Winnsboro ISD is excited about the new opportunities for its students in the upcoming school-year. Beginning during the 2021-2022 school-year, WISD will offer additional Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes to high school and junior high students.
Winnsboro ISD is excited about the new opportunities for its students in the upcoming school-year. Beginning during the 2021-2022 school-year, WISD will offer additional Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes to high school and junior high students.
In the fall of 2020, WISD administrators and staff began meeting with a CTE consultant to gather information and look at ways to improve the current CTE programs and offerings. The consultant guided WISD staff in an effort to utilize time, staff, location, scheduling, and classes efficiently to mutually benefit the students and the district.
Beginning in the seventh grade, Junior High Students will now be able to participate in four different CTE courses, Principals of Arts, Audio/Visual Technology and Communications; Professional Communications, Cyber Citizenship; and General Employability Skills.
At WHS, the campus will move to an eight-period day and classes will be year-long. This means each class will be 45 minutes in length. New classes at the High School include, Graphic Design; Mobile Application Development; Digital Media and Audio-Visual Production; Advanced Floral Design; Advanced Plant Science and a host of other classes.
By increasing the CTE programs offered and the students enrolled in the courses the district is projected to gain a significant amount of funding from the Texas Education Agency (TEA). The district is expected to continue to expand the CTE program as additional funding becomes available from TEA. The projected increase in funding from the additional CTE courses offered is a little over $1million for the 2021-2022 school-year.
WISD plans to continue to evaluate its CTE programs throughout the upcoming year to maximize the benefits to students. “I am very excited about the new opportunities for our students and opening new avenues for students in 21st century technology and certification programs,” said WHS Principal David Pinnell. “This is just the beginning to expanding our programs, our goal is to build these areas each year,” Pinnell added.
CTE programs are intended to provide students with the academic, technical and employability skills and knowledge to pursue postsecondary training or higher education and enter a career field. These programs include competency-based applied learning, which contributes to an individual’s academic knowledge, higher-order reasoning and problem-solving skills, work attitudes, general employability skills, and occupational-specific skills.