Marc Tiernan

A strong CTE community is one where students, staff, and community partners are enagegd in a mututally beneficial professional relationship that promotes strong CTE education and industry with in the community.

In my district I am working to connect with local small bussiness owners as well as several global companies that have recently located in our area. The goal is to be inclusive of all possible opportunties for our students. 

Expand the number of teachers involved in the committee and have greater representation across all CTE content areas.

Teacher professional development, student interships, field trips, client-conected project based learning.

We have seen success in increasing student engagement in our district by connecting sdtudents and teachers with community partners to conduct client-centered projects. We work with employers in our community to present real problems to be solved by our students. Students may be asked to design a new logo, create a computer application or some other task related to the companies operation. We have employed this strategy across all content areas, but have seen the greatest buy in from our CTE teeachers. Students have reported enjoying these projects most. 

My district is a comprehensive K-12 Dsitrict. We have begun several cohorts centered around PBL and Pathways. One way leadership works to ensure collaboration between teachers of all content areas is to select teachers to be a part of these cohorts from each area. During meetings we create seating charts where CTE teachers are pair with teachers from other content areas. 

CTE has the potential to increase student engagement and excite learning. Many of the CTE courses in my school district fill all of their seats during course registration. Students in CTE course also tend to perform at a high level in their other non-CTE courses.