K-12 Initiatives
The K-12 Initiatives spoke focuses on a variety of strategies, efforts, and programs that will better prepare Utah girls and young women to successfully complete high school, transition to college, and become healthy, positive, and contributing members of society. Initiatives may focus on improving confidence and resilience, increasing aspirations to attend and complete college, raising interest in nontraditional fields, and boosting math scores by eighth grade. With the newly released CDC data, initiatives could also focus on strengthening mental health more broadly through decreasing rates of sexual violence among youth, partnering with other entities to reduce suicide ideation, and other critical elements. Raising aspirations among girls and young women to become leaders is also crucial to positive outcomes as well.
Spoke Leaders
Tabitha Pacheco
Public Information Officer, USBE
LinkedIn Profile
Tabitha Pacheco is the Special Education Public Information Officer for the State Board of Education. She is also the Director of Education Programs for the Utah Teacher Fellows and is on the board for the Utah National Board Coalition and Utah Emerging Leaders Initiative.
Bold Goals
To make Utah a place where more girls and women can thrive, the K-12 Initiatives spoke leaders, affiliates, and participants are currently working to craft bold goals for 2026 and 2030. These goals will be linked to measurable outcomes, connected to visual dashboards, and will be posted in June of 2023. Through finding, collecting, and visualizing data for this spoke, changes over time can be tracked and utilized to create momentum for additional changes.