Who We Are | SkillsUSA Iowa

We are SkillsUSA Iowa

SkillsUSA is America’s proud champion of the skilled trades. We’re a student-led partnership of education and industry that’s building the future skilled workforce our nation depends on with graduates who are career-ready, day-one.

Representing more than 400,000 career and technical education students and teachers, SkillsUSA chapters thrive in middle schools, high schools and college/postsecondary institutions nationwide. Our mission is accomplished through the SkillsUSA Framework of Personal Skills, Workplace Skills and Technical Skills Grounded in Academics, which is integrated into classroom curriculum.

Through the Framework, SkillsUSA students hone their hands-on skills against current industry standards in more than 140 occupational areas, from 3-D Animation to Welding and nearly everything in between. At the same time, they develop the transformative career-readiness skills — teamwork, communication, professionalism, leadership and more — that fuel career and life success.

A vital solution to the ongoing skills gap, where more highly skilled jobs are available than skilled professionals ready to fill them, SkillsUSA has served more than 16 million diverse, difference-making members since 1965.

Mission:
SkillsUSA is America’s proud champion of the skilled trades. Our mission is to empower students to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members.

Vision:

SkillsUSA’s vision is to produce the most highly skilled workforce in the world, providing every member the opportunity for career success.

Values:
The success of SkillsUSA’s mission depends on the commitment of our staff and stakeholders to the following values:

Integrity: We are consistent and authentic in word and action to each other, our members and the communities we serve.
Respect: Respect is foundational. Our self-awareness precedes our ability to connect with each other and our members while mutually valuing our unique experiences.
Responsibility: We are accountable to the whole of our organization, from internal staff to our diverse group of stakeholders. Through listening, learning and acting, we engage in our shared commitment to realizing a collective vision.
Community: We value and belong to a diverse community. We strive to do our best in service through continuous reflection and growth.
Service: SkillsUSA acts through the willing service of staff and committed volunteers to empower its members and their communities to reach their highest potential.

SkillsUSA Framework:

The SkillsUSA Framework illustrates how students fulfill the mission of the organization: to empower students to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members.

What it does:

Provides a common language for students to articulate what they gain from SkillsUSA participation to employers, school administrators, parents and other students
Assesses student skill development along a learning continuum of awareness, demonstration and mastery
Creates a vision for SkillsUSA programs at the local, state and national levels to ensure quality student-led experiences that build skills in all members

Why it works:

Empowers every student to achieve career success
Delivers a skill set demanded by business and industry but lacking in many employees today
Ensures that every student member receives a consistent and specific skill set

A student who once hid quietly in the back of the class finds a confidence they never knew they had… and now will never lose. Another, once unsure of their future goals, discovers a passion for a specific skill that will lead to a fulfilling, high-wage and in-demand career.

A teacher, struggling to provide students with real-world connections to their classroom, transforms their curriculum into an engaging model of a high-functioning workplace.

An industry representative, desperate for entry-level employees to meet their company’s growing needs, taps into a talent pipeline of career-ready applicants ready to bridge that skills gap.

These moments — and so many more — happen every day thanks to SkillsUSA involvement.

SkillsUSA changes classrooms. SkillsUSA changes workplaces. SkillsUSA changes lives.

Students:

SkillsUSA serves students in middle school, high school and college/postsecondary chapters across the nation, and those chapters are student-led. While each group is ultimately on the same career-ready journey, each needs specific tools and support relevant to how far along they’ve come.

SkillsUSA offers competitions, events, conferences, programs and more to help students grow their personal and professional skills through a holistic approach that’s tailored to each step up the educational ladder. The end result? Graduates who are skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members.

Learn more about why joining SkillsUSA is one of the best decisions students at any level can make.

Teachers/Advisors:
SkillsUSA connects education with industry, offering new avenues for classroom support and development while ensuring that curriculum is relevant to cutting-edge standards. It keeps students motivated and engaged as they connect the classroom to the real world and their future goals. It builds administrator and community support for a teacher’s programs, provides access to a wealth of turnkey educational resources and, most importantly, helps teachers achieve the one goal that makes all the work worthwhile: seeing their students succeed as professionals and people who make a difference, just like the teachers who inspired them.

Learn more about the benefits of becoming a SkillsUSA advisor.
Learn how to join as a professional member.

Industry Partners:

Industry knows: The skills gap is real, and it’s a clear and present threat to America’s economic future. Hundreds of thousands of open positions exist right now in a wide variety of highly skilled, high-paying, in-demand career fields. The problem is, there aren’t enough qualified skilled professionals to fill those positions. SkillsUSA is a proven solution to the skills gap. Partnering with SkillsUSA provides access to a verified talent pipeline of career-ready, day one employees. SkillsUSA students have the technical skills industry demands, but so much more; they also have the personal and workplace skills that truly set them apart as both employees and leaders.

Through SkillsUSA, industry can influence classroom curriculum, create and judge competitions, build brand loyalty among our students and teachers, and actively recruit from the best, most highly skilled career and technical education students in the nation. SkillsUSA is also the most effective avenue that exists among students to change outdated perceptions about careers in the skilled trades and spark excitement and motivation in the next generation to pursue these fulfilling, in-demand careers.

The data doesn't lie. SkillsUSA changes lives.

Personal testimonials about how SkillsUSA changes lives always make an inspiring case for membership and support. Add some rock-solid data and statistics — like those from the reports summarized below — and an “inspiring” case becomes “open-and-shut.” Here’s some of the most recent data correlating SkillsUSA involvement — and involvement in career and technical education programs in general — with positive student outcomes.

Student Research Foundation: “The SkillsUSA Advantage”

A 2023 report from the Student Research Foundation shows that SkillsUSA members consistently outperform their peers not enrolled in a career and technical student organization (CTSO) in seven essential areas:

Earning a license or certification related to their field of study
Meeting potential employers
Being excited about their chosen career
Gaining work experience as a student
Understanding the work environment
Being excited about school
Connecting school to the real world

Among the 27,000 high school students surveyed, this “SkillsUSA Advantage” holds true regardless of gender, race/ethnicity or socioeconomic status. SkillsUSA students also reported greater access to expanded opportunities and dramatically improved career-readiness skills.
SkillsUSA Advantage Report
SkillsUSA Advantage Asset Collection

“Career and Technical Education (CTE) Works!” Report

In 2022, the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) released a compilation of statistics related to student involvement in career and technical education programs. Sources included the National Center for Education Statistics and the U.S. Department of Education, and just some of the highlights include:

77% of employers from in-demand industries report hiring an employee because of knowledge and skills gained from their career and technical education experience.
Despite millions of job openings around the country, 74% of employers report a persistent mismatch between the skills they need and the skills workers have.
High school students in career and technical education programs are more likely to be employed full time and have higher median annual earnings 8 years after graduation.
The average high school graduation rate for those involved in career and technical education programs is 94%, compared to the national rate of 85%.

Download the full infographic report at ACTE’s website.

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