Jamie Pittman is used to asking people tough questions during job interviews. Pittman is the director of nursing at The Indiana Heart Hospital, but a couple times a month she is a volunteer mentor with the Marion County Commission on Youth.
Taking time from her busy schedule, according to an article by the Associated Press, Pittman hopes to change someone’s future by not only teaching them job seeking skills, but by, also, increasing the odds that they will graduate from high school.
I Care
To achieve that goal the commission on youth recently launched I Care, an initiative aimed at reaching out to businesses to encourage volunteering and support for education.
“For most people, unless they have a child dropping out of school or struggling with school, it’s an invisible issue,” John Brandon, president of the youth commission told the AP. “But we are looking at businesses to say, ‘Hey, these are your future customers and employees. You better believe it matters to you.’”
Diploma Plus
Pittman’s commitment is to the Diploma Plus program, in which she works with students on everything from how to fill out a job application and dress for an interview to why it’s important to stay in school even if you’ve just found out you’re pregnant.
In 2009, the graduation rate in Indianapolis Public Schools was 48.6 percent. Statewide, just 78 percent graduate, according to to the Indiana Department of Education.
“There are 6,000 to 7,000 young people a year in Marion County (Indiana) who drop out of school,” said Brandon. “Start adding that number up and it gets pretty scary.”
Scary because it directly affects businesses and the economy in numerous ways including:
- Decreased qualified hiring pools: Statistics show that when the baby boomer generation retires, there will not be enough people with even the high-school level skills to fill those jobs.
- Increased crime rates: Beyond the burden on society, paying for additional law enforcement is often a burden on businesses in the form of increased taxes.
- Increased unemployment rates: A vast number of dropouts are currently unemployed.
- Decreased disposable income: When individuals are uneducated and unemployed, they have little money to spend to support local businesses and the economy.
