The Big Blur and the South Denver Regional Talent Ecosystem

Background

The Big Blur argues for erasing the arbitrary dividing line between high school, college, and careers to open the opportunity by no later than 11th grade for all students to start on a path toward a postsecondary credential and preparation for a career. During “grades 11-14,” all young people should have the opportunity to earn a free career-centered postsecondary credential that is co-designed with employers for the labor market.

Learners should not have to choose between earning and learning because both should be available simultaneously. Blurring takes the best of everything that works, including work-based learning, guided pathways, dual enrollment, and navigational supports, and uses them to create a new normal for seamless education-to-career progression and experiences. Even though we use the term Blur, the outcome is a reimagined education-to-career system that provides learners with a clear understanding of how to reach their goals and attain quality jobs and the skills and knowledge needed for continuous learning and career and economic advancement.

Call to Action

We must create new models, the conditions necessary to scale them, and ultimately a system that erases the arbitrary silos that currently exist between the K-12, postsecondary, and workforce systems. It is time to pave new paths that eschew rutted routes and immovable tracks for new trails. We must marshal the best of these models to inform and support systems-level changes creating the conditions to Blur at scale rather than continuing to seed pilots embodying elements of the Blur.

Getting Clear on the Road to Blurring

One strategy to move from models to systems change is partnering with a promising model that has blurred the lines between K-12, postsecondary, and workforce for a subset of learners in a region. Pilots nationwide show some aspects of Blurring, but few have demonstrated an ability to implement and to sustain key themes of The Blur like Sturm Collaboration Campus (SCC). The Campus is a partnership between Arapahoe Community College (ACC), the Douglas County School District (DCSD), the Castle Rock Economic Development Council (EDC), the local workforce system (A/D Works), and Colorado State University (CSU).

We explore this model in greater detail, including the mindsets necessary to move from coordination (where learners move along a pathway between distinct systems) to integration (putting more shared accountability and incentives in place to serve learners) to true transformation with a single, fully integrated system with new governance, funding, and staffing models. We hope understanding the path to achieving these systems changes and mindset shifts will assist other communities considering their own version of the Blur.

What It Looks Like

At Arapahoe Community College’s Sturm Collaboration Campus, students can earn associate’s and bachelor’s degrees through a partnership with Colorado State University. Cross-sector collaboration between leaders from K-12, postsecondary, and workforce is a hallmark of this program. They are committed to moving beyond integration and coordination between systems to true collaboration to create seamless experiences for learners. The campus co-locates the full spectrum of the talent development ecosystem—including K-12, community college, bachelor’s degree programs, wraparound supports, a small business development center, and local industry—in one physical location. Opened in 2019, the Campus serves around 1,000 students per semester.

How Does This Campus Reflect Core Ideas of The Blur?

• K-12, postsecondary (both two- and four-year) and the local workforce development and small business development centers are located in the same building. Students have full access to the resources of both of these centers.

• The Sturm Collaboration Campus was initiated by a postsecondary institution (ACC) as the linchpin of the collaboration, but all partners share accountability for learner outcomes, the economic advancement of their learners, and the economic health of the region.

• One-stop-shop career navigators support all learners and work across systems. The navigators stay with the student from application to graduation and assist with all student services (as opposed to directing them to additional offices/people).

• Staff members, including industry professionals, teach both K-12 and postsecondary classes.

• Student-centered scheduling with aligned bell schedules across the district allows students maximum flexibility to earn and learn simultaneously.

• The Sturm Collaboration Campus is located near a Douglas County high school as well as a hospital that provides paid work-based learning experiences, including apprenticeships in health care, business, and technology.

• Dual enrollment programs lead to a bachelor’s degree in either technology or business through Colorado State University.

• High school students who have completed concurrent enrollment offerings at their home campus can take up to six credits per semester (equivalent of a half-time postsecondary student) at no cost to them at the Sturm Collaboration Campus.

• Access is available to specialized and state-of-the-art cybersecurity and secure software server and programs as well as access to state-of-the-art technology, including hyflex technology to allow for hybrid learning and “huddle rooms” with video technology. 

History and Evolution of the Sturm Collaboration Campus

In 2015, community leaders articulated the need for a higher education hub between Denver and Colorado Springs that could attract more primary employers and families to the region. According to Frank Gray, President and CEO of the Castle Rock Economic Development Council, it is one of the fastest-growing regions in the United States^[1]. The community leaders who conceived the Sturm Collaboration Campus came together with a common goal: to better support the needs of learners navigating across systems and the talent needs of industry. The leaders shared a core belief that all students should have access to a high-quality education that leads to a good job and opportunities for economic advancement within the community.

