Janet Webb

I think along with clarification of some of the soft skills, there needs to be ways to evaluate them. There is a lot of emphasis on teachers teaching those soft skills but not a lot of activities or resources that teachers can use to evaluate. Most of the time it is based on observation, peer reviews, and scenario work.

I think that teachers spend most of their time trying to teach the technical skills that we sometimes forget that the soft skills are just as important. These skills are going to help the student get and keep the job because we know that we are teaching them the skills that they need to do the job.

I concur with Bill. Our counselors spend more time directing kids in their academic classes and not enough time really working with the students on finding those things that interest them. CTE classes typically keep those students in school that otherwise would leave. 

A strong and active CTE community engagement would have its members taking on roles of responsibility. In our last 10 years, we try and have our community leaders take on some of these jobs but they are all too busy so we are usually stuck running everything and our goal is to get their input. 

We struggle to find people that want to come talk to teenagers. We do have a military base close to us so we utilize the different jobs that are available but our local businesses really struggle with those interpersonal skills.

Our current TAC boards meet 2 times a year. We have 1 TAC for all of our areas  because we don't have enough people per area to warrant a TAC for each. We try and get them involved in helping us stay up-to-date on equipment and material to teach. 

For the last 6 years we have put on a career fair for our student body with local businesses talking about the potential and jobs in the related fields and some that are also hiring on the spot.

Signage and safety tests help ensure that everyone understands the safety rules and procedures.

I have noticed that this is routinely just left up to the teachers and there is no administrative check. As a new CTE administrator, this is good information to know. 

I learned that our individual programs have safety systems in place but we don't have an overall system in place so that is what I will be working on.