New Programs at TECO Serve Adults With Disabilities

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1 October 2010 Volume 3, Issue 1 Career & Technical Education ~ 817 Bill Beck Blvd., Kiss., FL New Programs at TECO Serve Adults With Disabilities Four new programs are now being offered in the evening at TECO to Adults with Special Needs. The Career and Skills Enrichment (C.A.S.E) Program trains these students in the areas of Culinary Arts, Automotive Technology, Pet Grooming and Commercial Sewing Services. The programs are 300 to 400 hours in length and focus on job skill development and integrating basic Reading, Math and Writing skills. The Culinary students are trained to become Prep Chefs. A buffet is available in the culinary dining room where the students have prepared the food. Students in the Automotive area are trained in Auto Detailing and Basic Auto Maintenance. The Pet Grooming program offers instruction in pet handling, bathing, shearing, ear cleansing and nail clipping. All of the programs are open to serving the community through services provided during the training experience. A nominal fee is charged depending on the service provided to replenish program materials and supplies. Inside this issue HRHS Vet Program to the Rescue... 2 STEM Educators to NASA... 2 CTE is Growing... 3 College Credits Earned... 3 CTE Racing to the Top... 4 Final Cut Pro Certified... 4 Kulinary Heroes Opens... 5 VPSC Summer Summit... 5 Career Academies... 6 The Commercial Sewing class will begin in October and students will be trained in alterations, completing simple garments, using a sewing machine, and an embroidery machine. Vocational Rehabilitation sponsors many of the students, providing tuition support and job placement services upon successful program completion The greatest injustice we can do - is to do nothing.

2 Spotlight on CTE Harmony High School Vet Program Helps Rescue Organizations, Seniors and Low Income Families A partnership between the Veterinary Assisting Program at Harmony High School and the Pawsitive Action Foundation provides low cost veterinary care for pets; providing a way to decrease our pet population and provide a much needed service to pet rescue organizations, senior citizens, and persons of low income. Pawsitive Action Foundation, Inc. has contracted the services of Dr. Lee Godman, DVM and Dr. Matt Walter, DVM to provide low cost services for the animals using the Harmony Veterinary Assisting Program's clinic and operating room at Harmony High School each Thursday. Harmony Veterinary Technical program students serve as assistants to the doctors and technicians, from pre-op checkup to post-op recovery. Students are able to observe during the operations and ask questions of the doctors. Also, the students are given hands-on training from experienced veterinary technicians. This unique partnership brings the veterinary office into the classroom and provides unprecedented access to veterinary care procedures for students on a regular basis helping the community by providing low cost, quality animal care and providing realworld educational opportunities for the students. The services are also available to the staff of the Harmony schools for a slightly elevated fee. The additional fee goes directly to the vet-tech program. Furthermore, this unique relationship allows the school system to have access to the veterinary program without having to fund the salaries of the veterinarians or their staff. More information can be obtained from the organizations web site: STEM Educator Workshop at Kennedy Space Center A group of 45 Career and Technical educators will participate in an exciting STEM related workshop at the NASA Educator Resource Center on October 22. The purpose of the NASA Educator Resource Center is to help teachers learn about and use NASA's educational resources. The participants will see demonstrations of educational technologies such as NASA educational Web sites and NASA Television. SCHS Excels at FCCLA National Leadership Conference FCCLA (Family Career and Community Leaders of America) is a national student organization endorsed by the U.S. Department of Education and the Association for Career and Technical Education. FCCLA promotes personal growth and leadership development through Family and Consumer Sciences education. The FCCLA National Leadership Conference, held July 4-8, 2010, in Chicago, provided students with workshops designed to enhance leadership skills and build positive character. There are dozens of competitive events that test students knowledge and ability in the Family and Consumer Sciences fields. Congratulations to the following participants in this national event: Gold Medals: Chapter Showcase Nicole Roeseler and Samantha Farmer Illustrated Talk on Teen Dating Violence Nova Pena and Tihler Browning Life Event Planning for College Rachel Smith and Sarah Mannix Silver Medals: National Programs in Action Traffic Safety Angelina DiFede and Millie Todd

3 CTE Department is Growing To better serve our programs, teachers and community the CTE department is re-structuring staff assignments and adding some new faces. With the growth of the STEM movement across the nation we have added a resource teacher position dedicated to STEM, Science, Technology Engineering and Mathematics, based programs. The STEM resource teacher position is currently being advertised and will be filled soon. Another projected growth area for our community is Hospitality and Marketing. The current state of our economy will certainly turn around and tourism will once again be the main-stay of our area. To be prepared for this we have added a resource teacher position dedicated to expanding and serving Hospitality and Marketing programs. Melissa Gurkins, marketing teacher at Zenith Career Center has been hired to tackle this role for our CTE department. Melissa comes to the department with vast experience as a marketing teacher and former owner of a restaurant. We are all looking forward to Melissa s expertise and leadership as the Marketing and Hospitality Resource Teacher. Another new member of the CTE Team comes to us from Liberty High School, Jim Zito will be filling Jeff Johnson s position as the Business and Information Technology Resource Teacher. Jim will be responsible for all of our business and IT programs as well as managing the Certiport Industry Certification system and implementing the introduction of CTE program servers in our high schools. Jim has a wealth of experience in computer networks, software operations and IT topics and will help us continue to move forward in these important technical areas. Long-time CTE Team Member Jeannie Renick has taken on the task of managing the development of Scope and Sequencing Guides and Semester and Final Exams for ALL our CTE programs. These are major pieces of the broader effort to coordinate our program content across the district and to further support student mastery of academic concepts and technical skills. Jeannie will be organizing content teams of teachers to develop the exams and sequencing guides. All products from the teams will be field tested by our teachers prior to final distribution College Credits Earned by Career Pathway Students During the school year, 2,597 college credits valued at $238,224 were earned by Career Pathway students enrolled in Career and Technical Education courses. High Schools... Total Credits... Total Value Celebration $13,760 Gateway $63,661 Harmony $18,805 Liberty $21,465 Osceola $47,791 PATHS $33,298 Poinciana $11,375 St. Cloud $9,907 Middle Schools... Total Credits... Total Value Denn John $3,119 Kissimmee $5,687 Narcoossee $3,853 Neptune $1,559 Parkway $3,944 TOTAL OSCEOLA COUNTY $238,224

