Summit Academy welcomes prospective students and touts new programs

Summit Academy OIC held its second annual open house on April 25, welcoming dozens of potential students to explore their programs. Individuals interested in attending Summit took part in information sessions related to careers in construction, cybersecurity, and food manufacturing. 

Summit Academy is an accredited nonprofit career and technical education institute that combines academic knowledge and occupational skills to prepare students for careers in a range of industries, predominantly in the trades.

According to Sharon Shelton, the manager of recruitment at Summit, there are five cohorts a year at Summit, bringing in a yearly attendance of roughly 1000 students. Typically, the school would hold five different open houses for its different programs, but it began holding these larger open house events just last year. 

Students at Summit come from all walks of life and choose the school for a whole host of reasons. 

“We do have people that want to switch their career, or their current career isn’t working for them, or their current degree isn’t working for them,” Shelton said. “We’ve had people come through our program that already have a bachelor’s degree, associate degree, and in some cases even a master’s degree.

Many people come through their doors after hearing about the various programs through word-of-mouth from a friend or family member. 

“Usually, they say because they’ve heard great things about it, or they know someone personally who’s gone through the program and is doing very well. And that they’re, they want to change so we welcome them,” she said. 

Shelton described the passion that Summit’s staff have for their students and that they were their number one priority as an institution. 

They call us their home away from home and in some cases we are home for the day,” she said. “We have students that have come through here that are homeless and so during the day we are it.”

Located in North Minneapolis, just off Olson Memorial Highway, Summit Academy works with students through their 20 weeks of training and prepares them for their careers through resume writing, job fairs, and mock interviews. 

The tuition is 100% covered for Summit students due to donor and foundation funding, but they also receive resources through state contracts as well. 

Summit also offers pathways for students to obtain their GED and a six-week food manufacturing program. 

Chief Operating Officer Hope Patterson led an information session on the school’s new financial services program during the open house. 

As their latest initiative, Summit kicked off their financial services program in late March, and plans to support their students in financially oriented career paths such as mortgage lending and accounting. 

Patterson shared that there is a desire to see more Black and Brown people in the financial sector given the large financial disparities impacting minority communities. By having more representation in these crucial roles, Patterson believes more people will become receptive to becoming financially literate and engage with personnel. 

“We need more people in these roles,” she said. “They’ll leave here with an industry recognized credential which is stackable. Once they get inside of the organization of their choice

I’m sure they’re going to send them to school work-based learning where they can continue to stack those industry-recognized credentials.”

Like many of the other accredited training programs at Summit, the financial services path also takes students 20 weeks to complete. Since the current cohort is the school’s pilot group, administrators plan to take everything they’ve learned through that experience and incorporate it into the next group.

Students who graduate from the financial services program are expected to have an average starting wage of $23.50 an hour and could go into roles such as an insurance broker, mortgage loan officer, accountant, and more. 

Chiquita Gary, director of education and training at Summit Academy, stated that carpentry, electrician, and their IT technical support program are among their most popular accredited programs. 

The school has built relationships with several companies across the state that actively recruit their students, often before they even graduate. 

“This time of the year is really booming for our carpentry and electricians. Some of them are walking out of here early with jobs,” Gary explained. “We do have what we call on-the-job training. If students do get jobs within the last few weeks of their training, we will substitute that job training, that on-the-job training, with their classroom credit work.”

Summit has also established partnerships with Kowalski’s and General Mills to help place their students in the food manufacturing program with jobs as soon as they graduate from the program. 

There are roughly 20 students in a cohort, but the two most popular programs in carpentry and electrician hold roughly up to 40 students. 

Summit is currently taking applications for its next group of cohorts. Individuals interested in attending the school can also attend their weekly information session every Wednesday at 10 a.m.