Education Matters: Career and technical education

Welcome to education matters presented by the Public School Forum

of North Carolina

I'm your host

Maryanne Wolf Programs and Career and Technical Education or C

T

E provides students from middle school through post secondary an

opportunity to learn technical academic and career skills

Programs and CTE are crucial while they help students

Thes programs also help communities and social and economic development

here to teach us more

Our guests with local and state perspectives were so pleased

today to be joined by Trey Michel the director of

career and technical education at the North Carolina Department of

Public Instruction

Welcome Trey thank you very much

It's great to be on on behalf of our state

staff and all of our teachers and students

We appreciate this opportunity Well we'd love for you to

start just by telling us a little bit about career

and technical education in North Carolina and how it can

prepare our students for life long success

Absolutely

What we want all of our students to be successful

citizens and workers and leaders in a global economy

Superintendent Johnson Deputy Superintendent Steagall and our State Board of

Education have urged us to do our best to make

sure all Children are career ready and provide a system

from the fifth to the 12th grade where we can

help each child focus on career awareness career exploration and

career experiences that really lead them to a meaningful career

or post secondary opportunity

Ah few data points I'd like to share whenever I'm

given the chance

We have over 900,000 students taking CTE courses in grades

six through 12 each year

Of that roughly 55,000 concentrate in a career pathway annually

And these air students with a strong focus on a

cohesive 2 to 3 core sequence and this focus of

this focused approach of course better prepare students for careers

and if needed post secondary options in line to those

careers

We offer pathways and course sequences and agriculture business finance

computer science culinary arts early childhood education health sciences construction

