Clyde McBride
Agricultural
Teacher & CTE Director
Kayenta Unified
School District
Kayenta, Arizona
Bob Funk from Express Employment Professionals sat down with Clyde after the Awards Banquet at CareerTech VISION 2014.
“When I first became a teacher, I quickly realized students do not learn unless they get a little dirty,” says Clyde McBride, the agricultural teacher and CTE director for the Kayenta Unified School District on the Navajo Nation. Unemployment and poverty rates on the Navajo Nation are some of the highest in the country, and many families who depend on healthy livestock lack easy access
to veterinary care. Collaborating with the Second Chance of Flagstaff, students in the Monument Valley High School agriculture program provide low/no-cost veterinary care for hundreds of miles around Kayenta. McBride’s students have even provided emergency care as first responders, once travelling in the middle of the night to rehabilitate survivors of a sheep herd ravaged by dogs.
McBride’s classroom started out in a converted garage bay in the high school with students practicing medical procedures on fruit. After years of lobbying for funding, in 2011, McBride successfully orchestrated the design and construction of a $2.4 million, 22,000 square foot agri-science center for excellence. The school’s FFA chapter currently boasts 251 members from the seventh through 12th grades. His students have received honors from the Arizona Senate and have been invited by the National Department of Agriculture to participate in the Native Voices Conference and American Indian Symposium. McBride has earned numerous accolades, including a feature in TIME magazine in 2012. “He is honest, a person of unmatched integrity,” says Roger W. Ellis from the Arizona Department of Education. “In the education world, what remains a lasting
impression is Clyde’s genuine concern for the welfare and improvement of the
student.”
McBride was invited to speak at ACTE’s 2015 National Policy Seminar. You can listen to his powerful address about advocacy and the power of CTE below.
Learn more about the 2015 ACTE Excellence Award winners.
 Sponsor of the 2015 Teacher of the Year Award |
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