CTE instructors become authorized trainers for OSHA

The Maine Department of Education Career and Technical Education (CTE) team helped provide CTE instructors with Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) professional development, which gives instructors the ability to issue OSHA cards to CTE students.

Over the course of eight workshop days in February and April, instructors traveled from around the state to participate in OSHA training. All attending CTE instructors completed and passed both courses, granting them the OSHA status of “Authorized Trainers.” These instructors are now able to provide OSHA training to CTE students in their classrooms, centers and regions. This newly trained cohort of instructors self-reported that over the next school year, they will train approximately 408 students and will issue either OSHA 10- or 30-hour cards in their CTE programs.

The potential cost savings of this authorized trainers program is considerable. The OSHA card-processing fee per student, per card is only $5. To issue cards to the 408 self-reported students will cost Maine schools $2,035. If all 408 students are eventually employed by businesses that require OSHA cards, and those business were to pay wages and the cost of the training, the same students could cost the industry between about $169,000 and $385,000.

This training was made possible in part by Maine Bureau of Labor Standards SafetyWorks, CTE centers/regions around Maine and Region 1 OSHA Training Institute Education Center. Each partner in the OSHA group provided the following assistance: Maine SafetyWorks taught three days, OSHA Region 1 Training Center discounted the training, selected CTE centers provided free training rooms/refreshments and the Department’s CTE team paid for cost of the courses so instructors could attend the classes for free. Without these sponsorships, the total retail cost would have been over $30,000.

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