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Category: Customer Stories
The School District of Philadelphia to Bring Rubin to All High Schools in 25-26 Academic Year
Starting in fall 2025, The School District of Philadelphia will incorporate Rubin Emerge into career and technical education (CTE) courses across all 31 high schools in the city.
Emerge, the company’s signature curriculum for employability skills, is a broad library of videos, activities and assessments for topics like email/phone etiquette, conversation skills and interview prep.Rubin and The School District of Philadelphia, the largest school system in Pennsylvania, piloted Emerge in the 24-25 academic year within selected classrooms. After positive feedback from the initial group of teachers, the CTE department elected to give Emerge to all CTE teachers. The School District of Philadelphia uses Google Classroom as its learning management system (LMS).
Rubin delivers Emerge, as well as our Aspire career exploration video library, to Google Classroom through a single sign-on connection. In that way, teachers and students don’t use traditional passwords to access the Emerge platform.
The CTE program in Philadelphia provides hands-on instruction in multiple pathways, including health science, agriculture, automotive and digital technology. Emerge topics (ex: How to leave a voicemail) will be incorporated into the various career courses.
“We are privileged to work with The School District of Philadelphia, one of the nation’s largest school systems,” said Danny Rubin, founder of Rubin. “We worked hard to build a relationship with city leadership and prove the merits of our instructional content. Now we have an opportunity to help thousands of students across Philadelphia gain the skills and confidence to pursue new opportunities.”
Rubin Founder Danny Rubin stands with Michella Lora, director of CTE operations for The School District of Philadelphia. The Rubin company will deliver its Emerge employability skills curriculum to all 31 high schools in the 25-26 academic year. Brotherly Love + Rubin = Magic
Rubin Adds 8 New School Partners, Enhances Propel with Scoring System
During the second half of May, Rubin started to work with eight new school districts or tech centers for our employability skills products. The initial users will be advisors of the student group Business Professionals of America (BPA).
The BPA advisors experienced a free sample of Rubin Emerge and Aspire and then decided to purchase the full version for their students in the 25-26 academic year.
The new customers:
1. Vanguard Tech Center in Fremont, Ohio
2. Four County Career Center in Archbold, Ohio
3. West Central Area School District in Barrett, Minnesota
4. Metropolitan District of North Posey County in North Posey, Indiana
5. Moscow School District #281 in Moscow, Idaho
6. Pioneer Technology & Arts Academy in Dallas, Texas
7. Wichita Public Schools in Wichita, Kansas
8. Ovid-Elsie Area Schools in Elsie, Michigan
We look forward to kicking off the relationship in the new school year!
Coming in fall 2025: Scoring system for student emails
Students have written emails for decades, but have they ever received a grade in Gmail for the quality of their emails?
Starting this fall, our Propel email etiquette tool will provide students with a score out of 100 based on their professionalism (see image below).
So when a CTE admin tells you, “Student communication skills are so bad these days,” you can turn around and say, “We have a solution!”
Stat of the week
27.9 points
The nationwide increase in score between Rubin pre- and post-tests for Rubin Emerge units like Email Etiquette-Beginner, Networking Mastery and Job Interview Prep.
The national average pre-test score in Emerge is a 62 (out of 100). The national average post-test score is a 90.
Growth in multiple directions.
At Prince William Schools Workshop, Rubin is Glue between CTE, EL
On April 24 in Prince William County (Northern Virginia), the Rubin team was part of a day-long workshop with CTE teacher leaders to determine ways Rubin employability content can bridge CTE and English Learners curricula.
Prince William County Schools, the second-largest school district in Virginia, wants to make sure non-native English-speaking students can comprehend and excel at important communication skills for college and career.
Rubin is privileged to be the resource that sits at the intersection of English Learners objectives and the needs of the CTE community.
Prince William County Schools CTE teachers develop a lesson plan that combines a Rubin Emerge activity (ex: How to Leave a Voicemail) with the scaffolding necessary to teach the lesson to a non-native English speaking student. Prince William CTE Supervisor Christine Good said it best from her post on LinkedIn:
“Student achievement begins with adult behaviors.
