President's Report
2005 Connecting Education and Careers ACTE Conference
I had the great fortune of attending the
2005 ACTE Conference in Kansas City, MO on December 8-10. Kansas
City had a wonderful Convention Center to host this annual
conference. The hotel accommodations were also within walking
distance of the center. Many people were disappointed that it
wasn't held in New Orleans as originally planned but because Kansas
City is located in the center of the country actual busloads of people
were able to attend.
Some of the
highlights of the conference included, the opening session with
Jennifer James. She is a cultural anthropologist who stresses the
importance of change and making transitions. She was available to
sign her book Defending Yourself and Thinking in the Future
Tense. She focused on the necessity to embrace change and not get
“stuck” in doing things the same old way. On Friday, general
session speaker, Tom Vander Ark spoke of the importance not just of
rigor in education but also relevance to the student. Because of
No Child Left Behind, the academic course work required of students has
become much more rigorous. He emphasized that academics shouldn’t
just be rigorous but also have relevance to the student. That
same day, I was also able to attend the ACTE Special Needs Division
Awards Breakfast. Upon arriving, I was shocked to hear that
NAVESNP, the national organization that MnACTE/SNP has associated with
is folding. This was a surprise and will impact our statewide
organization in several ways. Additionally, on Friday, all the
special needs breakout sessions were being held. There were only
four sessions to choose from and one was canceled. The first one
I attended was entitled “Building Bridges: Transition Services
for All Students.” This breakout was a panel of educators from
Virginia that described an initiative between the Virginia Department
of Education, the local community college and three rural school
districts. The panel described how they pooled their resources to
provide a variety of transition activities in rural areas where
resources are fewer. I also attended a session/demonstration on
the NOCTI Workplace Readiness Assessment. CDs were handed out as
a sample. Another fun and interesting event that I attended was
the Presidents reception. This was held Thursday evening and was
a great opportunity to meet people from all over the country. It
was interesting to hear about all of the different areas of career and
technical education that others are working in. There was also a
silent auction to benefit Hurricane Katrina victims and I was the proud
recipient of a picture of Abraham Lincoln’s Home as a result. The
silent auction, along with money donated from the Agriculture Division
raised a total of $12,000 for Hurricane relief.
I thought the
conference was great and a real benefit to attend. It would be
even better to see more Special Needs breakout sessions in the
future. I would highly recommend our membership to consider
submitting a proposal because I know all of our members are out there
doing awesome work to benefit students with special needs in the area
of career and technical education.
Submitted by:
Lu Ann Tauer
MnACTE/SNP President
Richfield Schools
First-time
attendee at the
National ACTE conference impressed
I attended my
first ACTE conference this past December not knowing what to
expect. Would there be sessions for special needs
personnel? Would I find networking easy? Would the whole
event be worth the trouble of being away from school? Well, I can
honestly say, yes!
The conference, originally planned for
New Orleans, was changed to Kansas City, MO, due to the
hurricane. The planning committee did an excellent job with the
last minute change and pulled off a terrific conference. Rumor
was that there were many more attendees at this conference than in the
past, possibly due to the location and ease of getting there.
My husband and I drove down from
Minnesota, unfortunately, hitting a blinding snowstorm about 2 hours
outside of Kansas City. Luckily, I had driven the first five
hours, so it was Steve’s turn to take the reigns for the last two,
which turned into nearly four hours. The snowstorm did have an effect
on presenters and keynote speakers. As it moved east, there were
some that didn’t make it due to airports being closed and such.
One of those that didn’t make it was a
presenter for a session geared towards Special Needs personnel.
This at first was a disappointment, since there were only 4 sessions
relating to special needs. However, it freed me up to go to a
different session on School-Based Enterprise. This session taught
me how valuable starting a school run business is for students.
They learn a variety of aspects to starting up and maintaining a
successfully run business. The school that they focused on had a
business relying on quilting and sewing. Since I have no talent
in that area, my thoughts went to something a little easier that I
could actually teach my students. I had remembered a vendor that
I visited with at the conference. The vendor was demonstrating
how to make plaques, bumper stickers, school decals, and other such
things. I immediately thought what a fabulous business that my
students could reap success. The school store doesn’t sell decals
or bumper stickers. And the school gives out plaques for student
awards. We could definitely assist with making those and probably
sell them at a lesser cost than what they pay now. I couldn’t
wait to get back to Minnesota and investigate this option further!
