2016-17 CTE Incentive Grant - SMUHSD Approved Application Overview SMUHSD has been allocated $1,133,057.00 from the California Department of Education to support and develop highly qualified career technical education programs in the district through the end of the 2016-17 academic year..california will award additional funds for CTE programs in the state for 2017-18 and 2018-19 academic years. This year s funds (matched by district resources of over $1.5 million) will be used to staff one period of advanced woodworking, one period of advanced manufacturing, and one period of advanced computer science at each of the six comprehensive high schools (8 0.2 FTE). Equipment and computers, texts, and supplies for these classes are included in the budget, along with the salary of an additional classified employee to provide computer and technical assistance for CTE programs across the district. Additional funds will be used to teach 3 advanced CTE courses after school to make CTE programs available to students from other sites (3 0.2 FTE). Funds are also allocated to support new courses in the Health Science and Business and Finance sectors. The number of new FTE certificated positions supported by this grant will be 3.2. Additionally, the resources will be used to support professional development for teachers to create, update, and revise curriculum to reflect changing industry standards and prepare students for industry-recognized certification and to align course content with community college programs so students college credit through dual enrollment or course articulation. To help students develop personalized career plans, CTE Incentive Grant money will be used to support part-time classified employees at each of the comprehensive high schools to coordinate career guidance and course planning for 9 th and 10 th grade students (6 0.5 FTE) using Naviance and other career assessment tools. SMUHSD students will also have the opportunity to participate in more Career Technical Student Organizations, with co-curricular activities aligned to current or new program content through funds for two additional CTSO advisors and CTSO registration and conference costs, bringing the total number of CTSOs in the district to four. In an effort to ensure that teachers in our programs are highly qualified, money is allocated to provide CTE teacher externships in their industry and pathway sectors so that teachers can document that they have meaningful recent industry experience. The CTE Incentive grant will also support efforts to expand and strengthen our CTE Industry Advisory committee and to promote collaboration with other CTE programs in the county. A small portion of the funds will be used to identify post-secondary choices made by students who complete our CTE programs and to monitor other data related to this grant. Remaining funds, of approximately $42,000, have been allocated to update and replace equipment in current programs that meet the highly qualified standards defined by the state in the CTE Incentive Grant application and those district programs that are being updated and revised to ensure they will meet the standard by the end of the 3 ½ year grant period. What follows is the actual grant application that was approved by the CDE and State Board of Education in March. SMUHSD CTE Incentive Grant Application
1. Does the applicant provide a coherent sequence of CTE courses that enable pupils to transition to postsecondary education programs that lead to a career pathway or attain employment upon graduation from high school? The San Mateo Union High School District currently offers CTE classes in 7 different Industry Sectors, providing two year programs of study in pathways ranging from Graphic Design/Photography, Game Design, Video Production and Animation, Child Development, Culinary Arts, Engineering and Architectural Design, and Biotechnology. The curriculum in these courses has been updated to incorporate the 2013 CTE standards as well as addressing literacy, mathematics, and career readiness standards in the California Common Core Standards. Some of these funds will be used to further develop strategies to teach mathematics related to each sector as well as to work on curriculum that prepares students to test for industry certification. Most of the CTE programs in the district articulate to programs at the local community college where students can obtain related post-secondary education; students in the culinary arts programs often attain employment using the skills acquired in district classrooms, Additional CTE Incentive funds will be used to realign some course sequences to more effectively prepare students for specific high wage, high skill employment in the San Francisco Bay Area include Health Science, Information and Communication Technologies and Business and Finance. We also offer CTE courses in Information Technology introduce students to that industry sector but these are currently one year programs. CTE Incentive Grant funds will be used to develop and support second year computer programming courses that will prepare students for certification in specific programming languages. Funds will also be used to offer an advanced woodworking course that integrates CAD/CAM/CNC skills into the woodworking course through the introduction of CNC-operated routers in the second year course, skills that are transferable to work in 3D digital design. 2. Does the applicant provide pupils with quality career exploration and guidance? SMUHSD currently provides career exploration opportunities through career days, an annual college fair, self-exploration activities through Naviance and other online career research tools. Each high school campus also has a college and career center where students can get career guidance as well as assistance with college planning and scholarship applications. Funds from the grant will be used to provide more direct student services for career planning including 1-1 counseling that works with 9th and 10th grade students to align high school classes to the student s career map.
