Expanding Career and Technical Education

Iowa high schools are required to offer specific courses, deliver content in a diverse array of disciplines, and employ people with certain credentials in order to be an accredited public high school. Known as the Chapter 12 accreditation standards, in some small schools they can be a tough hill to climb when there aren't enough students to justify a particular position; and become even more so in a tough labor market. Yet, one area that is a challenge for larger school districts as well as smaller school districts is in the area of career and technical education (CTE).

In this branch of secondary education, high schools must offer and teach in a minimum of four career areas, with complete 'strands' or programs of study in each strand. In Hudson, those four strands are Family and Consumer Science, Industrial Technology, Agriculture, and Business. Our specific challenge has been attracting and retaining quality employees in these areas. Why? Well largely because some of these positions have not been full time teaching positions. In fact up until this school year the four components of our CTE program have been served by 3.25 teachers. We didn't have enough students to fill out a full schedule so it has been difficult to justify a full time teacher. So we resorted to part time positions and sharing some positions with other school districts.

The side effect of this strategy is constant turnover with no ability to build a program that students want to invest their time in, especially if they can expect a new teacher to come along in a year with a philosophy and skill set that is different than the last teacher. The problem becomes even more challenging when the labor pool is not deep to begin with, which was the dilemma we were faced with when our Family and Consumer Science teacher moved on to another district after the end of last year. Who could blame her? The position she was filling for us was shared with a neighboring school district, where half the day was spent in Hudson and the other half at our neighboring district. Now, if there were a deep bench of teachers with this credential, we would have been able to call someone up and keep on moving. But the fact that there isn't even a bench to begin with makes the issue all the more challenging. Plus, it makes shared positions between two school districts not all that attractive. 

Even though our previous teacher resigned early enough for us to get to the market, it wasn't fast enough. The talent pipeline for the 2021-2022 school year had exactly 4 teachers in it. The market demanded 26. We very quickly found ourselves a day late and a dollar short. Luckily we were able to coax a former instructor out of retirement to serve in an interim part-time capacity this school year.

That, coupled with a renewed emphasis on the governor's Future Ready Iowa initiative provided a jumping off point for some bold decisions in our career and technical education program. First, we have gone to the market and secured a full time Family and Consumer Science teacher for next year. This preservice teacher is finishing their preparation program right now and is very eager to join our faculty. We anticipate our FCS program next year to focus on industry standards spanning a broad spectrum of careers that students will be excited to explore and experience.

Beginning this school year we have also expanded opportunities for students to engage in real world career exploration by participating in job shadowing experiences that can lead to both internships and apprenticeships. Students participating in the 'Career Exploration Opportunity' course have the chance to develop employability skills, learn more about a career that interests them, and create a training pathway to that career. While this course of study is credit bearing, we anticipate some of these experiences will eventually yield a paycheck for this next generation of our workforce. 

Finally, we are in the very beginning stages of developing a computer science curriculum that when fully developed will provide even more opportunities for our students to explore a rewarding career that truly embodies Future Ready Iowa. All of this means that next year will be the first time in well over a decade where the district will employ four full time career and technical education teachers. We are able to make these strategic investments in our students because of growing enrollment, a strong financial position, and a school board that sees the value of ensuring our students are prepared for the next phase of their lives when they leave our campus: be that college or career ready!