on a chip manufacturing program for students. So it's not just gearing kids towards that four-year degree. Well, we've got kids graduating high school with an associate's degree in the back pocket. Exactly. And they're getting certifications. I mean, we've got folks that are linemen, electrical linemen that are out there in the Forest Service. So many jobs that are out there. We went out a few years ago to the college because they were talking about their trades programs.

And we were like, well, let's check this out. We ended up doing a whole magazine on it. And I mean, with video and all of the things you can do right here in our backyard, I mean, between CDLs and like you said, the lineman program and auto body and just and it's all right there. It's all here. And like you said, it's, you know, get these kids excited early, find their path. The other prong is not only to get our students exposed at the middle school level with career exploration, but to bring businesses, community folks, government folks, educators together at the table to find out what is it, what are those needs? What can we do to help each other out and to gather as a group and collaborate and talk about?

Let's just say, for example, a lot of our businesses, they want educators to teach those employability skills. businesses can teach all the technical aspects of a particular job, but they're looking for folks that know how to collaborate, know how to critically think. Problem solvers. Problem solvers. Coming to work on just on time, written in oral communication.

Customer service. Exactly. And so I think those are some things. We're trying to create a list of those employability skills to focus. As a business owner, what could they do to do? get involved? We would love to have, I'm getting ready to start a Speakers Bureau, and I'm reaching out to business folks, anybody in the industry that would like to get in front of middle school kids and talk about their job and talk about their profession. And as a speaker

at the middle schools, they can do that. We're looking at maybe having folks come in, having students come in to visit their profession and do tours. We would love down the road to see apprenticeships and internships start to thrive here and you have a pie county. That's my mind is just racing a million miles a minute because I'm thinking to be able to have a seat at the table to tell these educators what we're looking for and employable, you know, kids out of high school, what we, you know, these are the jobs that we're looking to fill and to actually work together. That's right.

And that's exactly what we're looking for is partnerships. and partnering schools with industry. You look at other countries and the models that they've developed, or even within this country, even within the state, we've seen remarkable things. I think we can do that here in Yafai to keep our kids here and to have that thriving community. But when you talk about employers, you ask every employer,

what is your biggest need? I know what their answer is going to be. I need employees. I need quality employees. Everywhere you hear that. Well, if we've got the employees, we've got a lot of people moving here that would like those services that need the nursing services,

but even hospitality and everything else, we're going to need plumbers and electricians and all those things that make a community strong. And really, that's the underlying meaning behind all the work that Mr. Brown's doing out there is to build those strong connections between business and schools to create our greater partnerships. And to Mr. King's point earlier, let's see if we can expose these kids to jobs and industries that are here in Yavapai County to keep them here in Yavapai County. Yeah, no more exporting our kids, right?

Exactly. So what are your next steps to get this going? Well, I have been working with middle schools, charter schools throughout the area. Over the last few months, we're having some preliminary discussions, marketing the program. I've had several schools that are going to, that have made a preliminary commitment. And so I'm just going to be going in, following through. It's not a one-size-fits-all. We don't want to say, okay, you need to do career exploration during the school day. We've got a lot of different models that we're supporting out there. I've got got one charter school that's looking at doing something after school. I've got some schools that are going to embedding it are going to embed it into their elective programs. Some of them might do some things in their advisory group or their core classes. So there's a lot of different ways that it could be incorporated. But we want to start with a small cadre of schools to start to implement at the beginning of next year. And my job is to provide the resources and support to make

that happen. For example, we're going to to be, we've got a preliminary date for professional development called My Future Arizona, which is one of the online career exploration platforms. We're going to try to get folks to the table to learn about that particular platform. We're not promoting one platform over another, but we've given the schools a plethora of resources to go and find, there's free resources out there. It's not like you have to recreate the wheel. There's already online stuff that's out there to allow you to engage all the different industries. I would feel these junior high teachers and educators would be excited about something like this

to have that collaboration. Are you seeing that as well? Yes. I mean, we've got a couple of folks. Actually, I'm working with a Humboldt Unified School District right now. They've got some extra funding and they're really starting to, they want to really build out their programs at their three middle schools right now. And so we're having some great discussions with the principals and the teachers to see what that, what is that going to look like at

