Toyota Mississippi Invests $2M in New 4T Academy for New Albany and Union County Schools
Nov 1, 2023 - Blue Springs, MS
by: Addie Davis, Daily Journal
Toyota Mississippi is giving $1.9 million to create a “4T Academy” at the New Albany School District’s new Center for Innovation, the company announced Wednesday, Nov. 1, at a press event and Workforce Readiness Forum.
The $1.9 million is match-funding for a grant that the Appalachian Regional Commission awarded to the NASD and the 4T Academy. Toyota Mississippi is also gifting $100,000 to the NASD to aid the district in transitioning its current School of Career and Technical Education into the aforementioned new Center for Innovation.
The 4T Academy will be a “hands-on training program designed to place students directly into Toyota production jobs right out of high school,” a Toyota Mississippi press release reads.
The 4T program was started in Indiana, before expanding to Toyota West Virginia and now to Toyota Mississippi and other Toyota manufacturing facilities in the U.S.
Junior and senior students at New Albany and Union County schools will be eligible for the 4T Academy. Students in the two-year program will learn and train in a mock factory environment, and the facilities will include classroom spaces, electric and pneumatic tool training stations, a simulated vehicle production line, virtual reality simulators, collaborative robots (known as “cobots”) and more.
Students in the program will be trained to enter any of Toyota Mississippi’s production team member jobs, the new Toyota Mississippi plant president Erik Skaggs told the Daily Journal.
At Wednesday’s Workforce Readiness Forum at the Toyota Mississippi Experience Center, Skaggs and Mississippi Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann spoke. Their remarks were followed by a panel discussion featuring Skaggs; state Sen. Nicole Akins Boyd; state Sen. Hob Bryan; NASD Superintendent Lance Evans; Garrett McInnis, the deputy director of external affairs for AccelerateMS; state Sen. David Parker; Pete Smith, a lobbyist and public relations specialist for Capitol Resources; and state Rep. Rickey Thompson.
David Rumbarger, president and CEO of the Community Development Foundation of Tupelo, moderated the panel.
Evans said he looked forward to the program facilitating gainful employment and high quality of life for his students after they graduate. While other 4T programs enroll about 20 students per cohort, Toyota Mississippi’s program will enroll about 45 students per cohort, Evans said.
Creating the 4T Academy is part of Toyota Mississippi “building on the foundation and partnerships we have … to further strengthen our workforce,” Skaggs told the Daily Journal. “And one opportunity we saw was to introduce high-school age students not only to STEM topics but actual advanced manufacturing careers and equipping them with the skills and knowledge to enter those careers,” he said.
“STEM” is an acronym for “science, technology, engineering and math.”
During the panel discussion, Boyd spoke on how the nature of manufacturing has changed, and how manufacturing jobs have changed because of that.
“No longer do we have traditional, big, industrial plants,” she said. “What we have now are centers of technology.” She said that, for parents who may be hesitant to encourage their children to pursue manufacturing careers, that distinction needs to be demonstrated.
Toyota Mississippi has plans to expand the 4T Academy program to other local school districts, Skaggs told the Daily Journal. New Albany’s 4T will be the pilot program.
Referring to New Albany High School’s (and Gulfport High School’s) integration of technology in the classroom, CTE opportunities, and STEM focus, McInnis said during the panel discussion that “what we need to do is lift these high performers up and make sure the rest of the state as a whole understands their models.”
Tiffannie Hedin, Toyota Mississippi’s manager of corporate communications, said in her closing remarks at the Workforce Readiness Event, “Toyota’s commitment is strong in this program.”