This session is delivered by the associate superintendent of Greenville County Schools, Jeff McCoy, and this session will address how Greenville County Schools seamlessly integrates career education into its graduation initiatives. Greenville County Schools adopts a collaborative approach to enable industry partnerships to close the skills and talent gap and prepare students for more than just high school graduation. We will explore strategies for engaging professionals within the school district’s broader community to deliver asynchronous work-based learning, opportunities, and mentor-mentee programming with the end goal of leveraging real-world representation to confront CTE misconceptions and boost participation in the student population. Attendees will come away from the presentation with practical strategies for creating inter-mutual relationships between school districts and local industry professionals.