Before traveling back to Minnesota, I was
able to enjoy the (ACTE) President’s reception, meet people from all
over the U.S., and see what other states were doing in the area of
Career and Technical Education. I would definitely recommend
attending the ACTE conference to anyone who may be thinking about it,
as it was a nice event to rejuvenate oneself and get excited about the
advances in Career and Technical Education. I definitely will go to
Atlanta for the 2006 ACTE conference.
Submitted by:
Karen Aalund
Moundsview Schools
Transition Plus Services is Moving Up in
the World
Printed from
White Bear Lake
Town Life
November/December
2005
 The educational.
Program for young people with mild to moderate disabilities was
formerly housed in three classrooms within White Bear Lake Area School
District’s Golfview-ALC Building (on Orchard Lane).
The program recently made a nice transition of its own by moving into a
professional, modern complex of offices, classrooms, computer labs,
kitchen and lunchroom within White Bear Shopping Center (on Lake Ave).
Transition Plus Services is part of the Independent School District
No. 624 Special Services Department. 15 employees run the
program: a nurse, a social worker, paraprofessionals, professionals and
three van/school bus drivers.
Coordinator Dean Shawbold created the program in 1999 as a way to help
students with disabilities lead more rewarding lives.
Forty-four students, ages 18-21, are currently enrolled. All have
an Individual Educational Plan (IEP) to help them learn life skills for
independent living.
On one recent morning, students sat comfortably at computers while
surrounded by beautiful artwork, modern furniture and friendly staff.
“We are trying to provide students with a smooth transition from school
to community living,” said Shawbold. “We’re always seeking a
variety of entry level e employment opportunities for our students.”
Program coaches work with students, or interns, during their job
training at no charge to employers. The interns are paid through
donations from the community.
“It’s a win win situation for everyone,” said Shawbold. “Students
learn job skills with the help of a coach and businesses get
hard-working, dedicated employees being trained for free.”
A typical day at Transition Plus Services includes a morning seminar
and advisor meeting followed by half of the students traveling to
Secondary Technical College 916/Century College to learn food service,
auto dismantling or other factory/productions skills while the other
half of the students participate in a community outing.
 Roger Chlebecek,
Secondary Transition Work Coordinator, helps younger students with
disabilities in 8th to 12th grade. “I primarily work in the
middle and high schools trying to make students as employable as
possible,” he said. “All of the things we take for granted-they
can’t do. Networking with other students and teaching them how to
have a social life are other important parts of our job.”
Transition Plus Services is seeking entry-level jobs, internship
sponsors, affordable housing and a newer van to transport
students. For more information, please call (651) 773-6051.
Submitted by:
Dean Shawbold
White Bear Lake Schools
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Announcements/Calendar
MnACTE/SNP 2005-2006 Board
Meetings:
Hennepin
Technical College, Brooklyn Park, MN, 12:30 p.m. in Room H195.
March 9, 2006
May 4, 2006.
MACTA/MnACTE Winter Conference:
February 15 - 16, 2006 Water Street Inn, Stillwater, MN
ACTE Region III Leadership
Conference:
June 21-23, 2006, Radisson Hotel, LaCrosse
ACTE National Convention:
November 30 - Dec. 2, 2006. Georgia World Congress Center, Atlanta,
Georgia
ACTE Convention
Gates Foundation Key Note
Speaker
Tom Vander Ark, the executive director for the Bill &
Melinda Gates Foundation’s education initiatives, opened Friday’s
session with his perspective on education. Vander Ark, a former public
school superintendent in Washington state, is responsible for the
development and administration of the foundation’s education grant and
scholarship programs. Through commitments totaling more the $1.3
billion, the foundation supports the creation of strong new schools and
the transformation of large impersonal schools into smaller learning
environments designed to give all students a rigorous, personalized
education. In addition, over $1 billion has been committed to help
reduce financial barriers for higher education for talented, low-income
students.
Vander Ark said the Gates Foundation identifies the 3 Rs of education,
not as reading, ‘riting and ‘rithmetic, but rigor, relevance and
relationships. “Career and technical education is the embodiment
of the 3 Rs”, he said. When students have an understanding of why
they need to know something, combined with a good adult support system,
they are more willing and better able to tackle a rigorous
curriculum. In addition he acknowledged that CTE motivates
achievement, encourages perseverance, promotes good attendance and
improves preparation.
He encouraged us to:
•capture and scale up the best of CTE by identifying our best practices
• learn from others—the corporate world, private non-profit enterprises
and the military
• prepare more young people to be business owners and entrepreneurs
• strengthen Tech Prep and things like dual enrollment to increase
access to certificate programs
• make sure every urban area has at least one good STEM school
available to students (applied learning incorporating science,
technology, engineering and math)
He closed, saying there needs to be a new kind of school—one that helps
every American kid graduate with great life options.