trades law and public safety automotive woodworking welding and I

could go on

We offer over 350 courses in our statewide CT course

inventory not to mention the local courses and pathways

A district may offer to meet a specific local business

need

And as I think about a student's life long success

and how CT contributes to that success

There are a couple of central components that help us

help Children in that regard

First we offer two courses exploring career decisions at the

middle school level and career management the high school level

Both of these courses help Children focus on making great

career decisions for their career plans in our student organizations

FF a deca skills us a

Sec L

A host of F B L and T S A

all provide lifelong career ready skills such as teamwork public

speaking communication ethics and problem solving

It's amazing to hear how encompassing this is and you

know I have had a chance to know some students

who have really benefited from some of the CTE programs

you mentioned

And I wonder if you would share a little bit

about some of the great examples you see here in

North Carolina Absolutely

I'm proud to do so to set the stage

I think it's important Thio

So let everyone know that our new federal law requires

us to report the number of industry recognized credentials are

students earn

Last year that number was over 240,000 significant number on

significant impact

Many of these credentials are transferrable and stackable which means

that they have value well beyond the high school experience

Couple that with the My Future in C goal that

two million North Carolinians will have a high quality credential

well postsecondary degree by 2030

And we can clearly see the impact our local districts

and their programs will make on these goals

A couple of examples uh related to credentials

Gaston County schools has been a leader in the credentialing

area for some time

In fact they were number one in two of our

major metrics for credential attainment this past year

They have really strong programs and construction trades biomedical technology

health sciences computer engineering and others

And another great example I'd like to share about our

programs would be Pender County schools

They recently hosted the NC Crunch Festival at Topsoil High

which highlighted the National Farm to School Month

It emphasized how the agricultural business marketing health and food

nutrition industries coordinate to get food from the farm to

our tables

On

Of course you'll hear from Steve Dutton one of our

fantastic local leaders from its in county schools

I can't say enough good things about the work they're

doing for students

In order for our CTE programs to be successful we

we have to consider equity and I understand that

Perkins

Five federal legislation help center are CTE programs and equity

And I wonder if you would just talk a little

bit more about how our programs were working on this

Absolutely

We believe we believe strongly and equity of access to

high quality

I don't emphasize high quality CTE programs for each and

every child in our public schools

Perkins five even allows us to dedicate funds to focus

on equity and supporting our special populations

We even have a dedicated staff member in our division

who is focused on supporting local leaders and schools through

the process of reviewing their counseling practices regarding student placement

and CTE and non CTE courses effectively how our Children

making decisions about the courses that they take

Are there any barriers impeding a child from participating in

of course or a pathway aligns to their career goals

We've also worked incredibly hard to provide multiple professional development

opportunities to educate all of our CTE stakeholders and others

about equitable practices that foster equal access for each student

in our public schools

I wonder if you have some thoughts on how District's

can support more students to take advantage of the opportunities

before those parents and students invest time and money in

a community college or university program that might not align

to their ultimate career goals

One key way that we foster this is through work

based learning

Students can actually get course credit for completing an internship

cooperative education or apprenticeships just to name a few

We also offer a number of inherently honors courses in

CTE

Ultimately every child will leave our public schools and pursue

a career

We hope that they'll start engaging in career relevant courses

early so they can more efficiently and economically attain their

career goals

Do you have any advice for parents and students who

might be interested I don't know that one could start

too early

My daughter has had a passion for equine science for

the past five or so years since she was seven

or eight

My son wants to walk my my and my wife's

path

You

He wants to be a school administrator and has had

that passion for several years and he's only 10

I believe that the key is for Children to gain

awareness as early and as often as possible

Fortunately the General Assembly has asked us for several years

to focus on a special initiative on career awareness with

fifth graders nearly all of our district's host business tours

guest speakers job shadows and other types of career fairs

and events

Last year over 50005th graders participated in these career awareness

events

Really spectacular opportunity for them

And I think I would also encourage every parent really

every North Carolina citizen to visit a newly overhauled website

NC Careers or G which offers students and parents

Thea pertain ITI to determine career interest to explore all

the occupations available to them plan a career path understand

the education and training side to obtain that career path

and then when they're ready search for jobs in that

career was a great site that all of the education

partners in North Carolina collaborated on along with the Department

of Commerce

Cfn C N C

Works DHHS in the North Carolina Business Committee for Education

In our final moment together I wonder if you would

just talk a little bit about how u c

C T e evolving in our state and also this

connection to post secondary attainment

Well I think there's several big key items

First and foremost we made great strides with the recent

implementation of our new CT federal law and now we

need to capitalize on those efforts

Our state and local work to align pathways and programs

toe workforce needs credentials of value in postsecondary opportunities is

key to helping students pursue industry relevant coursework

Next I believe work based learning opportunities are critical

The students becoming career ready

Support from business and industry partners will become even more

important over the next 3 to 5 years so students

are able to gain on the job training and experiences

in the world of work

And lastly we have a great need firm or career

development coordinators in our middle schools To help Children and

parents understand and navigate high number of quality career paths

and options available these professionals are critical to our students

effectively and efficiently making strong career decisions that will lead

