My Fellow CTE Supporters,

This year’s summer conference theme, Discover CTE. Create Your Future., captured the essence of one of the main goals of the Association for Career and Technical Education of Arizona and the Arizona Department of Education. To promote awareness for CTE and how CTE can directly impact and shape your future…and I do mean YOUR future.

Can you imagine a world where educational funding takes priority? Can you imagine a classroom stocked with not just the bare necessities, but equipment and software that is currently being used by industry? Career and Technical Education, where the fundamentals of knowledge and application are intertwined, has shown remarkable success with our students.

We view our summer conference as one of our state’s greatest assets for CTE. It is an opportunity for teachers, administrators, counselors, board members, superintendents, and industry representatives to share passions, explored strategies, success stories, redefine goals and new networks of contacts and possibilities. The atmosphere of the conference is always one of synergy and we could not be more thankful to those of you who take advantage of it.

The ACTEAZ board is already hard at work at developing new goals for the coming year. We look forward to working with each of you and encourage you to reach out and share your ideas. Join us at our board meetings, attend our events, grow with us through our Premier Series and Fellowship programs and speak out with us as we communicate with our state’s legislature and industry leaders.

Our state and nation need to Discover CTE and truly understand the value of it. To do that, CTE needs all of our help. We ask that as educators, counselors and administrators return to school, remember to continue to promote CTE. Promote from within your classroom, your school, your district, your communities, your industry contacts, your affiliate organizations, and even within ACTEAZ itself. One stone may cause a ripple within, but a thousand stones working together can change the current altogether.

Let us work together to help everyone Discover CTE, because together we can Create OUR Future.

Best Wishes,
Pam Ferguson
ACTEAZ Executive Director