On February 16, 2017, ACTE held our yearly CTE Month® school visit in collaboration with George C. Marshall High School in Falls Church, VA and Fairfax County Public Schools. This visit gave attendees from local schools, CTSOs and other educational organizations, the federal Departments of Education and Labor, local businesses and congressional staff the chance to learn about how CTE prepares students for college and careers and see outstanding CTE programs in cybersecurity, auto tech and auto sales, culinary arts, criminal justice, cosmetology and entrepreneurship.

The event began with information on the importance of Perkins funding to Marshall’s CTE programs and an overview of Marshall’s CTE programs in general, including its STEM Academy. After that, there was an in-depth panel featuring two students, an alumnus, a business partner and a teacher who all answered questions about both the specific experiences and general advantages that CTE classes have offered them. Multiple participants described not only the specific ways that CTE prepared or is still preparing them for their careers, but also the general insight it gave them on how to harness their interests to find a strong career.

Attendees then toured programs to see students in action, and, among other things, were able to see auto tech students repairing cars in preparation to resell them, entrepreneurship students fine-tuning their projects for an exhibition, and culinary and cosmetology students practicing their trades.

ACTE is extremely grateful for the large amount of work that Marshall High School did to arrange such an excellent school visit. For more information, see the event’s agenda and ACTE’s Storify page that provides the highlights of the event by tracking Twitter traffic. If you are interested in hosting a visit to showcase your CTE programs, check out ACTE’s list of tips on our School Visit and Site Visit Page, or contact ACTE for more information.