The leaders represented the K-12 school district, local community college, land-grant (four-year) university, workforce system, and regional economic development (including industry). The question they grappled and continued to grapple with is:

How might we shift the burden of navigating the system from the learner to systems and institutions to support opportunities to attain in-demand credentials and degrees with clear on- and off-ramps into adulthood that lead to quality jobs and economic and social mobility?

As the leaders wrestled with this tough question, they imagined a single place where learners could experience a college environment with access to two- and four-year pathways, paid work-based learning opportunities, a workforce center to assist them in finding jobs, and access to additional supports, such as housing, mental health, and transportation. They put aside their day job affiliations and loyalties and centered the learners to develop a crucial new way of doing business.

With this new common goal and vision in mind, the leaders evaluated the investment required and raised $40 million in resources from the public and private sectors, sought community support and engagement, purchased land, and hired architects and contractors to build the new campus. The biggest single gift came from The Sturm Family Foundation in the form of a $10 million grant slated for technology, innovation, staffing, scholarships, and an investment in an eventual second building.

Now, with an eye toward a sustainable model that relies largely on public funding, the Sturm Collaboration Campus leadership is laying out its vision for a second campus and eventually enough capacity to offer a Blurred learning experience to all students in Douglas County, the third-largest school district in the state. While startup investments and permissible policy conditions are necessary for creating a fully Blurred system, absent these, leaders can still find ways to use existing policy conditions to demonstrate Blurring’s promise.

A Shift In Adult Mindsets Unlocks New Opportunities

Key stakeholders, including leaders from Arapahoe Community College, Douglas County School District, Colorado State University, the regional workforce system (A/D Works), the Castle Rock Economic Development Council, and regional community leaders participated in a series of focus groups and a large in-person meeting in November 2023, co-designed and facilitated by Reach University’s National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree, Arapahoe Community College, and Jobs for the Future (JFF). This deep dive with key past and present Sturm Collaboration Campus leaders revealed one secret to its quick success was how those leaders worked together in fundamentally different ways to identify common goals and the right compromises.

We explored the major conditions necessary for a Blurry innovation to take shape, and we pressed the leaders about their perspectives, lessons learned, and how other communities can learn to make a Blur initiative work in their communities. The participants articulated how the systems, pathways, and partnerships employed shared mindsets to achieve a common goal.

We discovered that at the heart of these changes were shifts in how adults decided to work together differently—they pushed themselves beyond coordination into authentic collaboration. During both the focus groups and the design session, Sturm Collaboration Campus leaders and partners embraced these common “network mindsets” that leaders anywhere who share a common Blurred goal could also adopt:^[2]  

True Collaboration at Work

Each stakeholder group acknowledged it had to decenter its traditional revenue, partnership, staffing models, etc., to make the Sturm Collaboration Campus model work. This fundamentally changed each entity’s traditional institutional policies and practices in the context of the Collaboration Campus: 

• Arapahoe Community College (ACC) provided highly discounted rent to each partner at the Sturm Collaboration Campus and created innovative dual enrollment pathways for Associate’s degrees to fully transfer to Colorado State University by allowing CSU to teach (and realize the revenue) for some second-year courses.

  • ACC’s navigators collaborated closely with DCSD’s new work-based learning coordinators to create more streamlined pre-apprenticeship to apprenticeship pathways from DCSD-ACC.

  • Partners created a streamlined scheduling system to enable cohort models. ACC generated a student demand-driven schedule for the Sturm Collaboration Campus, which contrasted with how it has scheduled for years at the Littleton (main) campus (which is faculty demand centered).

• Douglas County School District agreed to pay for up to six credits for every senior to take courses at the Sturm Collaboration Campus if the student exhausted their in-high school concurrent enrollment. This was a dramatic shift for the district, which had previously not budgeted for students to take courses at the college campus.

  • DCSD also created work-based learning program coordinators who shared employer relationships with the collaborative.

  • DCSD created and opened the DCSD Legacy Campus in 2023, in collaboration with postsecondary and local industry. This is the only high school site in the state located with a community college and at least two universities.

  • DCSD also budgeted for promising teachers to complete master’s degrees through Colorado State University to expand concurrent enrollment options for students.

  • DCSD created a common bell schedule throughout the district to make it more seamless for students to take continuing education courses, which the nine-high school district had never done.

• Colorado State University:

  • Created its first system office location outside of one of its campuses. Its employees represent CSU Fort Collins, CSU Pueblo, and CSU Global. CSU ran initial cohorts small and at a loss as it waited for cohorts and the enrollment pipeline to increase.

  • Created five degree completion programs on site that aligned to partner pathways and regional economic needs within the first three years.

