WIOA State Plan Common Elements

Wisconsin’s career pathways provide opportunities for entry and exit at multiple points along the paths to ensure that students credentials are portable and transferable. Title II programs are aligned within these pathways and include secondary completion and adult education transitioning directly to postsecondary coursework (concurrently in early courses) and, in many cases, resulting in postsecondary credential attainment. The Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) offers industry recognized certificates through direct business and industry services as well as through long- and short-term educational program. Every state-approved pathway certificate or technical diploma is based on industry needs with direct industry support. Where applicable, students will earn industry recognized certificates simultaneously with their educational degrees. Short-term technical diplomas are often built to ladder into longer term technical diplomas or associate degrees with advanced job outcomes.

The career pathway development process includes the collection, analysis, and synthesis of district employer feedback via focus groups or surveys and rigorous labor market analysis of occupational projections through secondary labor market data. Regional employers assist in the design of the curriculum within each career pathway. This important alignment step ensures that the curriculum is designed to provide students experience with occupation specific technology and build knowledge, skills, and abilities that are vital for employability upon graduation. Once a career pathway is fully implemented, employers engage in the program modification process via program advisory committees and program reviews to verify pathway relevancy in relation to the pace of change in the workplace and industry. Collectively, these activities ensure that Title II and other WIOA partners are responsive to local workforce needs.

The Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) has been a leader in the career pathways framework statewide. Across the WTCS, colleges have implemented multiple entry and exit points within postsecondary pathways resulting in the creation of hundreds of credentials. Wisconsin employers play a vital role in the development of WTCS career pathways. Before formal approval from the WTCS Office, each credential within a career pathway is fully vetted through a labor market needs assessment and concept investigation. The career pathway development process includes the collection, analysis, and synthesis of employer feedback via focus groups or surveys and rigorous labor market analysis of occupational projections through secondary labor market data. WTCS colleges also collaborate with district employers to design the curriculum within each career pathway. This important alignment step ensures that the curriculum is designed to provide students experience with occupation specific technology and build knowledge, skills, and abilities that are vital for employability upon graduation. Once a career pathway is fully implemented at a WTCS college, employers engage in the program modification process via program advisory committees and program reviews to verify pathway relevancy in relation to the pace of change in the workplace and industry. Collectively, these activities ensure that WTCS career pathways are responsive to local workforce needs.

The Title II program scales Integrated Education and Training to improve participant access to postsecondary credentials within the pathway framework. Further, the Title II program prioritizes Integrated Education and Training to support addressing equity gaps and enhancing economic mobility. As previously described, the Title II program supports equitable access and success in Integrated Education and Training in multiple ways that include: coordinating equity- focused professional development for Title II providers, establishing the expectation among Title II providers that Integrated Education and Training is prioritized for Wisconsin’s most vulnerable communities and aligned with workforce needs, is actively monitored to identify promising models or areas of refinement and is supported through fiscal levers.

Improving Access

WTCS utilizes Title II providers, in collaboration with other WIOA partners (such as Title I) and employers, to increase use of these short-term, stackable credentials. Examples of these opportunities include increased scaling and use of Integrated Education and Training (IET), and the submission to the Department of Education of a recognized Ability to Benefit State Plan in 2022 which allows Title IV funding for eligible adult learners, so that eligible Title II participants may simultaneously complete a high school equivalency credential while enrolling in occupational training. In addition to Title II federal funds, the WTCS Board awards funds to support the development and expansion of Integrated Education and Training. These additional funds are available as of fiscal year 2023 and 2024 through the Integrated Education and Training Development and Expansion grant category. Additionally, Title II leadership created an Integrated Education and Training Community of Practice.  The goal of this community of practice was to help providers who were not currently offering an IET start to develop one and to improve IETs by providers who were currently offering them by best practice sharing. WTCS will continue to work with Title II providers to scale IET programming throughout the state utilizing professional development and the IET Community of Practice.