Submitted by:
Lezlie Ingvalson
Richfield Schools
2005 National ACTE Convention
This year the National ACTE Convention, December 8-10, 2005,
had some unforeseen events that created some changes, the larger being
Hurricane Katrina. This lead to having to find a new location,
New Orleans was no longer able to host the convention. Kansas
City, MO stepped up to the plate, and with lots of work in scheduling,
ACTE was able to offer basically the convention as planned. One
major last minute event that created problems was that on the day most
people were arriving Kansas City was hit with 8 plus inches of wet snow
and then cold weather, they are not accustom to that type of
weather. Minnesota was warmer during that time then Kansas City
was, and I think that one night they set a new record low for the
day. The snow caused delays for people getting to the convention
center and a number of people were unable to attend due to the weather,
Saturday’s keynote speaker was unable to fly-in as the storm hit the
East Coast. Oh, how the people missed the New Orleans
temperatures.
Even with the poor weather, there were over 4,500 who attended ACTE’s
Annual Convention. The focus was on “Change” and how career and
technical education must continue to change in order to continue
providing our students the academic, technical, and soft skills to meet
the needs of the workplace in the 21st Century. With today’s
workers changing job more often than before, 15 times during the next
50 years, they will need to be able to learn, unlearn, and relearn
skills so that they will be able to adapt to the changes in the
workplace, according to Beto Gonzalez, acting assistant secretary for
the Office of Vocational and Adult Education. Also at the Opening
General Session was cultural anthropologist, Jennifer James who said
that we live in a culture where we do not value our children’s
education, we are the only western society that does not support its
education. She continued with we talk a lot about it, but lack
the commitment; this is a huge challenge facing the United States
educationally. Ms James outlined four adaptive strategies of
change to impact our awareness of the cultural knowledge and
intelligence in order for it to begin to change. Other speakers
and presenters continued along the lines of how career and technical
education is changing and meeting the demands of rigger, relevance, and
relationship/support for the students.
During Thursday I attended sessions dealing with how to show the value
of CTE through research and data when showing legislators and education
officials how CTE students are successful in both academics and
careers. Following that session was one on Perkins and other
legislation currently before Congress, including NCLB which will expire
in 2007 and reauthorizing beginning in 2006. I emailed material
on the status, and will continue as more develops. Also, during
the day I was able to spend some time checking out nearly 250 exhibitor
booths that were displaying the latest career and technical products,
as before there was not enough time to adequately cover them all during
the conference.
Friday was spent in special needs meetings in the morning, followed by
the Stare Association Luncheon and training session on the duties and
responsibilities of serving on a Board of Directors of an association
from ACTE’s legal advisor Paula Cozzi Goedert, Jenner &
Block. The rest of the afternoon was attending the Town
Meeting where the theme of changed continued with three main topics
being presented and then opened up for discussion. The first
dealt with the future changes in our high school, a draft of
“Strengthening a New Vision for the American High School through the
Experiences and Resources of Career and Technical Education” that is
under consideration by the ACTE Board of Directors was presented with
rationale by Hans Meeder, Executive Vice President of Visions
Unlimited, Inc. and former Deputy Assistant Secretary for Education in
the U.S. Department of Education OVAE. January 26th,
ACTE released its position statement on high school reform,
“Reinventing the American High School for the 21st Century,” outlining
the organization’s vision on what high schools should be and how CTE
can contribute to reform and redesign efforts. See article. The
second topic discussed was the changes to ACTE’s organization.
Last year a committee was formed to relook at the reorganization of
ACTE and report to this year’s Assembly of Delegates. This will be
followed by input during the spring of 2006, with the proposed
reorganization presented at ACTE’s Board of Directors summer meeting
and a vote at the 2006 ACTE Convention. The third topic was the
By-laws Committee presented the changes being proposed and their
rationale; this is my second year on that committee, and we’ll being
looking at the reorganization proposal and writing proposed by-laws to
match those changes this spring. That evening was Minnesota’s
Night Out, about 35 attendees gathered at The Golden Ox for excellent
food and the opportunity to network.
During Friday’s Opening Session was the presentation of awards to the
national ACTE award winners. ACTE Region III forwarded four
nominees on to the national, of those two were from Minnesota; Ginny
Karbowski for the 2006 ACTE Outstanding Career and Technical Educator,
and Betsy Jensen for the 2006 ACTE Outstanding New Career and Technical
Teacher. Betsy Jensen was selected as the national award
winner. Congratulations to both Betsy and Ginny for representing
Minnesota, and all of us involved with CTE, so well.