4 CTE is Racing To The Top Florida has been awarded over $700 million dollars from federal Race to the Top (RTT) funds. A major component of RTT is career and technical education, career academies and STEM programs. Your CTE department is part of the district planning team working on a proposal to the State of Florida for RTT funds. RTT requires that all participants increase the number of career academies, career and technical programs and STEM programs over the four-year grant period. This funding opportunity comes at an opportune time for our programs in that we have been developing plans for new academies and STEM related programs for the past several years. The RTT effort will further enable CTE to grow in Osceola County. Construction Career Days The Florida Department of Transportation, Florida Transportation Builders Association, Federal Highway Administration in conjunction with the Orange, Osceola, Seminole, Volusia, Lake and Brevard County Schools will be hosting the Ninth Annual Central Florida Construction Career Days in Orlando on January 25-27, 2011 at the Central Florida Fairgrounds in Orlando. Our goal is to educate students on career opportunities in the transportation construction industry in Central Florida, an industry that is essential to improving the transportation methods that affect all of us. The participating schools will send students for approximately five hours of TV Production Teachers Certified in Apple Final Cut Pro During July, two of our high school TV Production Teachers attended a week-long training in Apple s Final Cut Pro, the software utilized in our district s TV and Digital Video Production labs. Ben Lowell, Osceola High School s TV Production teacher, and Meredith Muse, Liberty High School s TV Production teacher gained new knowledge of the digital video production software at this training and continued their study of the software during their time outside the workshop. As a result of their dedicated efforts, these two Osceola District teachers were the only workshop participants who successfully passed the Industry Certification Exam in Apple Final Cut Pro, available to participants at the end of the training. Congratulations to Ben Lowell, OCHS, and Meredith Muse, LBHS, for officially becoming Apple Certified Professionals in Final Cut Pro. We are proud of you and know your students will benefit from your knowledge and enthusiasm.

5 Kulinary Heroes Opens at Osceola High School The Culinary Design and Operations Academy at Osceola High School has initiated a new venture for its students. The Kulinary Heroes sub and sandwich shop opened at Amanda Richard s culinary classroom in early September. OCHS students and staff can place an order and leave a donation at the culinary classroom in the morning, and pick up a healthy lunch during their lunch time. Menu items include: Turkey-Bacon Panini Italian Sub Turkey or Ham Wrap Grilled Triple-Decker Cheese The Ultimate Hero. (Weighing in at ¾ of a pound) All sandwiches include a 100 calorie snack pack and a pickle spear. Sounds yummy and it s making me hungry just to read about it how about you? Kulinary Heroes lunches also include a small gift: a note with interesting facts about food or culinary topics. Ms. Richards calls it a little something to read while you eat. Students from the advanced Culinary classes prepare the food and operate Kulinary Heroes. Students learn about restaurant operation, menu preparation, food ordering and processing, and deli operations by participating in this new venture. Ms. Richard s classroom is a busy place during every period of culinary classes. Congratulations on the opening and success of Kulinary Heroes at the OHS Kowboy campus. PATHS & CTE Team Attends Summer Academy Conference In June, a team of Career Academy instructors from the Professional and Technical High School attended the VPSC (Voluntary Public School Choice) Summer Summit grant-funded Career Academy Conference in St. Petersburg, FL. The VPSC conference was planned by a coalition of nine west central Florida school districts, led by Polk County Schools. The purpose of the conference was to provide concentrated training and planning time to members of CAPE Career Academy Teams. The team members from PATHS are involved in developing Career Academies at their schools. After learning about FLDOE regulations and updates, academy cohort scheduling, academy benefits and standards of practice, and business partnerships, the PATHS team developed a plan of action for implementing two CAPE Career Academies at PATHS this school year: The Academy of Information Technology and the Academy of Automotive Service Technology. Osceola staff attending the Career Academy Conference were: Mark Hunt, CTE Director Sharon Lowen, CTE Academy/Internship Specialist Jeannie Renick, CTE Specialist Len Trushkowsky, PATHS IT Instructor Miguel Jimenez, PATHS IT Instructor Greg Hobbs, PATHS IT Instructor Ivelisse Resto, PATHS Business Instructor Karen Johnson, PATHS Business Instructor Tom Klem, PATHS Automotive Technology Instructor Cheryl Smith, PATHS Guidance Tim Harmon, PATHS Algebra Instructor

6 Career & Technical Education Career and Technical Education (CTE) Is offered in all 67 counties in Florida high schools and career academies. CTE encompasses scores of specialized career instruction within these broad categories: Agriscience Business Technology Education Diversified Education Family and Consumer Science Health Science Education Industrial Education Marketing Education Public Service Education Technology Education