WorkFuture Academy for Schools & Districts
WorkFuture Academy helps schools and districts build practical career and workforce readiness experiences that prepare students to navigate education, careers, and a changing workplace.
Why WorkFuture Academy
The world students are preparing to enter is changing quickly — how people get hired, how work gets done, what employers expect, and how technology is reshaping jobs.
Schools are already doing important college and career readiness work. WorkFuture adds practical workforce programming that helps students connect what they are learning to what comes next.
The Academy
WorkFuture Academy helps students move from exploration to preparation through structured learning experiences designed around where they are and what comes next.
Explore
Build
Practice
Prepare
Programs
Programs can be delivered as focused student experiences or combined into broader grade-level and district initiatives.
Help students understand careers, industries, education pathways, and how work is changing.
Core Topics
Build the transferable behaviors students need to communicate, collaborate, solve problems, and succeed in workplace environments.
Core Topics
Help students turn their experiences into evidence and prepare to engage with employers, internships, and work-based learning opportunities.
Core Topics
Help students understand how AI and emerging technology are changing tasks, skills, occupations, and workplace expectations.
Core Topics
Student Stages
Career readiness looks different across the student journey. WorkFuture programs can be designed around the decisions, experiences, and capabilities students need at each stage.
Middle School
Grades 6–8
Help students build early awareness, explore interests, and start connecting what they learn in school to future opportunities.
Early High School
Grades 9–10
Support students as they explore careers, industries, and education pathways, and build awareness of workplace expectations.
Upper High School
Grades 11–12
Help students apply their skills, gain real-world experience, and build the evidence and confidence needed for their next step.
Program Design
Every WorkFuture Academy school program is built around clear learning objectives and practical student experiences, while the audience, context, delivery, and outcomes can be tailored to the district.
Every Program Includes
Customized for Each School or District
Designed around the age and stage of the students being served.
Adapted for the specific student group, pathway, or program.
Connected to the school's existing career-readiness work and local priorities.
Adjusted based on session length, schedule, cohort size, and implementation model.
Designed around the student capabilities and experiences the school wants to strengthen.
How a Program Comes Together
Every engagement follows a clear path from understanding the student population and readiness goal through program design, delivery, and measurement.
Define the student population, career-readiness need, existing programming, and desired outcomes.
Determine the specific readiness gap, experience, or capability the program should address.
Build the curriculum, activities, learning objectives, and delivery structure.
Facilitate practical student learning and applied experiences.
Capture participation, learning evidence, feedback, and recommended next steps.
Delivery Formats
From a focused student session to a broader grade-level initiative, WorkFuture Academy can scale the experience to the school's goals.
Focused
60–90 minutes
Target one career-readiness topic, student need, or learning objective.
Best For
Focused student development
Intensive
2–4 hours
Go deeper through instruction, discussion, practice, and application.
Best For
Deeper skill development
Series
Multi-session
Build capability over time through multiple connected learning experiences.
Best For
Sustained student development
Custom
Multi-cohort / multi-school
Build a broader career-readiness initiative around a student population, grade level, or district priority.
Best For
Larger school or district initiatives
What Schools Receive
WorkFuture supports both the student learning experience and the structure schools need around implementation.
Larger Engagements
For multi-session, grade-level, or district-wide programs, WorkFuture can also support program coordination, alignment documentation, cohort tracking, and implementation planning.
WorkFuture Workspace
Manage student groups, schedules, attendance, materials, participation, outcomes, and next steps in one organized place.
For larger programs, WorkFuture Workspace gives schools a clear view of implementation from setup through closeout — without coordinating the engagement across spreadsheets and email threads.
Available for qualifying multi-session, grade-level, cohort, and district engagements.
WorkFuture
Fall 2026 – Career & Workplace Readiness
On track
Session 6 of 10
Attendance
By session91%
808 of 888 student seats attended
Upcoming sessions
View allStudent participation
On trackMaterials
14 filesNext steps
2 of 3 doneIllinois Alignment
WorkFuture programs can be aligned to applicable Illinois PaCE expectations and the Illinois Essential Employability Skills Framework based on the grade level, student population, and program goals.
WorkFuture builds around the district's existing career-readiness work rather than introducing a separate framework.
Illinois PaCE
Explore PaCE-Aligned ProgrammingEssential Employability Skills
Explore Employability Skills ProgrammingBuilt to Complement Your System
WorkFuture works alongside counselors, educators, career-readiness teams, employer partners, and community organizations to fill specific programming and implementation gaps.
The goal is not to replace the school's career-readiness work. It is to strengthen the areas where additional programming, capacity, or workforce expertise can help.
Potential Uses
Build a focused experience for students who need more support at a particular stage.
Add practical instruction and applied practice around communication, teamwork, work ethic, and workplace expectations.
Give students more structured exposure to careers, industries, and pathways.
Help students build the readiness needed before internships, job shadows, or employer experiences.
Bring current workplace change into career-readiness programming.
Deliver a common student experience across multiple schools or cohorts.
Funding Your Program
WorkFuture Academy programs can be purchased directly by schools and districts and may also align with state and federal funding used for career and technical education, career exploration, work-based learning, employability skills, and other workforce-readiness priorities.
Schools and districts can purchase WorkFuture Academy programming directly based on student needs, instructional priorities, and career-readiness goals.
Depending on local plans and allowable uses, WorkFuture Academy programming may align with funding used for career and technical education, employability skills, work-based learning, career exploration, and pathway development.
Explore Illinois PaCE AlignmentEducation for Employment (EFE) systems and other regional partners may also support career and technical education programming across multiple districts.
Funding availability, eligibility, and allowable uses vary by district, grant, program, and local plan. WorkFuture does not guarantee funding eligibility.
READY TO GET STARTED
Start with the student population, readiness priority, and experience you want to create.
