BBF Participants Highlighted during NCBCE All-Member Luncheon

<<< Back to June 2024 Newsletter

Earlier this month, BBF participants from Durham-based Latino Educational Achievement Partnership (LEAP) joined us at the Governor’s Mansion for the annual North Carolina Business Committee for Education (NCBCE) luncheon. The event, honoring NCBCE’s business members, was an opportunity for attendees to hear from participants of several of the organization’s workforce initiatives.

During the luncheon, NCBCE’s Executive Director, Caroline Sullivan, interviewed participants from five NCBCE initiatives, including Building Bright Futures, Southeastern Education and Economic Development (SEED), Tech Team, Ready, Set, App!, and the Governor’s Educator Discovery Award. Students, educators, and business leaders from each initiative told attendees about the impact the initiative has had on them in terms of resources, educational support, and career readiness.

Ashley Bojoy, Apprentice and Teacher at LEAP, spoke about her experience as an apprentice, how she balances work and school, and expressed her passion for working with young children. She is currently working toward an Associate degree in early childhood education and works at LEAP as an English lead teacher in a bilingual PreK classroom.


Megan McCurley, Executive Director of LEAP, shared how ECE apprenticeships and participating with BBF have benefitted from her program. She stated, “The apprenticeship program has had a huge impact for LEAP. It gave us a path to be able to support our staff to gain valuable training and to obtain credentials that not only support their professional growth, but also improve the overall quality of our program. As a school that must hire bilingual educators for our dual language model to work and to serve our primarily Spanish speaking community well, we have a much more limited pool of educators to recruit from in a field that is struggling to recruit qualified educators. Programs like BBF are helping us elevate the field and really showcase the skills, professionalism, and leadership potential in our educators, and I believe will help us to advocate for the funding and resources we need to provide educators with the compensation they deserve.”

Governor Roy Cooper stopped by to meet with guests and spoke to attendees about NCBCE’s pivotal role in connecting businesses, educators, and students to continue building a strong workforce in North Carolina. He urged business leaders to engage with the public school systems across the state and work alongside NCBCE to link today’s talent with the jobs of tomorrow.

NCBCE is an education and workforce non-profit organization housed in the Office of the Governor whose membership is comprised of businesses from across North Carolina. For more than 40 years, NCBCE has been enabling employers to grow and support their future talent and foster meaningful connections with their communities. To learn more about NCBCE or to become a member of NCBCE, click here.