CEO Gentle-Genitty Links Student Participation to Labor Force Participation at Central Bank of Belize Panel
BELIZE. Dr. Carolyn Gentle-Genitty, founder and CEO of Attendance USA, served as a panelist on September 23, 2026, at “Safe and Secure: The Peg at 50,” the Central Bank of Belize’s commemoration of 50 years of the Belize dollar’s fixed exchange rate. The peg of two Belize dollars to one U.S. dollar dates to May 1976, and the commemoration fell in Belize’s 45th year of independence.
The program opened with a welcome from Dr. Dylan Vernon, Programme Moderator, and a keynote address by the Honourable Cordel Hyde, Deputy Prime Minister. Mr. Emory Ford, Chief Economist of the Central Bank of Belize, delivered a research presentation. Central Bank Governor Kareem Michael then moderated a panel with Senator Christopher Coye, Mr. Stephen Duncan, Dr. Gentle-Genitty, and Mr. Joseph Waight.
Dr. Gentle-Genitty brought the Attendance Science™ lens to a conversation about economic stability. The Central Bank introduced her as a Belizean-born behavioral social scientist and international consultant whose career bridges Belize’s youth and workforce policy institutions with U.S. higher education leadership. From 1994 to 2008 she served the Government of Belize in policy roles, led YMCA Belize as Executive Director, and taught at the University of Belize and the University of the West Indies, Belize campus. She also serves on the Central Bank of Belize Advisory Council.
Her message connected the classroom to the economy. School is the first place a young person practices showing up: arriving, contributing, belonging, and returning the next day. Students who build that habit carry it into training, work, and civic life. A nation that strengthens student participation strengthens the workforce that sustains its economy.
She also pointed to family stability as the bridge between the two. The conditions that help a child attend school, a safe home, stable housing, reliable food, caring connections, and access to support, are the same conditions that help an adult stay in work. Attendance USA measures these conditions through the Family Stability Index.
“Economic stability starts long before a paycheck. It starts with a child who shows up to school and a family stable enough to help that child keep showing up.”
Dr. Carolyn Gentle-Genitty, founder and CEO, Attendance USA
The panel reflects Attendance USA’s broader goal: raise student participation to raise economic productivity and labor force participation, in the United States and around the world.
Media contact: Shelneka Adams-Marsalone, Executive Director, Attendance USA Press Office · info@attendanceusa.org