February is proclaimed CTE month

The CNMI Public School System has designated the month of February as Career and Technical Education Month.

The governing body of PSS, the Board of Education, made the proclamation last Thursday at the Commissioner of Education conference room on Capital Hill to raise awareness of the role that CTE has in readying learners for college and career success.

The proclamation states that CTE Month is also a time to recognize and celebrate the achievements and accomplishments of CTE partners at the local, state, and national level. It urged everyone to become familiar with the services and benefits offered by CTE programs and to support and participate in these programs to enhance individual skills and productivity.

The proclamation—a first-of-its-kind for PSS CTE—was signed by BOE secretary/treasurer Gregory Borja and was read by Angelica Mia Carreon and Sam Santos—both of whom are CTE alumni from the Teacher Academy.

CTE director Dr. Jessica Taylor said the PSS Career and Technical Program “has worked very hard with its partners to develop and implement career pathways in construction, entrepreneurship, hospitality and tourism, nurse assistant, and teaching. We want to thank our schools and partners for making career pathways a reality for our students!”

Education Commissioner Dr. Lawrence F. Camacho said: “Experiential learning is very important because of the generation of students we have coming in and graduating out of our schools. This new generation, from Generation Z, Alpha, and all the other generations are very well-equipped and are always thinking about their career… so here we are, trying to kind of lead the way.”

Borja said CTE gives students “this opportunity so they can choose a pathway that they want. I enjoy this career exploration and I think that it’s going to be a great thing for everyone.”

After the proclamation signing, Santos, who is Saipan Southern High School’s registrar, said that CTE played a pivotal and influential role in his desire to pursue education as a career. “I was a student under the Teacher Academy program of Kagman High School back in 2013 under the guidance of Dr. Rita A. Sablan. The work and the learning style that we had throughout the course of our Teacher Academy program really cemented my desire to pursue higher education, become a counselor one day, and to be working alongside students. This has been an amazing journey thus far, a very formative journey in being an educator in the making, and I’m a proud product of the Public School System.”

Carreon, a personnel specialist at PSS Human Resources, said she was in the program throughout almost all her high school education. “It was great and it helped me by giving me an overview of what working is like,” she said.