Fitzsimmons was simply a riot. Not only did he talk about humorous headlines from his paper, but he wove through his presentation the value of education and the work that educators do. Fitzsimmons said that during his woodshop class he “had an unhealthy focus on perfectionism and drafting tools.” That, through various twists and turns, lead him to cartooning. 

“I love politics,” said Fitzsimmons, as he broke down the word into “poli,” meaning many and “tics,” meaning bloodsucking leeches. He also said that the CTE community suffers from “acronymania,” an amazing number of acronyms that nobody can possibly keep straight.

Throughout his presentation, Fitzsimmons brought members of the audience up to the stage and proceeded to do caricatures of them. One of the best was of NCLA Executive Director Tom Applegate. 

Fitzsimmons wrapped up his hour-long presentation by reminding educators to “have a healthy sense of humor because you are essential.” I think attendees really enjoyed this presentation and it was a great way to finish up the conference on an enjoyable note.

Those of us who decided to take advantage of the tours were treated to another great experience. I went with about a dozen other educators to the Cord Blood Registry. This is the largest umbilical cord blood storage facility, with about 250,000 samples.

Basically what happens here is that people send the blood from umbilical cords to this facility, which separates the stem cells from the plasma and red blood cells and then stores the stem cells. These cells can then be used to potentially help the child or possibly other family members with certain diseases. In fact more than 70 diseases are treated with cord blood right now, according to our tour director.

The big issue with this facility and CTE is that the facility needs technicians to process the blood samples and maintain the facility, which has the potential to store millions of samples. As more and more families decide to save the cord blood this facility and others like it will need a workforce with a biotechnology background–another opportunity for CTE students.

Following the tour, the conference was over. I can’t wait to hear what everyone has to say in the evaluations–I only heard good things!

Thanks for reading and see you next year in Austin for the 2009 ACTE/NCLA Best Practices Conference.

In the meantime, here is what I learned:

* I sat in on the TUSD Biotechnology Leadership Innovation Project session to hear about how they started the biotech program. It basically consists of four components: Classroom Integration; Lab Integration; Work-based Learning; and CTSO. I am always impressed by how CTE programs really think about what they are doing and how it will benefit students, the community and the economy. In this program, it includes field trips, which according to presenter David Fuller, “gave the students the real-world view so they could see what they were learning in the classroom had value.” It also has a job shadowing component and the one piece of advice Fuller had for job shadows in biotech is to allow the students to do it in pairs. Finally, it has summer internships. The biggest addition, however, was the use of HOSA and the HOSA competitions. Fuller said it really gave focus to his students who participated. In fact, he had a student that won the state competition and went on to nationals. Here’s a short video on what the Opening General Session at HOSA looked like this year.

* I also popped over to hear about an eighth to ninth grade transition program from Peoria High School. This program began because the school was seeing 31% discipline referrals for freshman and 57% of freshmen had 10 or more absences. The first step was to get the key people from the feeder schools together to have a frank discussion about the issues they are having with the incoming freshman and to get the schools’ and students’ perceptions of high school. Based on that information, the high school developed a new program by which the head guidance counselor visits each school and they bring the students to the high school for them to get a “sample” day, called “Panther Previews.” The school also set up a mentoring program. The results? Discipline referrals dropped to 19% and only 23% of freshmen had 10 or more absences. If you want more info, call the school at 623-486-6300. The principal is Kayla Carter, the assistant principals are Monique Molina and Philip Camacho.

* Lastly I sat in on a session about connecting with your counselors. This was a program from Walton County Schools in Georgia. They wanted a way to connect the counselors to the CTE programs. What they did was institute:

Counselors in the Classroom–Counselors come in and visit CTE classrooms to see what goes on.
Curriculum Workshop for Counselors–Gives updates on what is happening in CTE classrooms and how these programs can benefit students.
K-12 Career Development Notebook–This is a notebook for counselors that is full of information on the CTE programs and a calendar of events.

The result was that counselors were excited to learn about the various CTE programs, to see students work, and they gained confidence when telling students and parents about CTE programs. If you want to learn more about this exciting program, e-mail presenters Marci Campbell (mcampbell@walton.k12.ga.us) or Karen Rutter (krutter@walton.k12.ga.us).  

If you are curious about her program, you can contact her:

Mary Anne Berens
623-256-5491
mberens@peoriaud.k12.az.us

The other session I sat in on was by Debbie Langenbach from Raymond Kellis High School and her culinary program. Debbie was kind enough to give me a quick rundown of the program and to give me a couple of very tasty chocolate chip cookies. Debbie was nice enough to give me an interview. Take a listen:roundtable1 If you want to contact Debbie you can:

Debbie Langenbach
623-412-5425
dlangenbach@peoriaud.k12.az.us