to a lifelong of success for themselves create new jobs

or fill critical jobs for businesses and ultimately economic prosperity

for our nation

Well thank you so much Trey

As you know I mentioned to you I've heard a

lot of wonderful things about you and how you support

these efforts across our state and it is clear with

the work that's happening and also where we're hoping to

go

So thank you so much for spending time with us

today and we look forward to our next conversation

Absolutely

Thank you so much for having a song way Really

appreciate the opportunity

After our break we will have the career and technical

education administer and a former student from Anson County schools

Education matters is brought to you each week in part

by town bank serving others enriching lives

We're so pleased to be joined today by Steve Dutton

an administrator and career and technical education in Anson County

schools and Carry Manner

A marketing and public relations specialist and former CTE student

in Anson County schools

Steve I wonder if you could start by telling us

a little bit about the career and technical education programs

that students can participate in across Anson County

Yes we've got

We're traditional high school and we've got of the 16

national uh pathways

We operate 13 of them at at our school and

they range in in agriculture and construction and architectural audio

video technology communications business health science through uh project lead

the way and which is very heavily in the stem

side biotech

And uh we have hospitality and tourism marketing human services

focusing primarily on food nutrition

We have information technology that we're introducing and expanding

And then we have stem initiative through our project lead

the way uh engineering and automotive Kerry we're so happy

to have you Here is someone who has gone through

a C T E program and I wonder if you

could tell us a little bit more about your experience

and any insights you have on on how well your

C t experience prepared you for your career

So my experience was amazing

It really truly was

It set me up for real life experiences which I

had when I took the role as a logger at

NASCAR Productions

Um so it I was trained by the best

My former teacher Rusty Baldwin was actually a producer with

NASCAR and he really set me up for that and

I was passionate about it going into it and I

worked graduated from Pfeiffer and every step of the way

I focused on my pathway that I left here from

the high school

I continued it

And Adobe programs that I used um through the CTE

program really helped me also it just it set me

up

It was awesome

I was always one step ahead

Even through college I was one step ahead of my

professors and they were really blown away by that

What they're learning now is actually in the real world

It's exciting

And it they have so many opportunities so many different

pathways and so many things they could do after they

graduate

So I'm just excited to be here and be an

asset to add to that

I know there is a huge impact on students who

go through programs in your district and I wonder if

you could both talk a little bit about that and

what it means to your students

Families and community toe have programs like this Carrie

So um it's not only for the students knowledge I

feel it's it's for the community

I mean What best way to practice on having clients

is using community members I think it's great

Um I know when I was here I would have

people from the community reach out to us

And can you make me a logo Sure

What do you want I'll be more than happy and

it gives that real life experience

Um and especially what I'm doing right now

I've came back home and I've came back to my

community and I'm marketing the CTE programs through all the

social media outlets and different stuff like that

And it's really shown our community like Hey the high

school has it going on you know like there's all

these programs that students have and it's just awesome opportunity

I love it

Steve would you share a little bit too Yeah

This SETI programs are by design are meant to prepare

students with technical academic and employability skills to help them

be contributed members once they hit the workforce or move

on to college to get continuing learning and educational opportunities

And the curriculums are aligned to current business standards and

industry standards depending on which field you're looking at

S 01 of the things that we do when we're

selecting our programs is we review our regional economic indicators

and we look at work very closely with government and

and our economic development commissions and our business advisory council

within CTE

And we look at what are the indicators in in

those industries that they're going to be growing expanding and

have a high need for

And then we tried to align our CTE program offerings

to that so that were also in the process of

developing uh higher capacity workforce development pipeline

And that kind of lends itself puts a partnership between

business and industry and education

And we're all in a common focus of trying to

build employability skills and in our workforce that will help

serve the whole community

And uh eso We put a lot of effort in

that we review those economic indicators very very closely and

we talk with business and industry constantly to see what's

going on in in in their world and what kind

of needs they need uh out of the workforce to

help them be remain competitive

So we plan regionally and we do that in alignment

with the North Carolina State Economic regions that we have

And uh the other thing is uh um we dio

try toe have all of our students career college ready

and some of the fields of students will choose

They need continuing college courses whether it's to the technical

college which we have a fantastic partnership with our community

college system or the university system

And uh and so that that's a network that's up

to the state of North Carolina

Our end goal is trying to make sure that every

student regardless of what they are is Korean College ready

And uh they become uh contributed and productive citizens

Kerry

I wonder if you have any advice or could share

a little bit about what advice you I can give

to students who are considering enrolling in CTE pathways and

the impact it could have on them

My advice to them would be take full advantage full

advantage of everything that you're offered um and start networking

now and save every piece of work that you create

because it's you're starting to build experience

Now

These four years count these four years matter and you

can use this work as experience to get a drop

through college or anything like that

And I've been on the um industries out of it

with NASCAR and stuff like that and I've had to

show different work to get a job there

But I've also started my own business recently as to

well working here

So I've had all this work that I could showcase

the people and they're like Wow and I was like

I started this in high school and they're like Oh

that's awesome

So looking ahead I'd love to hear more about how

you see CTE programs evolving

And what kind of support do you need from communities

to make that happen Steve