each of the different schools in the Humboldt Unified School District. It's got to be exciting for them. Yeah, that is really exciting for them. You know, you think of, I always think of elementary school because that's where the kids are starting and then high school is where it's, and I think sometimes the junior high is kind of forgotten about a little bit. Just that middle little. I've got a life skills teacher in my high junior high that's looking at, incorporating units into her career X-Methe fits perfectly with that particular elective. You know, life skills, they talk

about, they do financial literacy and other things like that, so it fits hand in hand. And then the other little smaller charter schools are just going to incorporate those types of things, usually using some of the online resources that we've provided. That's awesome. Well, we would definitely love to help

any way that we can with, I mean, just getting them in the studio. We're going to put you on the Speakers Bureau. Oh, 400%. No, you're already there. We're there. Already signed up. Perfect. Yeah. Perfect.

Hope you spelled my name right. Be there with bells on. Guys, thanks for everything that you're doing for the community. I think this is, I guess, a no-brainer. I'm glad I've been, but I just think you get very into this is how it's always been done. You know, in elementary school, it's kind of career day where you bring your parents to school, but that's about it. So to see the value of these 12 and 13-year-olds to be able to say, you know what? This is the time.

One of the things that Yavai College started over in the Verdi side, now they're expanding that over to the Prescott side are these three-week mini-courses. So all focused on career until they were doing nursing, they were doing law enforcement, doing agriculture, they were doing construction traits where these middle school teenagers get that experience for three weeks to figure out, okay, my next level. So when I get to high school, I've got some to look forward to her. This is really catching me. So smart.

That's what we need. So I wanted to thank YAPI College for that. And also the other Institute of Higher Learning we have here is Embry Riddell. And so Danny's been having a lot of conversation with Embry Riddell, but looking those STEM trades, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. Those next generation jobs are going to be out there. So we're working closely with Embry Riddell. Super excited about a lot of things that are happening in the future. We just want to expand those.

So every kid has a fair shot. We've got a small cadre of teachers attending a weekly class through Emory Riddle. Dr. Ron Andaleeby is teaching it on a Friday on his own time. But it's CAD and 3D printing. And so these teachers will hopefully be able to be fully certified to teach 3D printing at their schools at some point in time next year. I mean, if you think about all of the amazing resources we have here for the kids that, I mean, you have a pie. I'm glad you brought up Embry. Just it's so, it's such a great place to get these kids what they need and hopefully stay here.

Well, and our Mountain Institute, CET has over 30 programs too. You know, it's just amazing how much that place has grown. And we try to take eighth grade students out to the CETEC building over by the airport to get them exposed to the facility that's out there. It's amazing. Three-week mini courses, awesome. Yes. It's like. Yeah, it's funny.

I took child development in high school because everybody was doing it. You know, it's easy. So we had to carry the sack of flying around. Yeah. And I'm going to learn how to be a teacher because I think. That would be awesome. They're adding that, by the way. Ed professions, the FI College Mountain Institute are adding in-person ed professions

in the Prescott side. Really? So we can grow our young teachers because that's a challenge that we have within our schools is finding those educators to set our schools. How many people go through, you know, I'm going to do this because that's what I'm supposed to do. And then they realize I don't want to do this. And I've just wasted and, you know, course, education, I don't think is a waste of anything.

But it's like, had I had that three-week mini-course of, teaching or realizing, you know, this is, this maybe isn't what I want to do. We can be smarter about this stuff. You're getting smarter. I'm telling you, smartest guys I've had all. Again, it's only Monday. Invite me on a Friday.

I'd like to hear that too. End of the month. Yeah. These guys, thank you so much for coming in. Danny Brown's special projects, the coolest thing ever. And Steve, no end king. No one. Well, there is an end.

No, and talk about it. I'll talk about it. I guess there's some other guy with that name. I don't know. But county school superintendent, you guys, thank you so much for coming in. I appreciate you. Keep doing what you're doing. I've got a couple little granddaughters that are coming up.

I have a 10-year-old. She's in fourth grade and then a three-year-old granddaughter. It goes fast, isn't it? So fast, you guys are, but you're figuring it out for them. So by the time she's in junior high, she's already going to know what she wants to be when she grows up. Thank you for having us all. All right. All right.

We'll see you.