DVR Assistance for Training

The state vocational rehabilitation program has developed several strategies and programs that have improved access to recognized postsecondary credentials. The Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development Division of Vocational Rehabilitation (DVR) implemented the Career Pathways Advancement Grant. The Career Pathways Advancement grant allows DVR to create resources and opportunities to support consumers to advance in a career in one of four fields: Healthcare, Digital/Information Technology, Construction, and Manufacturing. DVR has issued helpful guidance and training to support staff to explore postsecondary education programs with customers. DVR has also established a funding procedure in partnership directly with in-state postsecondary financial aid offices to process DVR financial assistance for training that considers financial aid in the calculations as a comparable benefit. Customers can receive DVR financial assistance for up to $6,000 per year to assist with costs of postsecondary education tuition. Customers who are enrolled in the Career Pathways Advancement grant may be eligible to receive additional training funds.  DVR also makes referrals to technical college Career Pathways programs and to adult and youth apprenticeship programs and coordinates services with the DET for those participating consumers.

Healthcare Postsecondary Credentials

Through participation in the Governor’s Council on Workforce Investment, DHS and FSET have placed increased emphasis on providing opportunities in the healthcare industry and related postsecondary credentials. Specifically, Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA) and personal care worker positions that have high vacancy levels, and an increasing need with an aging population. DHS continues to emphasize the importance of providing these training services and employment opportunities within FSET.

Registered Apprenticeship

The Wisconsin Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards (BAS), with assistance from U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)-administered grants, continues to expand Registered Apprenticeship (RA) programs into in-demand sectors such as financial services, information technology, healthcare and advanced manufacturing. In recent years, BAS has overseen the creation of new occupation pathways such as diesel technician, supply chain specialist, yacht service technician, lab animal care technician, medical lab technician, caregiver, and human resources specialist. This expansion will continue, with plans to add six new pathways in the healthcare, transportation, and service industries among many others.

The Wisconsin Technical College System (WTCS) ensures rigorous and relevant classroom related instruction to support on-the-job learning in registered apprenticeship, providing related instruction for the majority of apprenticeship programs in Wisconsin. WTCS ensures colleges have the funds and resources required to deliver apprenticeship instruction in the areas industry needs it most. College instructors engage along-side subject matter experts with BAS to develop course curriculum in existing and emerging fields. WTCS supports ongoing curriculum development to ensure industry relevancy and engages students and industries in local communities. With more than 40 active instructional programs, WTCS had over 8,400 enrolled apprentices in the 2022-23 school year, keeping completers on the path to higher wages and success. As BAS grows registered apprenticeship in Wisconsin, WTCS colleges continue to partner to provide apprentices with related instruction and additional opportunities, including applying completed apprenticeship credentials towards earning an associate degree.

BAS has forged new partnerships with burgeoning industries while building on its existing relationships, such as with the technical college system. BAS plans to wield this model and keep growing the footprint of registered apprenticeship in the state with the promise of middle-class wages to even more sectors. As the recent recipient of another DOL grant, BAS will target the transportation sector, which has exhibited high growth in the state and is forecasted to maintain such growth.

Coupled with the strategy of the expansion of Registered Apprenticeship occupations in Wisconsin, BAS will make a concerted effort to promote the benefits of WIOA to its program sponsors and participants with the aim of enlisting such sponsors to the ETPL through an education and outreach campaign. Greater accessibility to critical WIOA resources for apprentices and pre-apprentices can only work to make registered apprenticeships and pre- apprenticeships more accessible meanwhile increasing the likelihood that apprentices and pre-apprentices that embark on such career pathways are able to successfully pursue them.

In addition, BAS is working to expand the number of Certified Pre-Apprenticeship programs in the state—especially those that feed into high-demand Registered Apprenticeship programs, such as in construction and manufacturing—and certify and create new pre-apprenticeship programs that serve the needs of industry. Not only do these pre-apprenticeship programs provide pools of qualified applicants for sponsors of registered apprenticeship programs, but they also help to bring such opportunities to populations generally underrepresented in registered apprenticeship, such as minorities, women, and ex-offenders. Wisconsin recently received $5,000,000 in Congressionally directed funding to create innovate career pathways in educational sectors to attract and retain more diverse talent and increase affordable access to child care by expanding and enhancing early childhood education apprenticeship programming. Through a partnership between DWD and DCF, a portion of this funding will be used to deliver curriculum for new individuals enrolled in an early childhood educator Certified Pre-Apprenticeship program and to incentivize the successful bridging of youth apprentices to registered apprentices in early care education by reimbursing youth apprenticeship consortia for each successful bridge placement.

