NC College Tech Prep Conference

I’m off to the NC College Tech Prep Conference in Greensboro, North Carolina next week. Several of the Career Development Coordinators (you might call them Facilitators or Counselors) from my school system will be attending as well.

I always find this to be an exciting conference with lots of sessions that relate directly to our School-to-Career program. Specifically:

• Internships and other work-based learning programs. Getting our kids out into the workforce to experience work at an early age is so important.
• Business/Education partnerships. Our school system excels at this, but we can always get better.
• Emerging careers. How many of your kids say they want to become a nanotechnologist or a bioinformatics specialist? Biotechnology is the emerging industry that our political leaders are hanging their hat on, so there will be many sessions on that.
• Labor market information. That’s the area that I’m known for. Getting up-to-date information about each career to our students is essential if we hope to help them find the perfect career fit for them.

We are fortunate to have a nice College Tech Prep conference in this state. If we don’t keep our elected officials up to date about how Tech Prep programs drive the economy, we might see Tech Prep and all of its benefits go away. Talk up Perkins!

I hope to update this blog with info from the conference. It all depends on Internet connections in the hotel.

Well, at least that’s the way that I see it. Let me know what you are thinking, and stop by again soon for more of my ramblings.