More than 100 business leaders and school personnel attended the annual Alexandria Education Partnership breakfast to honor the city's outstanding business partners.
The Partnership named Michael Anderson of Wagon Work Collision Center its Outstanding Business Partner of the year for his work at the Minnie Howard Ninth Grade Center.
"Mike is serving as a mentor and is able to build on students' interest in automobiles to begin a discussion of the importance of education," said Andrew Blair, the chairman of the Partnership. "He has contributed financially to support monthly mentor lunches at the school and will be opening his shop on Clifford Avenue on Tuesday evenings for local students who live in the Mt. Jefferson or Del Ray area to use the office computers for any work or school projects."
THE OTHER HIGHLIGHT of the breakfast was a discussion of results of the first business partner survey. The survey was commissioned by the public school system in cooperation with the Partnership and was designed to determine the level of satisfaction among the school system's business partners.
"We will be conducting another business survey beginning in June and hope that all of the business partners will participate," said Karen Parker Thompson, the parent involvement coordinator for the public school system. "We hope to use the results of these surveys to improve our program."
One hundred percent of the business partners surveyed intend to continue their partnership with the school system. Ninety-six percent said that they would recommend participation in the partnership program to a business colleague. Seventy-seven percent of those surveyed said that they would either definitely or probably recommend hiring a school system graduate to a business colleague.
The school system did not receive such high marks relating to business partner satisfaction and partnership loyalty.
Only 53 percent of those surveyed were "very satisfied" with their partnership relationship, while 41 percent were "somewhat satisfied."
Businesses were asked to rank the key drivers to their satisfaction or loyalty to the program. Fifty-nine percent said that they were satisfied with the schools' recognition of partner involvement; 37 percent were satisfied with assistance from individual schools with whom they partner and 30 percent were satisfied with the quality of communications about the Partnership program.
Additional drivers that respondents were asked to rank were assistance from ACPS central office, ease of getting questions/problems resolved and the quantity of communications about the Partnership program. Fewer than 45 percent of those surveyed were satisfied with any of these drivers.
WHEN ASKED how they learned about the program, only 20 percent said that they became involved because of outreach either from central office or from an individual school. Twenty-nine percent contacted someone in the school system to volunteer; 26 percent learned of partnership opportunities from a friend or colleague; eight percent participate because their child is enrolled in the public school system and six percent were referred by an ACPS parent.
Scott Broetzmann, president of the Institute for Customer Care, presented the findings and discussed the recommendations for "sustainable business partnerships."
"ACPS has a very loyal existing business partner base but the business partners are less than very satisfied," he said. "Harnessing growth potential of business partners will require more ACPS and business partner resources, not just a reallocation of existing resources. Programs need to be school-based with localized attention to the individual partnerships. Communication is more than brochures..."
Broetzmann also listed some keys to creating advocates.
* Use "grass roots" approach to managing business partner relationships--local schools matter most to partners;
* proactively engage business partners in dialogue about expecting great things;
* develop formal "one to one" marketing approach with the goal of synchronizing business partner resources with ACPS needs;
* develop formal, proactive and coordinated business partner recruiting program.
AEP WAS established in 1996 to act as a critical link between the business community, the city, the community at large and the schools -- to provide community resources and career preparation. The partnership has placed more than 100 tutors in the city's public schools and remains committed to supporting current partnerships and to recruiting new businesses to participate.