Greetings,
 
As the 2015-16 school year comes to an end, I would like to thank my team, our schools, leaders, families, industry partners and friends and most of all our students for what was for me an exciting and wonderful year.
So many events and activities literally filled our days and weekends celebrating and sharing what is best in CTE and in each other.
Your sustained dedication to our students and our shared belief that with support of our partners and our team, nothing is impossible.
 
Although summer is a time to rest, know that we are hard at work planning for another effective school year. Please continue to support our work and the education of our students by getting involved as much as you can.
 
Have a wonderful summer,
 
John Widlund

Selected among the 100 high schools throughout the five boroughs to participate in the city's "College Access for All" initiative, McKee High School will be able to offer every junior enrolled to take the SAT free of charge during the school day on April 5, 2017.

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We congratulate our CTE graduating class of 2016. Special congratulations to three schools that are celebrating their founding class graduation: Academy for Software Engineering, High School of Energy and Technology and the Union Square Academy for Health Sciences

Academy for Software Engineering

The NYC CTE team congratulates our Success Via Apprenticeship Graduates of 2016. From the right are: 
Mona Lisa Singh – Information Technology, Theresa Pompilio – Digital Imaging/Graphic Design, Sara Heller - Automotive. Missing is: Peter Beninati – Electronics & Robotics

Thank you to Thomas Edison High School for providing tech support at the 2016 Additional Ways to Graduate Fair – the second year fair organizers have benefited from the knowledge and expertise of CTE tech students. 
Three students;  Jaskirat Gosa,  Elwin Law and Christopher Khaimraj led by instructor Jessie Kalloo, provided tech support for the fair. Jaskirat and Elwin will be attending Baruch College and Christopher will be attending Queens College this fall. All of them will be pursuing a degree in an IT concentrated area. 

On June 4, 2016, The Urban Assembly Maker Academy (UA Maker) sent a chapter of seven sophomores down to New Orleans to compete in the Shoreline capstone summit. Shoreline is a youth empowerment program founded by the National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University, the Global Institute of Public Health at New York University and the Center for Disaster and Risk Analysis at Colorado State University, in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. 
 
Student chapters from NYC, Alabama, and Louisiana, work with an advisor (Living Environment teacher Pete Wood) during the academic year to come up with a tool that would help citizens combat disaster in their local communities. Selecting terrorism as a disaster relative to their NYC-Manhattan school community, UA Maker designed "Disaster Buddies."
 
Disaster Buddies connects each NYC public school students with a "buddy" (identified via their OSIS number), each who live in different boroughs-- providing the pair of students with both a "shelter in" site and an "evacuation" site in the event of a terrorist attack or equally disastrous scenario. 
 
Though only in its prototype phase, Disaster Buddies came in first place at the national youth summit! Students used UA Maker's design thinking process, or the "5Ds", to identify, design and develop their product, as well as, as a schema to present their work. Judges included Aaron Miller, Director of the Office of Homeland Security and Disaster Preparedness for the City of New Orleans-- who was impressed by the website's applicability and ease of implementation.  

On Tuesday May 17th, 2016  Maimonides' honored extraordinary student volunteers at its Annual Volunteer Students Recognition Ceremony. 

At present, Maimonides works closely with and accepts students from the following DOE schools: Abraham Lincoln High School, Brooklyn International High School, Brooklyn Prospect High School, Brooklyn Technical High School, Edward Murrow High School, Expeditionary Learning School for Community Leaders, F.D.R. High School, International High School at Lafayette, International High School at Prospect Heights, James Madison High School, Leon Goldstein High School, Midwood High School, New Dawn High School, New Utrecht High School, Origins High School, Peter Rouget Middle School 88, Roy Campanella OTC Staten Island Technical High School, Stuyvesant High School, Sunset Park High School, The Brooklyn Studio Secondary School, Union Square Academy for Health Sciences, and West Brooklyn Community High School.

In total, this school year, Maimonides has had 107 DOE high school students volunteering and completing their community service/internship at Maimonides Medical Center.

On June 7th, 110 interns from CTE’s automotive technology, transport, construction and architecture pathways completed the Scholars at Work (SAW) Internship program. SAW is funded by the New York City Department of Small Business Services (SBS) and the Department of Education (DOE), in collaboration with Grant Associates, which coordinates the program through the NYC Industrial and Transportation Career Center it operates in Queens.
 
This year, SAW graduated 110 interns from 14 CTE schools and brought together 55 employers who offered a 14-week internship experience to our CTE students. 

Bank of America CTE Summer Scholars starts its 5th year this week.
 
113 students from six different high schools are scheduled to participate in this innovative “youth think tank,” where CTE students and teachers collaborate with civic leaders to propose ways to increase youth employment for all NYC’s young people.
 
