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Insight News • April 13, 2026 - April 19, 2026 • Page 1
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SUMMIT ACADEMY: April 13, 2026 - April 19, 2026
Vol. 53 No. 15 • The Journal For Community News, Business & The Arts • insightnews.com
Restoring belief, building momentum, opening doors
By Pulane Choane Contributing Writer In a special series of The Conversation with Al McFarlane, powered by US Bank, the community’s elevation of its commitment to skill building, hard work, and narrative sovereignty emerged as the crucial throughline enabling Summit Academy OIC's massive success as a workforce game-changer. On a recent segment of Radio KFAI 90.3FM’s popular show The Conversation With Al McFarlane, the discussion turned from opportunity to something deeper, perception. “I love the motto,” Al McFarlane began. “The best social service program in the world is a job. Former Summit Academy CEO Louis King coined that phrase. What does that truth look like in the lives of the people you’re training?” But before Leroy West, president and CEO of Summit Academy OIC, could fully answer, McFarlane widened the lens.
“For a long while when the marketplace wouldn’t hire our people, they had an excuse,” he said. “‘We can’t find them.’ And then, ‘they don’t want to work.’ They said it so much that we started saying it about ourselves.” He continued, reflecting on how deeply those ideas can take root. “We’d see our own people and write them off even quicker than outside society did. So somehow, we’ve got to break that mental picture, that limitation we’ve put on ourselves.” Turning back to West, McFarlane asked the question many in the community are still grappling with. “How do you deal with that? The baggage individuals carry, but also the baggage in the community that reinforces the idea that our people are not capable, not willing, not able. How do you break that?” West met the moment directly. “You’re actually saying it correctly,” he said. “What we’ve seen, I would say 15 years ago, we had to battle a lot
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Al McFarlane, host of The Conversation on KFAI 90.3FM, in discussion with Leroy West, CEO of Summit Academy OIC, on workforce training, self sufficiency, and the power of careers to transform lives. of that.”
At the time, he explained, those perceptions showed up in real ways. “We were placing students with an employer and then… not hitting the ball,” West said. “Then we hear all these things like, ‘Hey, we’re not going to hire you because of those…’” The sentence trailed, but the weight of it did not. Assumptions were shaping outcomes. That is where Summit
Academy began to intervene, not just with training, but with proof. “So again, it’s all 20-week training,” West said. “About 80 percent of our students come to us, they were unemployed before they even started.” Many arrive carrying more than unemployment. “They were either on some type of county assistance, or transitioning from prison, or they had to report to someone,” he said.
“And now you come to Summit, we want to provide you with skills so you’re able to get that job or have that career.” Then, deliberately, he shifted the language. “Let me change it, because we want to start talking about a career.” That shift is central. It pushes back against the very myths McFarlane raised. “When you do that, now nobody [is] able to dictate your life,” West said. “You become self-sufficient.” He described what that looks like in real terms. “You start to own your own home. You begin to go out to eat, take your family on a vacation. You start doing some of those things.” In that way, Summit is not only preparing people for work. It is quietly dismantling the idea that they were ever incapable in the first place. “So we say the best social service program in the world is a job,” West said. “You have that career right now and you take away all those other
things that you leave behind.” For those in Minneapolis ready to take that step, Summit Academy is inviting the community in. Summit Academy hosts regular Open House events where prospective students get a chance to explore classrooms, learn more about career training programs and the GED pathway and speak directly with instructors and staff committed to student success. The open house convenings allow attendees to connect with the admissions team and begin the registration process on site. At Summit, students can earn industry recognized credentials, receive job placement support, and complete training in an accelerated timeframe, all at no cost. Because as this conversation made clear, this is about more than access to jobs. It is about restoring belief, building momentum, and opening a door that too many have been told was closed.