Students and educators across Maine are joining those across the nation during the month of February to celebrate national Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month.
CTE Month provides CTE programs across the country an opportunity to demonstrate how CTE educates students to be college and career ready and prepares them for high-wage, high-demand career fields. This year’s theme is recognizing classroom innovators.
At 27 centers across Maine, CTE educators are engaging and exciting Maine students with relevant, hands-on learning experiences. Through rigorous, standards-based programming that always has the student and their post-secondary goals at the center, CTE is helping students develop the academic and technical skills they’ll need for success in the 21st century workforce.
Under the leadership of Governor LePage, the Maine DOE has worked to increase support for and access to CTE including enacting legislation requiring the adoption of calendars that are common between the CTE education center and high school to make bus schedules and class schedules work better for students pursuing CTE courses. The LePage Administration has also championed the innovative Bridge Year program, which allows students to earn post-secondary credit while still in high school and develop technical and life skills for success in college, careers and civic life. Last year, Maine DOE awarded $500,000 to expand Bridge Year to 12 CTE centers around the state and the Governor’s proposed biennial budget includes an additional $2 million to further expand the program. Another $3 million is proposed to help Maine’s CTE centers in attaining national industry certification and the Department has additionally convened a working committee to explore ways to improve CTE funding.
For more information about CTE in Maine, visit www.maine.gov/doe/cte.