Full Press Release

Iowa City, IA — At the 2026 ACT Summit, held July 13-15 in Nashville, ACT presented its Champion Awards for the second consecutive year and introduced the inaugural Work Ready Organization Awards. Six recipients were honored as champions of learner success across six categories, and five organizations and institutions were recognized for their innovative work within ACT’s new WorkReady Organization designations.

“I've had the privilege of working alongside many of these partners, and behind every one of these awards is a student who got a better shot because someone in their community chose to invest in them,” said Catherine Hoffmann, senior vice president of government and public relations at ACT. “That's not a small thing. I'm honored to stand with the educators, employers, and institutions who show up every day with that kind of commitment."

2026 ACT Champion Awards and Recipients

State College and Career Champion: Wyoming State Department of Education for expanding student access to ACT WorkKeys, partnering with the Wyoming Community College Commission to explore credit for the ACT WorkKeys National Career Readiness Certificate, and participation in groundbreaking research on English Learner assessment outcomes.

K-12 Policy Champion: Gaston County Schools in North Carolina for their commitment to connecting high school learning to real-world career opportunities, which has set a powerful example for districts across the country. Through hands-on career readiness curriculum experiences and the use of ACT WorkKeys to measure practical work skills, Gaston County Schools has worked to build partnerships within the community while increasing students’ confidence in exploring their postsecondary options — and the results speak for themselves.

Workforce Innovation Champion: Metropolitan Community College in Omaha, Nebraska, for transforming its regional workforce by delivering fast, employer-aligned training that connects adult learners directly to high-demand, family-sustaining careers. By embedding ACT WorkKeys into its programs, MCC ensures learners build and demonstrate the foundational workplace skills employers value, strengthening both job readiness and hiring confidence. Through integrated education, career coaching, and deep industry partnerships, MCC is creating lasting economic mobility for individuals while meeting critical talent needs across the broader Nebraska community.

Workforce Policy Champion: Texarkana USA Chamber of Commerce for being instrumental in bringing ACT WorkKeys assessments and curriculum into local high schools,Texarkana College, and the hands of key regional employers. This work has strengthened the connection between education and employment across both sides of the Texas-Arkansas border — and is actively expanding to reach even more students and job seekers throughout Northeast Texas.

Higher Ed, 2-Year Policy Champion: Butler County Community College in Kansas for expanding opportunities for Kansas students by making college credit more accessible through innovative, forward-thinking policies that remove traditional barriers to higher education. As the only community college in Kansas to award college credit for the ACT WorkKeys National Career Readiness Certificate, Butler is recognizing and validating the real-world skills students bring to the classroom — meeting learners where they are and building on earned credentials for faster degree completion.

Higher Ed, 4-Year Policy Champion: University of Tennessee, Knoxville, for exemplifying what it looks like when a major research university treats ACT scores as a student-centered tool. UT Knoxville uses ACT math scores transparently and purposefully for appropriate course placement. By Superscoring across test sittings, using scores for coursework eligibility, and clearly communicating how each score is used, UT Knoxville ensures that ACT data continues to work for students long after the admission decision is made.

2026 Inaugural Work Ready Organization Awards

In addition to the annual ACT Work Ready Community awards presented at the Summit, this year, ACT introduced the ACT Work Ready Organization awards which recognized five organizations across four of the inaugural categories:

Work Ready Adult Education Accelerator: Coastal Alabama Community College for embedding WorkKeys benchmarks into students’ career exploration, stacking WorkKeys NCRCs with industry credentials, engaging and partnering with employers like Collins Aerospace to leverage WorkKeys as a regional economic development tool connecting adult learners to workforce opportunities.

Work Ready Adult Education Accelerator: Monroe 2 Orleans BOCES, Monroe County, New York for embedding WorkKeys as a career training entrance assessment across Monroe County, awarding 85 WorkKeys NCRCs in the current (2025-26) school year, integrating skill-level goals into pre-employment solutions, and leading regional Work Ready Community strategy through one of ACT’s Advisory Councils.

Work Ready Employer of Choice: RoyOMartin in Alexandra, Louisiana, for embedding WorkKeys into every stage of talent strategy since 2011. They used the NCRC for hiring, internal advancement, and apprenticeships across their Louisiana and Texas operations while championing skills-based hiring on the national level. And they launched ‘Girls Can Too!’ to build an inclusive regional talent pipeline.

Work Ready Economic Development Catalyst: CENLA, the Central Louisiana Work Ready Network from Louisiana Central and the Orchard Foundation, for building one of the most sustained work ready ecosystems, engaging over 325 employers, deploying job profiling with regional manufacturers, integrating WorkKeys NCRC into K-12 accountability, and using WorkKeys data in economic development proposals and site selection competitiveness.

Work Ready Schoolof Excellence: Brockport High School, Brockport, New York for developing a thoughtful, equity-minded, and integrated model for K-12 WorkKeys adoption. Its ‘Portraits with a Purpose’ program offers a sustainable work-ready model, supported by a strong regional partnership with Monroe Community College and Levacloud that connects classroom learning to career pathways.

Celebrating National Success

In tandem with these individual organization honors, ACT also recognized 112 communities across 17 states with ACT Work Ready Community awards for their ambitious, ongoing efforts to connect the learner to earner pipeline.

By combining innovative local strategies with ACT products and services, like WorkKeys and ACT test score data, all of this year’s recipients embody ACT’s mission to guide every learner along every pathway, every time.

About ACT

ACT is transforming college and career readiness pathways so that everyone can discover and fulfill their potential. Grounded in more than 65 years of research, ACT’s learning resources, assessments, research, and work-ready credentials are trusted by students, job seekers, educators, schools, government agencies, and employers in the U.S. and around the world to help people achieve their education and career goals at every stage of life.