3. Does the applicant provide pupil support services, including counseling and leadership development? Currently, our culinary arts and child development programs participate in FHA-HERO, with many regional and California state officers coming from SMUHSD chapters. Other programs offer leadership opportunities through campus-based activities and internships. Some of the money from this grant will be used to expand the number of CTSOs in the district by supporting new chapters for the visual arts programs in Skills USA as well as other appropriate CTSOs and competitions for students in programs developed with these funds.. Additionally, funds from this grant will be used to provide stipends to the CTSO advisors. As noted in Requirement #2, while SMUHSD currently offers career counseling to students, these funds will allow the district to provide direct student services to 9th and 10th grade students so they can make academic and post-secondary choices that effectively address their interests and talents. 4. Does the applicant provide for system alignment, coherence, and articulation, including ongoing and structural regional or local partnerships with postsecondary educational institutions, documented through formal written agreements? SMUHSD programs in our culinary arts, architectural design, video production and child development pathways articulate to courses at local community colleges; CTEIG will be used to modify curriculum in other industry sectors to align it with community college courses so that either articulation agreements or dual credit opportunities may be developed 5. Does the applicant have ongoing and structural industry and labor partnerships, documented through formal written agreements and through participation on advisory committees?. We have industry partners from most of the industry sectors in our area. Funds from the grant will support time to recruit advisors from both the healthcare industry and information technology sector as well as time to work on the efforts to build a countywide industry advisory group, developed jointly with neighboring districts and the San Mateo County Office of Education. 6. Requirement (6) Does the applicant provide opportunities for pupils to participate in after school, extended day, and out-of-school internships, competitions, and other work-based learning opportunities? Students who have completed the first two years of study in our Biotechnology program can take the Independent Research class which allows students the time to develop stronger clinical testing and analysis skills in an after school course available to all students in the district. The Biotechnology program also has a summer internship program which creates opportunities for students to work in biotechnology facilities in the area and hone their lab techniques. Additionally, our community colleges work with our CTE teachers to offer summer camps related
to SMUHSD CTE programs.students in some SMUHSD CTE classes also participate in FHA- HERO (FCCLA) events while others take part in First Robotics; students in digital imaging classes have also entered a variety of competitions that recognize their skills and efforts behind the camera. We will use these funds to support after school programs that allow students to acquire a deeper understanding of other industry sectors through competitions and courses offered after the traditional school day that teach more advanced skills in their respective industries. Additionally, an advanced computer programming class will be offered as an after school course. And, as mentioned in Requirement #3, we will use money from the CTE Incentive Grant to develop additional CTSOs. 7. Does the applicant s pathway(s) reflect regional or local labor market demands and focus on current or emerging high-skill, high-wage, or high-demand occupations? While our current CTE programs train students for a variety of jobs in our region including the hospitality sector which is a major employer in San Mateo County, our current CTE programs do not prepare students to work in other key industry sectors such as business and finance and medical care. Funding from this grant will allow for the development of new programs in the public and community health and business industry sectors. The grant funds will also be used to expand the offerings in our computer science pathway and to revise the course sequence and curriculum in our engineering technology pathway to teach 3-D design and production using 3D printers. 8. Does the applicant s pathway(s) reflect regional or local labor market demands and focus on current or emerging high-skill, high-wage, or high-demand occupations? As mentioned in Requirement #4, many of our programs articulate to courses and pathways at our local community colleges. In our culinary classes, students take the tests for a food handlers permit and prepare for the basic ServSafe test for the restaurant industry. Teachers in our digital photography classes are currently working to create curriculum that prepares advanced students to take the Adobe Photoshop certification test. With this grant money, we will work to develop curriculum in the Video Production classes that will prepare students for the Adobe Premiere certification test. The funding will also support training for Culinary Arts teachers to design curriculum that will prepare students for advanced ServSafe certifications in Allergens and Restaurant Management. A focus of the curriculum developed for the business and financial pathway will be certification as a Microsoft Office Specialist and the word processing, spreadsheet creation, and presentation design skills that are essential to the business planning and promotion. 9. Is the applicant s pathway(s) staffed by skilled teachers or faculty and provides professional development opportunities for those teachers and faculty? Most of the CTE teachers in the SMUHSD district are highly-skilled instructors who have documented recent industry experience or have done externships with local employers in their
industry sector to acquire the current skills used in their industry sector. The funds from this grant will be used to make externship opportunities available to those teachers who can not demonstrate recent industry experience; especially the math teachers who have stepped up to develop our information technology pathway. The money will also be used to hire an individual with recent experience in the community and public health pathway and support their efforts to get a CTE credential in that industry sector so that we can build strong, sustainable programs in that pathway of the healthcare sector in our district. 10. Does the applicant report data, as a program participation requirement, to allow for an evaluation of the program and does the applicant have plans in place to meet the data reporting requirements outlined as part of this grant criteria? We regularly supply this data to the state in our annual Perkins report. To ensure the quality of the data reported, we will hire an individual to verify the data we receive from the schools for the Perkins E-2 Report through additional personal communication with the students and to track more carefully how CTE students use their CTE program experience to make career and postsecondary education choices. 11. Does the applicant promote the CTE programs through outreach, marketing, and communications? CTE teachers throughout the district promote their courses through elective fairs, at back to school nights, and through signs and posters around campus that promote specific CTE promotions. They also work to ensure counselors understand the ways that CTE courses promote student success, and highlight the many opportunities that SMUHSD students have had because of their participation in CTSOs.