Aside from Certified Pre-Apprenticeship programs, Wisconsin's Youth Apprenticeship (YA) program may serve as an introduction to Registered Apprenticeship (RA). BAS is amidst an ongoing effort to bridge the competencies learned in Youth Apprenticeship programs to their corresponding Registered Apprenticeship program and help employers understand the similarities and differences. Through the bridge program, crosswalks are created to assist the youth apprentices in obtaining work and educational credit toward a Registered Apprenticeship program, if they choose to remain in the trade after high school. Moving forward, BAS hopes to bridge additional programs to create a more stable long-term career pathway for both students and employers in each industry, including in the health, information technology, finance, and transportation sectors.

Upon successful completion of a Wisconsin Registered Apprenticeship, all participants receive a Completion Certificate as well as a Journeyworker card that is portable across the United States and its territories. This Journeyworker credential is for the life of the registered apprenticeship completer. Some registered apprenticeship occupations allow the apprentice to receive 39 college credits towards a Journeyworkers associate degree upon completion; creating a stackable credential. Historically, this pathway has been used by those seeking to have an additional credential as a way of moving up within their respective field. Wisconsin Apprenticeship is seeking to make this pathway a more common pathway for registered apprentice participants by partnering with WTCS to embed the Technical Diploma and/or associate degree classes into the registered apprenticeship related instruction curriculum. DWD and the University of Wisconsin-Stout (UW-Stout) are partnering on a first-of-its-kind program in Wisconsin to combine instruction at a four-year college with a Registered Apprenticeship program. The new Workforce Development Specialist Certificate program, also known as the Train the Trainer apprenticeship, started this fall to teach students about employment and training solutions that meet the needs of businesses and workers. UW-Stout is the first four-year university collaborating with Wisconsin Apprenticeship since apprenticeship began in 1911 to offer classes that fulfill instruction requirements for a Registered Apprenticeship and could be credited toward an undergraduate or graduate degree program. The three-class online program teaches students ways to design, develop, implement, and evaluate training and development solutions.

Participants in Youth Apprenticeship and Certified Pre-Apprenticeship also receive respected credentials in the Wisconsin Apprenticeship system. These credentials signify the participation and allow the participant to receive advanced standing credit towards their Registered Apprenticeship; this credit can shorten the apprentices respective registered apprenticeship program as well as allow the apprentice to start at a higher wage scale.

DWD's Office for Veterans Employment Services management and local DVOPs/LVERs are working closely with DWD's Bureau of Apprenticeship Standards and the Wisconsin Department of Veteran Affairs to implement new strategies and efforts to increase the numbers of veterans in apprenticeship. There are veterans who want this option, but do not understand how to navigate this program effectively. Additionally, DVOPS work closely with veterans and with DVA to ensure they access any training opportunities available to them, including GI benefits and WIOA core programs.

In November 2023, an unprecedented 17 employers participated in the Vets Ready Employer Initiative or the year. The initiative encourages employers to build a support system within their workplace, hire and retain more veterans, and connect to veterans in the community and their families. DWD's Office of Veteran Employment Services reviews annual nominations and recognizes businesses that meet certain criteria with either a gold or silver certification in one of three categories: small, medium, and large. Award program partners include the Wisconsin Department of Veterans Affairs, Wisconsin Department of Disabled American Veterans, and the Wisconsin Veterans Chamber of Commerce.

Wisconsin Fast Forward Technical Education Grants

Wisconsin Fast Forward Technical Education Equipment Grants offers the opportunity for Wisconsin school districts to apply for funding for the acquisitions of equipment that is used in advanced manufacturing fields in the workplace, together with the software necessary for the operation of that equipment, and any instructional material necessary to train pupils in the operation of the equipment. The purpose of the grant is to train high school students in advanced manufacturing fields to help address Wisconsin's skilled worker shortage. The grant is intended to accelerate the transition of students into the workforce by preparing them for careers and to provide students and their families the means to reduce higher education costs by providing dual enrollment credits, industry-endorsed certificates, and technical endorsements on high school diplomas.