By Nicole Carlino
Senior Associate Editor
NATIONAL REPORT—Look around your office and you probably won’t have to go far before you find someone who was exposed to hospitality at an early age—whether it was changing sheets in mom and dad’s hotel at the age of seven, bussing tables at a hotel restaurant as an after-school job, or working as a front desk agent while attending college. Chances are, that person is probably you.
Hospitality prides itself on being an industry that offers its employees upward mobility and growth potential, which makes it a natural fit for career-themed high schools, like those that the National Academy Foundation (NAF) supports. “NAF works with high schools around the country to help them start academies using our educational design that prepares young people for opportunities in high growth fields,” explained Colleen Devery, assistant VP, strategic planning & programs, NAF. The organization focuses on five themes; hospitality & tourism is one.
“We continue to see growth in both the number of academies and the number of students within those academies,” said Devery. “Since the 2013- 2014 school year, we’ve had 18% growth of students within those academies.” Devery noted that areas where NAF is seeing a lot of growth include Florida, Nevada, California, North Carolina and Texas, among others.
A large component of career-themed high schools is the partnerships with local businesses and post-secondary institutions. “So many school districts are looking to offer these opportunities for their young people, making sure their education is clearly connected to opportunities beyond high school and helping them understand what their interests are before they even start a post-secondary degree,” said Devery.
Kellie Hodge, director, BESTT Academy of Hospitality & Tourism, Jordan High School, which is a NAF-affiliated program, noted that her school is located in a low socioeconomic area of Long Beach, CA. “61% of the 300 students in my academy get reduced or free lunch,” she noted. “Being part of NAF, the whole philosophy is don’t let your zip code define you. College and career readiness should be available to all.”
Hodge expanded on the curriculum. “With our ninth and 10th graders, we’re making them aware of careers in the industry,” she said, noting that the students tour a local hotel and meet with various members of the executive staff. “They watch these really cool videos of the different brands, the different careers there are, the benefits, ability to travel, and all the different avenues you can take,” she said. “As we walk through, the students are greeted by the manager of that area.
“More intense is the job shadowing that our seniors experience. They sit down and do informational interviews— we usually go to the Courtyard Long Beach Downtown and the Renaissance Long Beach Hotel, which is four blocks away,” Hodge continued. “That’s more of a career exploration. It’s a multi-year sequence of workbased learning activities that become more intense.”
Sprinkled within are career tech education courses in both hospitality & tourism and finance. In addition, the program welcomes guest speakers, including those from nearby hospitality schools and event planners for the city’s festivals.
“We’re trying to get them excited to see the connection between how geometry and English classes relate to the world,” said Hodge. “It hopefully gets them excited about staying in high school, going to college and seeking out a career.” Last year, Jordan HighSchool’s BESTT program graduated 100% of its 56 seniors; 2% joined the military, 9% became employed, 68% went to two-year colleges and 14% went to four-year universities.
Devery added, “We see NAF students graduating at higher rates than other students within their high school. They’re going into post-secondary at higher rates. And, they’re earning more money.” NAF was part of a study that showed that students in career academies earned up to 11% more per year than their peers who weren’t, which was sustained throughout the six years the study followed students. “There’s a substantial labor market benefit,” she said.
Hodge praised corporate partners like the local Courtyard by Marriott. “We would not have the work-based learning without them,” she said.
Callette Nielsen, VP, brand manager for Courtyard by Marriott, reflected on the brand’s partnership with NAF.“This program has a direct and longlasting impact on the lives of the students by providing them with engaging and informative hands-on opportunities.
The activities in which hotels are encouraged to participate include worksite tours, job shadowing, informational interviews, mock interviews, and guest speaking,” she said, adding that NAF academies of all types are matched with nearby Courtyards.
“When there are no Courtyard properties near a NAF academy, we have begun to create virtual matches and provided webcams so the properties and academies can connect via video.” Nielsen noted that the benefits of this partnership are not just for the students. “On a global scale, as reported by the WTTC ‘Global Talent Trends and Issues Report,’ the travel and tourism industry is forecast to grow at a faster rate than other major industries, supporting 126 million jobs directly over the next 10 years. At the same time, the demand for talent will continue to outpace talent supply,” she said.
“This partnership allows the staff at our properties the opportunity to give back to their local communities in a very personal way that leverages their expertise. NAF academies have a proven track record of developing successful professionals and we’ve already seen some cases where our properties have leveraged the relationship with their local academy to hire interns or even part-time associates,” she continued. “And, all of these students are our future guests; this partnership affords us the opportunity to get to know them early in their careers and gain their loyalty.
Our goal is to provide 30,000 volunteer hours and engage with 10,000 students, teachers and administrators.” All noted that, being an extremely diverse industry—ranging from sales & marketing to finance to operations to the culinary arts, to name a few—hospitality in particular offers great exposure to students. Devery noted that NAF’s other academies also partner with hospitality companies because of this. “The natural connection is to the hospitality & tourism academy, but so many of our hotel partners are interested in supporting all of our themes,”she said. “Our partnership with Courtyard extends [beyond this academy] because there is a finance office and an IT office and all of these are critical to how a hotel works.”
One of NAF’s biggest objectives is to increase relationships with corporate partners. These relationships, said Devery, form two ways: organically at the local level or through national partners like Courtyard by Marriott. Currently, about 40% of NAF students are able to do paid internships. “Our goal is for 100%,” said Devery. “We need more partners to help us do that. But it’s not just internships—there’s a whole range of ways people can connect, whether it’s being a speaker in the classroom to being on the local board. We really want to take this message more broadly and get more folks engaged.”