When the adults in the room share a compelling vision and actively engage in critical thinking, collaboration, innovation, digital citizenship, and demonstrating resilience through their work, the conversations are rich and the outcomes are powerful. This dynamic team of teacher leaders is committed to creating the conditions for student success within and beyond the classroom!
The collaboration between the Career and Technical Education (CTE) and the English Learner (EL) Instruction teams is Learning and Achievement for All in action as we prepare all staff members to support and challenge all students.
Imagine what our classrooms and schools might look like if we shift the conversation from “all students” to “each and every student.” Small shifts leveraging high impact instructional strategies have the power to transform the learning environment for each and every student, every day.
Special thanks to Grant Bradfield, Katie Min, Danny Rubin, and Shawnell Carmichael for leading a packed and impactful day of learning, and a big shoutout to the entire hashtag#PWCSCTE team Sarah Martin, Ph.D., Tim Vaughan, Nasir Ayoub, Danielle Meyer, Benjamin Stodola, and Diana Collins for working tirelessly behind the scenes to make opportunities like this possible.
Looking forward to the 2025-26 school year!”
Rubin Founder Danny Rubin (center) stands with Prince William County Schools (PWCS) Curriculum Supervisor Christine Good (left) and Supervisor of EL Instruction Kristine Lentz-Johnston. Rubin is collaborating with PWCS to connect workplace readiness skills with the needs of English learners. Every student deserve a chance at success.
Rubin Trains School Counselors in Las Vegas on Emerge, Aspire Products
Rubin is a leading provider of employability skills products for teachers, students and counselors.
During the week of March 24, 2025, the Rubin team led a series of virtual workshops with elementary school counselors in Clark County School District or CCSD (Las Vegas, NV) on our Emerge and Aspire products. Ashley Leon Ramirez, CCSD elementary counselor specialist, facilitated the workshops.
Emerge is our signature employability skills curriculum, and Aspire is a growing library of career exploration videos. Both products are available in Canvas, the learning management system CCSD uses to provide instructional content to its more than 300,000 students.
CCSD is the nation’s fifth largest school system.
In the workshops, Rubin founder Danny Rubin and Director of Instruction Alexis Kruemcke directed 100+ counselors to locate Rubin Emerge and Aspire in Canvas. The Rubin team then demonstrated how to access a piece of Rubin content within Canvas without signing in traditionally.
The counselors found value in topics like social media etiquette, email writing, resume help and interview prep.
Live trainings (virtual or in-person) are a critical part of how Rubin delivers instructional materials to large districts like CCSD or smaller school divisions.
Book a demo to see Emerge and Aspire in action, and discover why many of the nation’s largest districts choose Rubin for employability skills training.
In the image above, Rubin founder Danny Rubin leads a virtual training for elementary school counselors across Clark County School District (Las Vegas, NV), the nation’s fifth-largest school system. Clark County is a Rubin customer and employs our Emerge and Aspire products for employability skills training and career exploration, respectively. Fifth largest school district in the nation.
Rubin-Trained GA CTAE Student Lands Job During Mock Interviews
Whether it’s a mock interview or an actual interview, opportunities can happen.
That proved true for a Dawson County Schools CTAE student. Dawson County incorporates Rubin’s Emerge curriculum for employability skills into its CTAE curriculum. Students use Emerge units for job interview prep, resumes, cover letters, email etiquette and more.
Dawson County Schools held a day when employers from the community visited the school to help students practice job interviews. One employer, who manages an insurance company, was so impressed with a particular student’s poise and maturity during the interview, that he hired her for an administrative position on the spot.
Mind you, the experience was a mock interview. There was no initial plan for job offers.
The student’s job interview performance speaks to the high-quality instruction students receive through Rubin Emerge.
Kristy Moore, the work-based learning coordinator in Dawson County, believes Emerge made the difference during the mock interview.
Rubin = Job offers.
Rubin Awards 1,200+ Digital Badges in Sept/Oct 2024
With the 2024-2025 academic year underway, students are busy in Rubin Emerge learning in-demand employability skills.
At the end of each unit (ex: Email Etiquette — Beginner), students take a post-test. Once students pass the post-test, they earn an Emerge digital badge. So far, students have garnered 1,200+ digital badges for email writing, job outreach strategies, networking, resumes and more.
