Washtenaw ISD Expands Career Technical Education and Secures $25 Million in Funding

Case Study
Washtenaw Intermediate School District

Washtenaw Intermediate School District partnered with Hanover Research to expand CTE and career readiness, reduce access barriers, and generate new funding.

Serving nine K-12 districts in Washtenaw County, Michigan, Washtenaw Intermediate School District (WISD) established a strategic priority to increase career and technical education (CTE) opportunities for the region’s 46,000 students.

WISD needed a systematic way to analyze career-connected programming, identify gaps and barriers, and align programs with regional workforce needs.

To guide this work, WISD’s leaders partnered with Hanover Research on a comprehensive research initiative to gain the data insights they needed to understand the CTE needs of students, families, and businesses leading up to a community summit. Following this event, WISD’s local districts decided to pursue dedicated funding to expand CTE access, and WISD was ultimately successful in passing a new $25 million county millage.

The Challenge: Expand CTE Programs, Access, and Funding

Despite a strong community desire for applied and experiential learning, WISD faced significant challenges in ensuring equitable access to CTE programs across its districts and schools, including:

Logistical and Transportation Barriers: Many schools couldn’t offer reliable transportation for students to attend specialized programs offered at other campuses.

Scheduling Conflicts: Rigid school schedules made it difficult for students to fit off-campus or extended CTE blocks into their day.

Funding Limitations: Districts and schools were pulling more than $10 million from their general funds to keep current programs running, which was not a sustainable way to cover the costs of instructors, equipment, and certification exams.

“Local student demand for CTE is rising, yet Washtenaw students had less access than other students statewide. To address barriers and increase equitable access, we needed a trusted research partner like Hanover to use data to help us re-envision how to build a robust talent pipeline to in-demand careers.”
— Ryan Rowe, CTE Director and Career Education Planning District Administrator

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The Solution: Analyze and Integrate Data to Develop a Singular CTE Strategic Roadmap

To tackle these complex and longstanding challenges, Hanover Research conducted a series of projects tailored to WISD’s specific needs that encompassed defining applied learning, capturing community perceptions and needs, comparing current offerings against the labor market, and evaluating peer organizational structures.

Hanover’s comprehensive research and recommendations provided WISD with a clear, actionable roadmap for improvement:

Local and National Benchmarks: An examination of other CTE department structures, staffing patterns, program areas, and learning models led Washtenaw to understand it lacked common state CTE programs such as public safety and mechatronics.
Applied and Experiential Learning Survey Findings: Over 4,000 community members shared their perceptions about CTE and applied learning. While 63–75% held positive views of these topics, only about 58% were satisfied with the current level of programming. Funding, transportation, and scheduling emerged as top barriers to participation.
Focus Group Feedback: Six focus groups with 61 participants representing students, parents, and business leaders provided detailed qualitative feedback, with common themes emerging, such as a need for earlier exposure to CTE to combat awareness issues.
Labor Market Analysis and CTE Gap Analysis: These studies mapped local CTE offerings against regional high-demand, high-wage occupations. One conclusion that emerged was that health science was a career cluster that was both high-growth and high-demand across all analyzed geographies.

The Outcome: Transform CTE Programs and Cultivate Sustainable Funding

From the deep insights and recommendations of Hanover’s mixed-methods research, WISD was able to build a coherent CTE consolidation plan, a public communications strategy, a countywide millage campaign, and a more consistent approach to state grants.

Together, these elements provided a rich rationale for redesigning programming and staffing, expanding program access, and generating support for new sources of funding.

CTE Program Expansion: Based on community sentiment and workforce needs, Hanover recommended expanding health science pathways and exploring new programs in advanced manufacturing, public safety, and mechatronics.

Strategic Messaging: Needing to appeal to a broad set of districts and audiences, WISD used Hanover’s findings to shape a public-facing community report and messaging to explain how CTE is linked to student engagement and success, and why funding it is critical.

Community Advocacy and Funding: WISD’s research-based strategies led to the district’s successful pursuit of an additional $7 million in state grants and helped secure voter approval for a countywide CTE millage that’s projected to generate roughly $25 million annually to sustain and expand CTE access.

This funding represents a massive return on investment (ROI) for the Washtenaw community. Research shows that for every $1 invested in secondary and postsecondary CTE, the state economy gains approximately $5.

By leveraging targeted research to optimize programs and secure long-term funding, WISD has ensured that students across their educational journeys will access the skills and experiences they need to thrive in a future workforce and, in turn, strengthen their local economy.

“Our work with Hanover Research enabled us to explore what CTE means for our students in Washtenaw County, the challenges students face in accessing programs, and how we are coming together so every student can benefit from these life-changing learning experiences.”
— Naomi Norman, Superintendent