In the photo, Danny Rubin (founder of Rubin) stands with Blanca (left) and Elizabeth, two career and technical education (CTE) teachers who attended Danny’s workshop on February 29, 2020 at the Educating for Careers conference in Long Beach, California.

Southern California sunshine and email etiquette.

Those were the themes in late February as Danny Rubin, founder of Rubin, presented in Long Beach at the 2020 Educating for Careers (EFC) conference, the largest gathering of career and technical education (CTE) professionals in the Golden State.

At EFC, Danny led a workshop called “Powerful Curriculum for Email Etiquette, Phone Etiquette and Networking Skills.” He showed the crowd – a mix of educators who serve CTE and special needs populations in school districts like Los Angeles Unified, Oakland Unified and Elk Grove Unified (Sacramento) – Rubin’s innovative online platform called Emerge and exercises within that help students write and speak with professionalism (ex: how to compose an email to seek an internship).

One attendee, a CTE teacher in Oakland, spoke about constant frustration with his students’ email writing. In his classroom, the challenges range from sloppy email construction (correspondence that looks like a text message) to inappropriate behavior (a student sent a barrage of emails to the teacher in response to a poor grade).

The flurry of upset emails even led to a meeting with the student and her parents.

Danny then shared success stories from California classrooms that use Emerge right now, including email correspondence with NBA executives in San Francisco, networking with politicians at the state capitol in Sacramento and “Rubin Tuesdays” weekly activity sessions in Lodi.

California is considered a leader in career and technical education and often the bellwether for instructional methods adopted nationwide. As a company, we continue to plant seeds, develop relationships and help students in the state to strengthen communication skills.

More sunny days, we hope, lie ahead.