Here’s a snapshot:
- Email Etiquette — Beginner: 383 badges
- Email Etiquette — Advanced: 172 badges
- Job Outreach: 106 badges
- Networking: 86 badges
- Resume Writing: 78 badges
- Cover Letter Writing: 52 badges
Each badge features a QR code that brings the person to this page on the Rubin site. The pages explains the skills students gained to earn the digital badge.
The badges are ideal for a resume, portfolio, LinkedIn profile and anywhere else students can showcase skills learned.
Badges abound from Emerge.
Teacher Spotlight: For Kyle Bashore, Rubin “Sets the Standard”
In Kyle Bashore’s classroom, Rubin isn’t just a curriculum tool.
Since 2021, Rubin is the standard of excellence his students must strive to meet.
Bashore is a CTE teacher at Cathedral City High School near Palm Springs, California. He teaches inside the HEAL Academy (Health and Environmental Health Academy of Learning), and he’s also the co-advisor of the school’s HOSA chapter.
Bashore draws on our Emerge employability skills curriculum and Aspire career exploration video library to ensure his students write and speak like professionals.
In particular, Bashore has students complete the Emerge Project Management unit to learn how to communicate in a clear, professional manner with teammates.
“I notice a huge change in formality and consideration of others after the Project Management unit,” said Bashore.
Bashore integrates Emerge and Aspire through a seamless connection with his Google Classroom. He carefully selects different topics for the health sciences classes he teaches.
For example:
General resource throughout his classes: Emerge unit called Email Etiquette-Beginner where students learn to write a proper email.
For the TAs (teaching assistants): The TAs practice speaking skills through the Emerge unit called Phone Etiquette.
Emergency Medicine and his HOSA chapter: Emerge units called Project Management and Public Speaking.
Medical Terminology: Emerge unit called Ethics Discussions for tricky workplace situations.
Public Health: Emerge unit called Website Content, which guides students to write a business website.
Bashore also has students search the Aspire career exploration video library to learn about roles in health care (ex: surgical assistant) and also discover cool jobs in fields like STEM, marketing, sports, law and the trades.
Above all, Bashore relies on Rubin to help him prepare students for the world after high school.
“At the start of the year, students begrudgingly work on Rubin assignments as if to say, ‘Do I REALLY need this?’” said Bashore. “By the end of the year, I see significant changes in their professionalism. Without me even asking, they hold themselves to a new standard.”
Thank you, Kyle, for being a wonderful partner in the classroom.
Check out Rubin Emerge and Aspire for yourself! Free trial available here.
CA teacher embraces Rubin Emerge and Aspire
Irvine USD Creates “Light Bulb Challenge” with Rubin Propel
When learning becomes a game, the teachers win and so do their students.
At Irvine (California) Unified School District, a longtime Rubin partner, students practice their email etiquette through a competition.
Our Propel tool provides feedback on a student’s email in the form of lightbulbs next to the words that need correction (ex: capitalize a lowercase word if it begins a sentence).
Special education students in a class called Directed Studies now vie to see who can write an email with the fewest light bulbs (mistakes). The students, all in grades 10-12, have fun while improving their professional skills.
“We weren’t sure how the students would respond to Propel,” said Career Link Supervisor Renee Melton. “Right away, they found the tool engaging. Plus, Propel helped their emails improve.”
We love to see how educators incorporate Propel into their instruction. The tool is a simple resource that can be modified in dozens of ways. As long as students strengthen how they communicate with teachers, employers and other adults, we are satisfied!
Work turns into play in California.
New Record: Students Log 1.3 Million Minutes in Rubin Emerge in 23-24 Academic Year
Students nationwide spent 1.3 million minutes in Rubin’s Emerge curriculum for employability skills during the 23-24 academic year. As a comparison, students logged 375,000 minutes in the 22-23 academic year.
Students in places like Las Vegas, Philadelphia, Charlotte, Fairfax County and more gained critical workplace readiness skills that employers and colleges want to see.
Why the 4X increase in logged minutes?
Our team works hard to bring on new school partners. Beyond that, we pore over the details to deliver our Moodle-based learning management system to school districts. We insist on single sign-on access when possible to eliminate the need for students to sign in with a traditional password or manually create an account.
The ease of use allows students to visit Emerge with one click from their school’s LMS and engage right away with Emerge readings, videos, assignments and assessments for critical topics like email/phone etiquette, conversation skills, interview prep and more.