To follow these students’ progress this summer, and to be invited to our Final Project Presentations on Friday, August 12th, please follow us on social media:  facebook, Twitter,  Linkedin
 
Highlights
49 different companies are providing IT and graphics placements, so that students can gain work experience as part of their CTE program.  Tata Consultancy Services is providing training and coaching in Design Thinking
The following companies will partner with students and their teachers to get a youth perspective on ways to increase access to work and career development opportunities for all NYC’s youth.

       Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce 
       The Center for Youth Employment 
       Cypress Hills Local Community Development Corp. 
       The Door 
       Ernst & Young 
       npower 
       Henry Street Settlement 

Participating schools: Academy for Language and Technology (Alesha Hardwick-Whyte, teacher); Academy for Software Engineering (Kendra Brathwaite, teacher); Bayside High School (Stephanie Fox, Teacher); Bronx High School for Visual Arts (Linda Stern, teacher); Queens Vocational CTE High School (Amrita Durga, teacher); Urban Assembly Gateway School for Technology (Adrian Sookchan, teacher).
 
Bank of America President Jeff Barker attends 2014 presentations.

The SkillsUSA finals were held in Kentucky on June 24. We congratulate all our students who competed in successive rounds and qualified for the nationals. Congratulations to Ralph Mckee, Aviation HS and Williamsburg HS of Art and Design. Their students placed 1st in Information Technology; and second in Aviation Maintenance and Prepared Speech, respectively. 

On June 9, the CTE team in collaboration with the UFT and the CTE advisory council, coordinated multiple trainings.

Design Thinking Bootcamp led by Tata Consultancy Services

Total participants- 55

This training was a deep dive into the principles of Design Thinking that were introduced at the earlier February 2016, CTE at the Core PD Day. In addition to design thinking, CTE educators were given a crash course on app development using MITs App Inventor Program. This gave educators an opportunity to test their design thinking methodologies in creating an App for a product or service.

TCS is the title sponsor for the NYC Marathon. Our training was the official launch to the TCS NYC Marathon Health App Development Challenge. CTE teachers were provided with resources including a play book. The goal is for schools to assemble student teams to participate in the Health App Challenge. Winners of this Challenge will pitch their ideas/apps at the TCS NYC Marathon Pavilion on November 4, 2016.

Healthcare Core Competencies led by New York Alliance for Careers in Healthcare (NYACH)

Total participants- 25

The New York Alliance for Careers in Healthcare's Core Competencies for Today's Healthcare Workforce is intended to prepare the current and future workforce with the skills now required by healthcare institutions to deliver patient-centered coordinated care. The training focused on the nine core competencies, the matching foundational learning objectives and the associated resources in the core curriculum outline.

The training was a first step towards a larger, year long project of bringing together CTE educators and industry experts in cross-walking the existing CTE health core curriculum to NYACH Core Competencies. The last phase will involve developing curriculum for one of our health tracks- Certified Nurse Assistant (CNA) aligned to these competencies

CDX Bootcamp for Auto Teachers

Total participants- 32

The Office of Postsecondary Readiness invested in developing curricular resources for our auto programs. CDX is an interactive, online training platform that provides curriculum, customizable and easy to use course management tools aligned to NATEF standards.

Expert master trainers worked with our auto teachers to cover basics (setting up an account) to more advanced topics. To facilitate deeper usage and smoother implementation, SY 2016 will see additional one-on-one trainings, better help desk support and monthly, topic specific webinars.

NYC CTE Curriculum Advisory Council (webinar)

Total participants-10

This training focused on bringing industry partners up to speed on the vision and goals of the curriculum councils, expectations from partners and sharing tools (Atlas Rubicon) developed as part of the larger Sustainability Initiative. Having laid the groundwork, CTE Curriculum Councils in the following sectors will convene during Regents week:

Computer repair

Networking

Architectural Design/Drafting

Electrical Installation

Pace University’s STEM Summer Program is a great fit for CTE students, especially those in 9th - 11th grades. Sponsored by the STEM Collaboratory NYC and AT&T, it’s a free two-week program that starts on July 18th and ends on July 29th with a capstone presentation and celebratory lunch. Pace welcomes students that are aspiring programmers, developers, gamers, artists, designers, architects, environmentalists, engineers, or those that are simply looking to explore new territory. The STEM program offers a creative place to develop student’s interests and skills. 
 
During the program, students will work in teams on solving a problem for the Billion Oyster Project. Students will participate in skill-building workshops, learn how to employ design thinking methodologies and get a chance to visit startups as well as tech giants like Google and Microsoft. The deadline to apply is July 1st.  

Apply Now

Americorp is recruiting for their 2016-2017 AmeriCorps team, and the majority of these positions work on Americorp's construction sites and on community revitalization efforts.