How do CEOs learn about workforce issues? They go back to high school.

This story first appeared on NEXTPittsburgh, which publishes Kidsburgh.

Yesterday, dozens of Pittsburgh CEOs and executives went back to school.

As part of the Allegheny Conference on Community Development‘s new CEO in the Classroom initiative, in partnership with the Grable Foundation, 30 industry leaders spread out across seven schools in the region to shadow students for the day. Their goal? To see what school is really like for local kids and gain insights that can be applied to the conference’s wide portfolio and its community and workforce development initiatives.

Participating schools included Brashear High School, City Charter High School, Butler Senior High School, Duquesne Elementary Center, Elizabeth Forward Middle School, Quaker Valley Middle School and Frazier High School in Fayette County.

“Recognizing that today’s students are the workforce of tomorrow, regional business leaders told us that they’d like to be more engaged with the K-12 education system, but they weren’t sure where or how to start,” said Allegheny Conference CEO Stefani Pashman, who is shadowing a student at Elizabeth Forward Middle School. “CEO in the Classroom is a solid first step toward better engagement with educators to develop solutions to the workforce challenges our region is facing.”

The initiative is based on Standford University’s Shadow a Student Challenge, and builds upon recommendations from the Allegheny Conference’s recent report, Inflection Point: Supply, Demand and the Future of Work in the Pittsburgh Region, which examined the region’s looming workforce shortage.

Read the complete story on NEXTPittsburgh.