Well I I think one of the big transitions from

the old Perkins for that we've had the last 16

years to Perkins five this year uh is allowing our

students to experience more pathways

Um and so that's gonna be very very strong

Um uh and the the other thing is that allows

for cross pathway uh curriculum connections and cross curricular with

our core teachers so they get the benefit of connected

learning that hasn't been as uh front and present in

the Perkins for uh the other thing is that our

our certifications under Perkins five are getting ah stronger alignment

to true business and industry standards

That's a must eso that we have that total support

and collaboration

Um and the other thing is business and industry input

uh into our our technical and employability skills needs

We have the opportunity with uh with with building that

bridge between business and industry and education to really custom

designed the workforce of tomorrow that fits into our our

regional employer's needs

And uh we need to take stronger advantage of that

And we're doing well

It's just that this is new with us and we

need to continue that

The other is aligned uh support with all stakeholders

We need a total commitment to purpose

And that's not just our staff and and our business

industry members but parents as well and in the entire

community they need to know what it is that we

do and how it benefits their child in our community

And that's where carries a real strong soup for us

Steve

I'm sure Cove it is forcing your CTE programs to

function a little differently right now as we all are

Um I wonder if you could tell us about how

you're doing this differently through this remote or hybrid learning

time

Well we did we we've approached

This is a systemic issue within the district

And uh we have to find alternative ways to get

that hands on learning by building

And And we've we've done some creative things

Uh with that such as one that we're working on

right now are construction teacher

Part of this curriculum is kids have to build a

wall uh and and without being here in the shop

in those materials

So we're looking at alternative measures where the the uh

key performance indicators that in the curriculum that they need

to learn like how to measure how toe layout

We're using other models

And uh that kid's gonna build measures show everything

It's forced out of necessity

But if the kids still learned the value of of

the standard that they have to master and and it

meets business and industry standards as well So um those

air some slight adjustments that we've had to make and

and so far we're very pleased with the progress we've

made in that Well thank you

Thank you

so much

It's wonderful to hear from the work of your county

No hear from you leading this work and also carry

is a former student who's come back and is doing

so much as well

You're both inspirational for District's across the stadium for students

and families

And so thank you so much for all that you're

doing

It's wonderful toe have you here with us and after

the break

The final word Career and Technical Education or C T

is designed to empower all students to become successful citizens

workers and leaders in a global economy

Whether students plan to further their education and colleges technical

schools through industry certifications on the job training or pursue

careers in the military CTE conserve is an important step

in a pathway toward a successful career

Here in North Carolina more than 900,000 students participate in

career and technical education programs across the state each year

Thes students have been able to develop skills both inside

and outside the classroom setting in a variety of different

program areas including agriculture business computer science health science engineering

and more

By enabling students to experience career settings as early as

middle school career and technical education is an important tool

to help students identify what their passions are early in

life so that they can take advantage of time one

of our most precious commodities and pursue a career path

that is right for them

In a recent article published by Ed NC we learned

about Brandy Bragg who spent a year of studies and

$10,000 getting a medical assistant degree on Lee to learn

after working in that job that it wasn't the right

fit for her

What she missed in her studies is workplace based training

and she could have been saved the time and money

if she had taken part in a career and technical

education program that offered her a chance to experience her

work environment much sooner

Today she is working to make sure that other students

don't repeat her mistake shepherding a regional partnership connecting students

toe high demand careers intangible and meaningful ways

In today's dynamic economy families often don't know how to

guide their Children through learning what kind of career opportunities

are available and how students can gain exposure to them

and the Northeast North Carolina Career Pathways program steps into

the gap toe offer those insights and opportunities

As early as sixth grade students can begin to identify

what kind of high demand jobs exist and how they

may begin on a path toward achieving success in those

careers

And not only do we need more programs like Northeast

North Carolina career pathways we also need equitable access to

these types of local programs in order for our career

and technical education efforts to be successful

Recent federal legislation provides states and local school district's with

a critical framework to center equity within career and technical

education by assuring that local needs assessments takes place and

critical resource is air directed to the right areas

As a result states could better align with the local

business needs of urban and rural areas

And there's also been an increased emphasis on recruiting teachers

and professionals of color to participate in CTE programs with

the goal of closing equity gaps

North Carolina through the work of my Future and See

has set a statewide attainment goal that by 2032 million

North Carolinians will have a high quality credential or postsecondary

degree in our CTE programs play an important role in

making this a reality

Today we're faced the challenges toe workplace based learning as

we work to mitigate the impact of Cove in 19

But as we as we have all had to adapt

so to have our CTE programs moving meetings online and

finding new ways for students to connect with employers

A bright side of this extraordinary difficult time is that

his employers have had to pivot in terms of how

they do business

CTE can facilitate students opportunities to pivot alongside them and

learn new technologies that they will undoubtedly need to be

successful in the future

The future of work and citizenship is filled with opportunity

for our Children in North Carolina and it's incumbent upon

us to ensure that their equitably exposed to meaningful career

and technical education opportunities early in their academic lives so

that they can put their passions into action

Thank you for taking the time to think and learn

about education with us

That's all for today and we'll see you next week