Vicki Becker is the Prosecuting Attorney for Elkhart County and served as the founding chair of Horizon Education Alliance’s Impact Committee and a member of the LEAD Elkhart County Steering Team.
Over the past decade, a group of invested community members and data experts has come together to look at data and consider how it can best be used to improve outcomes relating to education and skills training in our community. This group, Horizon Education Alliance’s Impact Committee, holds the belief in data as a starting point to ask questions and engage in dialogue and intelligent discourse.
We all know there are limitations in the ability to use data to answer every question or to tell a complete story – and there are significant risks when it is misunderstood or manipulated for specific agendas. However, we maintain the belief that data has an extremely high value in informing our collective work as a community towards finding solutions that can provide opportunities for a higher quality of life for all of our neighbors.
LEAD Elkhart County is intended to be an entry point to share information about our community that can lead to valuable conversations. We hope it can be a catalyst for engaging in debates, generating ideas, and developing innovations in community programs and services geared towards education across the lifespan. From infancy through adulthood, LEAD Elkhart County can help identify gaps and create opportunities to advance our community’s talent and ensure a well-rounded workforce.
LEAD Elkhart County is a tool and resource to help us discover patterns and trends in our community’s data. Our conversations with each other can help us understand the stories behind these patterns and trends – giving us a better grasp on where we are as a community and where our strengths and challenges lie. While there is no question that Elkhart County is already a great place to live, learn, work, and play, we hope our conversations, informed by data in LEAD Elkhart County, can lead to opportunities to continue to grow.
I encourage you to review the LEAD Elkhart County data and start a conversation!
Photo: Lucille Larson is a future educator apprentice in Concord Community Schools as part of CareerWise Elkhart County Youth Apprenticeship. (Photo courtesy of Photography by Kelly and Justin)