• Workforce System (A/D Works)

  • Created its first permanent location outside its home county (Arapahoe) and relocated staff to operate the Douglas County (Sturm) location.

  • Piloted hyflex technology to stream classes to all locations.

  • Partners closely with ACC staff members to use Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act funding for work-based learning opportunities for students.

  • Share employer partner and contact lists.

• Industry partners

  • Major employer partners such as Lockheed Martin and CommonSpirit Health modified traditional hiring practices to accommodate apprenticeships and work-based learning for Sturm Collaboration Campus students. The Castle Rock Chamber of Commerce co-created the Talent Pipeline Douglas County collaborative to assist medium to smaller employers to engage with Sturm Collaboration Campus students and the campus

The Next Horizon: Vision-Casting About Sturm Collaboration Campus 2.0

Sturm Collaboration Campus leaders are excited about the prospects of a second building and new programming to be added to the site later this decade. They want to push the limits of the Blur and form even deeper collaborations between K-12, postsecondary, and industry.

To accomplish this vision, they want to build off the lessons from Sturm Collaboration Campus 1.0, the Legacy Campus, and lessons from others trying to Blur around the country. These lessons include coordinating schedules and pathways earlier in the process, stacking work-based learning with industry as a collaborative from day one, and sharing positions across institutions (moving beyond collaboration between staff to shared staffing models).

Sturm Collaboration Campus leadership acknowledges that even with all of these committed and proven leaders at the table, they still must tackle challenges in the coming years as the various systems continue learning how to work together even more effectively. Some of the common, systemic challenges to Blurring identified during the November design session were:

• All students do not experience paid work-based learning

• All students do not have access to a Blurred model

• Too few employers are directly involved

• Learners carry the burden of having to navigate the system

• We don’t credential the right experiences (for the learner)

• Traditional system(s) incentivize silos

The ways the Sturm Collaboration Campus leadership acknowledges and seeks to solve these persistent challenges will help inform the field about what it truly takes to transform a system. The current partners have demonstrated they have the will to achieve a Blurrier vision. The work ahead is to better understand what systems changes would accelerate their vision as well as provide incentives for Blurring as a widespread practice that ultimately becomes the norm. Sturm Collaboration Campus leadership hopes the following conditions will be true when the Sturm Collaboration Campus 2.0 launches:

• All students will experience paid work-based learning

• All students will have access to a Blurred model

• Employers are directly engaged and invested

One of the ways the Sturm Collaboration Campus leadership intends to do this is by creating a “SCIF space,” which stands for Secure Compartmented Information Facility on site. Its goal is for this facility to be managed and invested in by industry (particularly Department of Defense contractors). A clear K-12 and postsecondary continuum beginning in the 10th and 11th grades would enable a Sturm Collaboration Campus student to stack credentials, receive paid work-based learning, and graduate into industry with no debt and a valuable security clearance. Every pathway at the Sturm Collaboration Campus will have regional employers investing in work-based learning for all students. This means industry is aligning its talent pipeline strategies to Sturm Collaboration Campus pathways and students, and students not only get paid for job experience but also gain college credit.

Blurring With a Future-Forward Outlook

The Sturm Collaboration Campus leadership team seems optimistic about its ability to keep Blurring the lines, and its hope is to create continuous improvement processes that can inform other efforts around the region and eventually the country about how to build pathways and partnerships that lead to more positive outcomes for students and local economies. The next few years will be crucial as the team builds out Sturm Collaboration Campus 2.0, documents its work (see this video profiling the work and ideation of leaders across the ecosystem), elevates the policy conditions that must change to enable scaling, and continues to shift the responsibility for supporting meaningful education and training opportunities from the learner to the systems. The National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree and JFF will continue to work and collaborate to help bring Blurred visions such as Sturm Collaboration Campus 2.0 and other promising partnerships to fruition across the country.

The authors would like to acknowledge the review of and contributions to this report made by Joel Vargas, Vice President, Education, Jobs for the Future.

^[1] https://www.9news.com/article/life/style/colorado-guide/why-castle-rock-is-one-of-the-fastest-growing-cities-in-the-us/73-577992619

^[2] Modified from Jane Wei-Skillern and Nora Silver, “Four Network Principles for Collaboration Success,” The Foundation Review 5, no. 1: 121–129, https://doi.org/10.4087/FOUNDATIONREVIEW-D-12-00018.1; JFF Linked Learning Hubs of Excellence.

Authors

Libuse Binder, Managing Partner, AMP Consulting Group
Eric Dunker, Chief Innovation Officer, National Center for the Apprenticeship Degree
Kyle Hartung, Associate Vice President, Education, Jobs for the Future