Blogs
My Mentor
It's hard to wear several hats, but Angie Koontz does it as well as anyone can. She is a mother, wife, CTE advocate, UDL expert, and she also has a day job she does very well, a school counselor. While excelling in all of these roles, there is one constant that drives her, an wavering commitment to ...
Interview with Betty Lieu, Esq. Torrance Unified School District Board Member
We are very fortunate to have Betty Lieu on the Torrance Unified School District school board as our district advocate for CTE and STEAM education. Betty Lieu has served on our school board for the past four years. She is also a Torrance Unified School District parent and resident in Torrance. Betty...
Region III Vice President Interview
No average person can become an ACTE Region VP and Lisa Stange is no average person. Despite thinking she never wanted to become an educator Lisa was called to it thanks to her experiences in her high school FACS classes. After earning her FACS educator degree from Iowa State University, Lisa worked...
Finding CTE Mentorship, Never Compromising, and Leading from the Heart
Meet past ACTE fellow Dr. Patrick Biggerstaff, the Director of Career and Technical Education at Area 31 Career Center in Indiana. In this blog, Dr. Biggerstaff shares his career path to CTE leadership and imparts knowledge from his years of experience, as well as words of wisdom. Biggerstaff leads ...
Meet Shani Watkins – Region V Vice President
Shani Watkins, Director of the West Sound Technical Skills Center located in Bremerton, Washington. Shani has held the Director position for the last seven years and is currently serving as the ACTE Region V Vice President. Shani is the recipient of the 2022 ACTE National Administrator of the Year a...
NPS Experience
It was my honor to attend the ACTE National Policy Seminar (NPS) in Washington DC, March 20-23, 2022 and join a wonderful group of 20 ACTE new and experienced fellows who flew in from all over the United States to partake in the NPS event sessions and legislative activities. Although we met a few ti...
Creating Valuable Connections
Over the past four years since I started the agricultural education program at my school (Little Axe High School in Norman, OK), I have made a great effort to connect my students with as
many potential career paths as I possibly can. It is very common for students at my school, and other low-income...
Mentorship in Action
Having a mentor at any stage in one’s career is an invaluable asset to help them on their journey to honing their craft and being the best CTE educator possible; I feel that this is especially true for anyone considered a “new professional” like myself (I am in my 6th year teaching and 4th yea...
The Great Power of Mentors
I found myself reflecting on my professional journey a few weeks ago. Being a first-generation university graduate, I was trying to wrap my brain around how I went from a college freshman with little to no direction to having just defended my doctoral dissertation. After some thought, I realized tha...
Meeting My Mentor
As a New Professional ACTE Fellow, I get the amazing opportunity to interact with the very best people, and when I say the very best, I mean it. My mentor is Alexandra Harkelroad from Indianapolis, Indiana. She is currently an instructor at Walker Career Center where she teaches the Education Prof...