Secure Solar Futures, a solar developer of on-site clean energy for schools, hospitals, and businesses, launched its Solar Education Program Group today. The new group will unify and expand the company’s services to help its solar power customers at K-12 public and independent schools bring rooftop solar into the classroom.
The group will also help community colleges train students for careers as solar power technicians with a path towards full-time employment for qualified graduates. Secure Solar Futures brings a management team that is passionate about supporting this work, with many years of experience in teaching and education at various levels.
Over the last decade, the company has supplemented solar installations at K-12 schools with standards-compliant classroom curricula and instructional materials on clean energy, and teacher training to use these resources. The company also innovated the Throwing Solar Shade® as a project-based learning program for students to participate in citizen science projects developed in partnership with the Science Museum of Virginia.
This year, with Mountain Empire Community College in Wise County, located in the historic coalfield region of Southwest Virginia, Secure Solar Futures piloted the state’s first-ever youth solar apprenticeship program to train solar technicians.
“In the course of developing solar energy at campuses across Virginia, we’ve learned that while schools value the money savings and environmental impact of generating their own clean energy, they also want to create jobs in their communities,” said Tony Smith, president and founder of Secure Solar Futures. “In response to this demand, and in partnership with schools, we developed a unique community-based demand-pull workforce development program to bring clean energy and career training for well-paying clean energy jobs for their students.”
