JAG Insider News

Before the COVID-19 pandemic, JAG hosted camps to provide students fun opportunities to continue their personal and professional growth beyond the classroom. This summer, JAG plans to reopen these exciting camp opportunities while following COVID-19 safety precautions.

Jobs for Arizona’s Graduates Career Development Conference (CDC) held at the Mesa Convention Center on April 26 was the culmination of the students’ year-long professional and leadership development activities in their JAG programs on school campuses and in communities throughout the state. The conference was sponsored by APS, Arizona Coyotes Hockey Club, Honeywell, Integrity Staffing Solutions, and Synchrony Financial.

The ribbon cutting ceremony held on April 20th at the East Valley HUB marked the start to a workforce development program partnership that will benefit youth and Grad Solutions Students in Mesa.

On March 30th, Integrity Staffing sponsored JAG’s annual Interviewing Skills Competition at Phoenix College. Twelve of our Employer Partners attended the event to interview more than 25 JAG participants for current job opportunities and to offer feedback for future success.

Kenneth M. Smith Scholarship Recipients will receive $2,000 to support their postsecondary plans.

A JAG student in her junior and senior years of high school, Anna Tovar has come full circle as she now serves as a national board member for JAG and Corporate Commissioner for the state of Arizona. Tovar brings the lessons she learned from a young age and her time in JAG to working for vulnerable communities across Arizona and ensuring access to a safe and healthy environment for years to come.

We sat down with APS Instructional Designer Vania Pacheco to discover the career possibilities available to our JAG students and alumni, as well as career advice for life after high school.

Each year several JAG programs participate in a JAG tradition known as the Initiation and Installation (I&I) ceremony where JAG students ring in the new school year by electing Career Association officers and showing their families and community their dedication to reaching their highest potential.

On March 23rd, 2022, Tolleson’s JAG Works and Teen Council programs were invited to sit in on a presentation by members of the city council about possible accommodations for a future Aquatics Complex. It was hosted at the Parks & Recreation Center, with a general concept of the Complex posted on the wall. However, city leaders wanted to get the opinions from the youth in the community on what they felt was important to include.

Bryan Cortez, a senior at West Point High School and a JAG participant, has been passionate about cars for as long as he could remember. It wasn’t until JAG and the Career and Technical Education program (CTE) when he began to see how his passion could grow beyond a job and become a career. Reaching this point in his journey, however, wasn’t easy.

Longtime President and CEO of Jobs for Arizona’s Graduates will be retiring after 41 years with the organization. During her tenure she successfully secured more than a million dollars in new financial support, developed new partnerships that expanded programming across the state, and deepened relationships with state and local government, businesses, and education leaders.

The warm, morning sun shined down on the Rose Garden as 100 JAG students from 15 programs across Arizona lined up at a registration table. It wasn’t just any school day for them — it was ‘Faces of JAG’ Legislative Day.

For many JAG participants, their JAG Coordinator and Central Office Staff team may be the few trusted adults in their lives. Trauma-informed care plays a key role in the success of these relationships.

West Point High School’s JAG Vice President Hazel Raymond had a vision for what the first annual Black History Month event for her school would look like, and she was ready to make it a reality.

By his own account, Erick has received plenty of support in the program. He attributes his success to his coordinator, Holly Gorman, who also supported both his brother and sister through JAG.

Art school was all Hazel Raymond had known before enrolling in public school as a freshman at West Point High School. She knew she had wanted to be an artist, but now she was faced with uncertainty about how a traditional education could help her continue on that path.

Once a year, the JAG students at Coronado High School pack up their winter clothes and head up north for a weeklong Leadership Camp at Tonto Creek. The purpose of the camp is to bring participants together for team building, leadership workshops, bonding, and exploring outside of their comfort zone.

The Interviewing Skills Competition is a preliminary event for the annual Career Development Conference (CDC) where employer partners participate as judges as students compete for real-world positions.

The members begin February 2022 and will work on a variety of capacity-building projects throughout their service year.

The YWCA Metropolitan Phoenix announces the 2022 Tribute to Leadership award honorees and nominees.