Date: October 31, 2013
To: Michael Z. Green, Superintendent
From: Cari Thomson, PhD
RE: Summary of Teaching and Learning - CCTE
I attended the fall Washington Association of Vocational Administrators’ (WAVA) conference in early October. The sessions focused primarily on the new Teacher Evaluation Program and Common Core State Standards (CCSS). Starting last year, CCSS had to be incorporated into all frameworks up for resubmittal.
I also sit on the WAVA board for the state as the SWWAVA representative as well as the WAVA scholarship meeting. Currently, the state is looking at revising the WAC that addresses CTE Director Certification. The state would like to provide more avenues to this certificate. Also, manufacturing remains an area which is in great need of workers.
Kim Miller is currently working on updating her frameworks for Family and Consumer Science. This includes the culinary courses as well as the early childhood classes. These courses are up for re-approval by the state and are due by January 1st.
A few weeks ago Robin Uhlenkott saw lockdown mechanism that allowed the teacher to lockdown their classroom without leaving their room to lock the door. She forwarded me the video clip and I forwarded it to Ken Vetter, who put his best engineers on it.
Below are some pictures of the device and how it works.