Digging into the 1.3 million minutes, here are the most popular assignments students accessed:
- Texting vs Emailing: 16,447 submissions
- How to Compose a Subject Line: 12,877 submissions
- How to Prepare Smart Interview Questions: 5,676 submissions
- How to Set Your Own Voicemail: 3,996 submissions
- How to Email an Instructor About a Poor Grade: 2,770 submissions
“We focus every day on the student and teacher experience in Emerge,” said Rubin founder Danny Rubin. “When we see logged minutes jump into the millions, it says that we make it easy for customers to use our product — and to want to keep coming back for more. We continue to work in summer 2024 at the user experience because the journey and task is never done.”
Explore Emerge for yourself and then request a free trial!
4X increase from previous year
Gracie Gustafson from Iowa’s Boone HS Takes 1st in America’s Next Great Intern Contest
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_column_text]Virginia Beach, VA (April 8, 2024) – Boone, Iowa’s own Gracie Gustafson is America’s Next Great Intern. The senior at Boone Community School District competed against nearly 200 hundred high school students nationwide and demonstrated top-tier communication skills essential to an internship.
Gustafson wins a virtual job shadow with an executive from an in-demand field (one option is a music producer for Jay-Z and Beyonce). She will also receive national recognition throughout the CTE community and a banner for the school to display. Her teachers, Ms. Lindsey Hyman and Ms. Amy Bossard, receive a $250 cash bonus to support their classrooms.
Second place: Sahasra Bangaru, 11th grade student from Ardrey Kell High School in Charlotte, North Carolina. Teacher: Ms. Sandra Wheeler.
Third place: Parisa Majumdar, 10th grade student from Enloe Magnet High School in Raleigh, North Carolina. Teacher: Ms. Benicia Ledford.
“Up and Coming” middle school winners:
First place: Zabdiel Dewar, 8th grade student at William R. Davie Middle S.T.E.M. Academy in Halfiax, North Carolina. Teacher: Mr. Fredirick Lapitan.
Second place: Errili Perez, 8th grade student at Aliamanu Middle School, Panther Academy in Honolulu, Hawaii. Teacher: Ms. Cherie Teraoka.
Rubin, the leader in online curriculum for employability and workplace readiness skills, hosted the competition.
Demand for intern and job applicants with “soft skills” is a top priority across all industry sectors. According to a 2022 survey of employers by the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), 76% of respondents want to hire young people who can work on a team, 73% want ones with strong written communication skills and 58% seek new hires who can speak well.
The submission period for the America’s Next Great Intern contest ran throughout February 2024, which is National Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month. All middle school, high school and post-secondary CTE students were eligible.
The instructions were drawn from Rubin’s Emerge curriculum, a broad library of online exercises for employability skills like email/phone etiquette, job interview prep, LinkedIn communication and more. Rubin provides Emerge to CTE programs nationwide.
The students were assessed across five areas:
- Elevator Pitch: Video recording about the student’s background and interests/passions.
- Ethics and Leadership: Written response to a challenging ethical dilemma.
- Team Communication: Email to update a teacher or employer on the status of classwork or a project at an internship/job.
- Resilience & Determination: Written example of a time in which the student demonstrated resiliency.
- Job Interview Preparation: Written questions to show curiosity ahead of a mock interview conversation with either Nike, Disney or Marriott.
“Employers often lament that students don’t possess the ‘soft skills’ necessary to engage in an office setting or on the job site,” says Danny Rubin, founder of Rubin. “Once again, our contest shows that, yes, there are motivated young people coast to coast who will add value to any business or organization.”
About Rubin:
Rubin is the leader in online instruction for employability and work readiness skills. The company, based in Virginia Beach, Virginia, provides Emerge, a digital curriculum that teaches effective writing and speaking skills, to thousands of students in middle school, high school and higher education. Rubin also has a soft-skill notification tool for email writing called Propel and a career exploration video library called Aspire.
Founded in 2017 by Danny Rubin, a former CBS television news reporter and consultant to NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Rubin teaches students nationwide critical lessons for email/phone etiquette, networking, team communication, leadership communication and more. Our motto: “Write well, open doors!”[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]
We have a winner!