Norwalk-La Mirada school district earns prestigious Golden Bell Award
The Norwalk Education Alliance helped earn the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District a Golden Bell Award.
NORWALK – The Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District announced today that it has won a prestigious 2017 Golden Bell Award for the Norwalk Education Alliance, a career and college readiness initiative to enhance local economic development.
Conceived in 2015, the Alliance is a multi-agency effort to provide a formal and sustained joint commitment to guide residents of all ages into greater futures via higher education, career technical training and entrepreneurship.
The Alliance’s various accomplishments, through resources provided by NLMUSD, have included creating a list of “soft skill” standards for young jobseekers, conducting mock job interviews for hundreds of high schoolers and holding a career expo for area residents.
“It’s a great honor for our district to earn this Golden Bell Award,” said NLMUSD Board of Education President Sean M. Reagan. “As a partnership, the Norwalk Education Alliance has done wonderful work on behalf of education and the community.”
In addition to NLMUSD and the City of Norwalk, the Alliance partners are the Norwalk Chamber of Commerce, Cerritos College, Little Lake City School District, Santa Fe High School, Southeast Los Angeles County Workforce Investment Board and the Long Beach Small Business Development Center.
Golden Bell Awards are sponsored by the California School Boards Association to promote excellence in public education and school board governance by recognizing outstanding programs and governance practices of school boards in school districts.
Awards are given out for a variety of categories. The rigorous judging process includes site validation visits. The NLMUSD, along with all other Golden Bell winners, will be formally recognized by the CSBA at an evening ceremony Nov. 30 in San Diego.
The NLMUSD entry for the Alliance was submitted in the program category of Community Schools Through Partnerships and Collaboration.
“We care very much about the academic and economic success of our community and our Alliance is proof of that,” said district Superintendent Dr. Hasmik Danielian. “It has been a great group effort and we are happy to share this award with all of our partners.”
Joanne Jung, director of NLMUSD’s College and Career Pathways program, believes that educating and preparing the next generation’s workforce should always be a shared responsibility.
“It has been an amazing experience working with our partners,” she said about the Alliance. “Together, our civic leaders, local businesses, surrounding school systems and community organizations, are all contributing to a better future.”
For more information about the Alliance and its purpose, visit the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District’s special webpage.
The webpage has a City of Norwalk “Now You Know” video about the Alliance program in 2016. To see it directly on YouTube, click here. There is also a city video about the program for this year, click here.