Saturday morning I attended the Region III Business Meeting after the
opening session, receiving information from the various ACTE committees
from Region III’s representative as well as what is happening in the
Region. ACTE Region III Leadership Conference is June 21-23, 2006
in LaCrosse, Wisconsin. At noon was another business luncheon
followed by two general sessions dealing with career stages and
articulation. The last big event on Saturday was the Assembly of
Delegates. During that time we learned how ACTE is doing and what
it is planning for the future. We heard from the Reorganization
Committee its report, and listened to the two candidates running for
President-elect. Minnesota can be proud with Dan Smith as one of
the two candidates, ACTE members remember to vote. We looked at two
Resolutions, one dealing with continued funding and support for Perkins
legislation and the other with appreciation to Kansas City for stepping
forward in hosting the 2005 ACTE Convention, both were approved.
Finally, we voted on three changes made to the By-laws; the first was
regarding the section on membership, some discussion and also
amendments were proposed, but it passed as presented. The other
two were presented, voted on and approved with very little discussion;
one was the change of the division name for Health Occupations to
“Health Science Technology Education”, and the second change was in the
minimum number of members to maintain divisional status, was 1,200 now
“1,000. This change is important to the Special Needs Division in
that our numbers are below the 1,000 mark and thus affects are
status. Please Consider Joining ACTE, this is our voice at the
National level for the students we work with regarding legislation and
its impact.
This year ACTE has launched their new online “Communities of Practice”
where groups of similar interests can interact with others for
networking and sharing information, plus other benefits. We
learned that ACTE has over 30,000 professional members as of October
31, 2005. Once again, I found that attending this convention is
well worth the time and energy; I encourage you to try and attend next
year’s convention in Atlanta, George. If you want more
information about ACTE, some of the information in this article, or
joining ACTE; visit their website at:
www.acteonline.org.
Submitted by:
Robert W. Lindgren
Park Rapids Schools
ACTE
Releases High School Reform Position Statement
Reprinted From
ACTE NEWS
January 26, 2006
In light of the
current and future challenges facing the nation’s
youth, high school redesign and reform has become a rising issue of
importance, capturing national attention. Today, ACTE released
its position statement on high school reform, “Reinventing the American
High School for the 21st Century,” outlining the organization’s vision
on what high schools should be and how career and technical education
(CTE) can contribute to reform and redesign efforts.
ACTE advocates for clearly focusing American high schools on the new
purpose of preparing every student for full participation in a spectrum
of postsecondary education opportunities, meaningful work, career
advancement, and active citizenship. In the position statement,
ACTE promotes a number of CTE strengths and resources that will help
improve the nation’s high schools and help prepare students for
postsecondary education and the 21st century workforce.
The Association suggests a three-fold purpose of CTE at the secondary
level. ACTE believes CTE should support students in the
acquisition of rigorous core knowledge, skills, habits and attitudes
needed for success in postsecondary education and the high-skilled
workplace; engage students in specific career-related learning
experiences that equip them to make well-informed decisions about
further education and training and employment opportunities; and
prepare students who may choose to enter the workforce directly after
high school with a level of skills and knowledge in a particular career
area that will be valued in the marketplace.
The paper outlines nine recommendations for reinventing the nation’s
high schools for the 21st century. The recommendations are:
- Establish a
clear system goal of career and
college readiness for all students
- Create a
positive school culture that stresses
personalization in planning and decision making
- Create a
positive school culture that stresses
personalization in relationships
- Dramatically
improve how and where academic
contest is taught
- Create
incentives for students to pursue the core
curriculum in an interest-based context
- Support high
quality teaching in all content areas
- Offer flexible
learning opportunities to encourage
re-entry and completion
- Create system
incentives and supports for
connection of CTE and high school redesign efforts
- Move beyond
“seat-time” and narrowly defined
knowledge and skill
Each of the
recommendations includes suggested local, state, and
national responses, as well as examples of promising practices.
ACTE president,
Connie Smithson states, “ACTE is publishing this paper
because it recognizes that a new working model for the American high
school is long overdue. The new model can’t be created just to
fix the problems of the past. It must be created with the future
in mind, and be designed around preparing students to succeed in the
21st century economy.”
For more information about ACTE’s position statement or to download the
paper or an executive summary, visit the ACTE web site at
http://www.acteonline.org/policy/legislative_issues/high_school_reform.cfm.
Additional materials to help you use this position statement to promote
CTE’s involvement in high school reform in your state and community,
including tools for working with the media, are also available, and the
entire audio transcript of the media briefing announcing the paper will
be posted here within 48 hours.
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