By Ashley M. Casey
Staff Writer
The Baldwinsville Central School District is implementing new state regulations for career and technical education (CTE) courses for middle-schoolers. Director of Secondary Curriculum and Instruction Renee Burnett and Baker business teacher Meghan Titus presented the updates to the Board of Education at its March 26 meeting.
The New York State Education Department adopted its new “Next Generation Learning Standards” at the beginning of this school year. B’ville schools formed a CTE transition committee to help implement the new regulations.
As part of those new rules, Burnett said, the departments of technology and family and consumer sciences (FACS) will come together under the umbrella of CTE.
“With the new regulations, any CTE certified teacher can provide the instruction to our students, and that’s a local decision,” Burnett said. “Many smaller districts were finding it very difficult to find certified FACS teachers, certified tech teachers, certified business teachers to come to a small district and provide the requirements of the old regulations. Those districts could start as early as this year with those changes.”
While Baldwinsville does not share the recruitment woes of smaller districts, Burnett said the new regulations will smooth out the CTE transition from Ray Middle School to Durgee Junior High School to Baker.
“There is a big gap here at Durgee between what kids were getting at Ray, and then they didn’t get any FACS or business at Durgee,” she said. “If they wanted to pursue that at Baker, then it’s kind of like starting over for those teachers.”
Burnett said this year’s sixth-graders are the ones who will be most affected by the new regulations, as the implementation process will be complete by the time those students get to Durgee.
Titus, a member of the CTE transition committee, said the committee is writing the curriculum for a “Career and Financial Management” class, which ninth-graders could take as an elective in the 2018-19 school year. Once the curriculum is “rock solid,” Burnett said, eighth-graders would have the chance to take the course.
Titus said the curriculum includes components of career exploration and teaches interview and resume skills. The financial management portion of the class will teach students about banking, budgeting and credit and debit cards.
“Our goal is just to keep it so that students can be prepared for the future and adulthood once they leave Baker,” Titus said.
Deputy Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Joe DeBarbieri said students must take Career and Financial Management to receive a CTE endorsement on their diplomas, regardless of which CTE pathway they follow. Currently, the district offers CTE pathways in business finance, business marketing and culinary arts. The district is considering an engineering pathway as well.
“They’re building the course now so that it can be taught by a business teacher this year; next year, it could be taught by a FACS teacher and the following year by a tech teacher,” Burnett said.
Burnett said planning curriculum is the easy part of the process. The next step is to get teachers of each CTE discipline on board.
“We can’t flip a switch and get our business, tech and FACS people to all say, ‘Yay! We’re one CTE department,’ because they’ve operated as silos forever,” she said. “Part of the conversation is about how do we pull all of us together and think about what’s going to be best for our students versus best for the FACS department or best for the CTE department.”
Nine seniors seek Seal of Biliteracy
In addition to reviewing the CTE updates, Burnett joined Durgee Assistant Principal Cindy Cronin and German/English as a New Language teacher Ben Gerardi to present an overview of the New York State Seal of Biliteracy program to the board. Gerardi is the program adviser.
“We’re very proud of our world language program in Baldwinsville. This is an opportunity for students to seek recognition for their hard work,” Cronin said.
Students who demonstrate a high proficiency in both English and another language can earn the Seal of Biliteracy for their diplomas and transcripts. Cronin said the program is also open to students whose first language is not English. These students must demonstrate proficiency in their home language and in English.
“The expectation is that colleges will begin to look at that as a way to differentiate students. It’s also a sign to future employers that students are proficient in more than one language,” Cronin said. “It also shows their dedication to diversity and it shows the value of language and language diversity in our community.”
Gerardi said he has nine seniors in the program, and a handful of juniors and sophomores have expressed interest in the program. Among the languages they are studying are Russian, Arabic, German, French and Spanish. The students meet with Gerardi both individually and in a group.
“These students are intrinsically motivated, so when you ask an intrinsically motivated student to perform at a higher level, the sky is the limit,” Gerardi said.
Each student must create a portfolio based around a theme and defend the project to a panel of teachers from various school districts. Defense Day takes place May 22.
“It won’t just be a student standing up in their classroom in front of their own teacher doing this. It will be really upping the ante for our kids,” Burnett said. “I think it’s going to be a really exciting event.”
Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed a law in 2012 making New York the second state to implement the Seal of Biliteracy. The New York State Board of Regents officially adopted the program in 2016. The Seal of Biliteracy has been adopted by 31 states and Washington, D.C.