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CTE Newsletter
January 2024
This update is provided by the Career and Technical Education Team at the Indiana Commission for Higher Education. We welcome your support in encouraging anyone who would benefit from the information to join our listserv. Individuals can sign up here. Questions can be shared with CTE@che.IN.gov.
CTE Awards for Excellence Nominations
The CTE team annually spotlights excellence in both secondary and postsecondary Career and Technical Education through the Awards for Excellence (AFE). The 2024 ceremony will be held on May 6 at The Wellington Fishers Banquet & Conference Center. More details will be provided in the coming months.
AFE Nomination Forms are now open and may be accessed below or on the CTE website. The deadline for nominations is Friday, March 1, 2024.
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Nominations are being accepted in four categories for both secondary and postsecondary, including students, programs of study, partnerships, and career advising. The Commission for Higher Education’s CTE team invites each postsecondary institution (each individual campus/branch can apply), high school, and career center to submit one nomination per category. Additional information and each category’s nomination form are included in the links below:
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Individuals are encouraged to share the nomination information with school faculty and staff at the secondary and postsecondary levels who may have nominations to submit.
Guidance on Choosing Between WBL Course Options
Several different course codes can be utilized for different WBL experiences. The information below aims to provide initial guidance around some of the key differences between Cooperative Education (6162), Career Exploratory Internship (CEI) (0530), and WBL Capstone (5974). With the announcement in December that CEI is now funded, many individuals have reached out with questions about this course and how it differs from 5974 and 6162. Our team will work to provide additional clarity in future updates.
CTE Definition of Work-Based Learning
For a Career-Relevant Learning experience to count as WBL, it must meet the definition of Work-Based Learning used by the CTE team that is based on federal Perkins legislation. That definition is:
An experience which includes sustained interactions between participants and professionals in real or simulated workplace settings; that foster in-depth, firsthand experiences with the tasks required in a given career field; that are aligned and evaluated with course training competencies; and that offer participants the opportunity to earn intentional career outcomes.
Key items within the main components of that definition include:
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Sustained Interactions: 75+ hours in a single placement. May be in multiple departments, but must be in a single organization
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Aligned and Evaluated: A training plan is required, and the experience must align to the student’s career pathway
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Intentional Career Outcomes: This requires the opportunity to earn either industry relevant skills, postsecondary credit attainment, or credentials
Distinctions Between Common Standalone Work-Based Learning Courses
Cooperative Education (6162): This course is designed for a student who is completing a Career-Relevant Learning experience that is not tied to his or her program of study and/or does not meet the CTE definition of WBL found above. Cooperative Education requires a student participate in a classroom instruction component, standards for which can be found here.
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Course Goal: to help students develop Employability Skills, not occupational-specific skills.
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Example: The most common example is a part-time job not related to a student’s career pathway.
Career Exploration Internship (CEI) (0530): This course is designed for students who are participating in a standalone experience that meets the CTE definition of WBL, but the student has not completed (or been co-enrolled) in an advanced CTE course or the experience is not related to his or her program of study. CEI requires a related classroom instruction component to make connections between the student’s academic courses and the WBL experience.
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Course Goal: to allow non-CTE students the opportunity to gain hands-on experience with career skills related to their Graduation Plan.
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Example: A student who has not taken any CTE courses and is interested in a career in the medical field completes rotations at a local hospital.
Work-Based Learning Capstone (5974): This course is designed for a student who has completed (or is co-enrolled) in at least one advanced CTE course, is participating in an experience that meets the CTE definition of WBL, and the experience is related to his or her CTE program of study. Because this course requires that a student complete (or be co-enrolled) in an advanced CTE course, a related classroom instruction component is advised, but not required for this course.
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Course Goal: to provide students the opportunity to apply what they have learned in their CTE courses in an on-the-job setting.
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Example: A student who has completed multiple courses in a business program of study participates in an internship at a local business.
In an upcoming newsletter, our team will share further guidance on embedded WBL experiences that take place through a NLPS Capstone Course or in other courses.
Guidance for CTE Waivers and Adoption Forms
Previous guidance has been shared in various newsletters and other documents regarding the submission of waivers in InTERS. In an effort to compile all this information for easier access, a waiver guidance document has been created that outlines the waiver types, deadlines for submission, and evaluation criteria.
Additionally, we have updated the instructions for submitting each waiver type in InTERS. These two documents used together should streamline the process for submission when the need for a waiver request arises.
Adoption Forms: Updates have also been made to adoption form guidance and directions. As a reminder, schools and career centers are expected to complete adoption forms on an annual basis to provide information regarding their CTE course offerings. Additional guidance will be added regarding submitting an adoption form for a locally created CTE concentrator sequence and will be released with an updated adoption form guidance document in a subsequent newsletter.
NLPS Master Pathways Document
An updated version of the Master Pathways Document can be found here. All Perkins V courses have been removed from the document. This resource allows individuals to quickly identify the available programs of study within NLPS and the course options available within each pathway. New courses have been highlighted in green and some clarifying notes are included at the bottom of the document.
As a reminder, an updated version of the NLPS Review Document was released in the December newsletter. NLPS resources can always be found here and individuals are encouraged to regularly check this page to ensure the most-recent version of a resource is being utilized.
New Course Requirements
Reminder - Preparing for College and Careers Update: As shared in December, the Review Document includes updated standards for the Preparing for College and Careers (PCC) course. PCC standards have been updated to allow the course to meet the Career Awareness Course requirement in HEA 1002. These updated standards were approved by the State Board of Education at their December meeting. A memo that Board members received summarizing the requirement outlined in HEA 1002 and the changes made to PCC standards can be found here.
Financial Literacy Requirement: Pursuant to Indiana Code (IC) 20-30-5-19 (2023), each school corporation, charter school, and state accredited non-public school must include instruction concerning personal financial responsibility in its high school curriculum. This requirement begins with the 2028 cohort. The CTE team has collaborated with IDOE staff to provide guidance in support of implementing this requirement. IDOE plans to release a memo this Friday through Indiana Secretary of Education Dr. Jenner’s weekly newsletter.
Reminder - 2024-2025 CTE Funding Memo
The CTE funding memo for the 2024-25 school year was approved at the December State Board of Education meeting and can be found here. The memo is developed annually by the Department of Workforce Development in consultation with the CTE team at the Commission for Higher Education.
This year’s memo includes the addition of Career Exploration Internship (0530) as a funded course that will receive WBL funding ($500). The funding memo also includes additional courses for 8th grade CTE funding eligibility. These changes and others from the prior year are summarized in this memo.
Reminder - 2024-2025 Course Titles and Descriptions
The 2024-2025 Course Titles and Descriptions was released in early December by the Indiana Department of Education and can be found here. The 2024-2025 school year marks the first year that courses not maintained through the transition to Next Level Programs of Study (NLPS) are no longer available. In the 2023-2024 Course Titles and Descriptions, CTE courses expected to be phased out were listed in "Part 2". As planned, all courses in Part 2 have been removed.
- Should a school or career center desire to offer a previously existing course that is not included within NLPS, this can be done by making a non-standard course waiver request for a Special Topics course. Instructions for completing this process are included in the waiver guidance shared above.
The CTE section of the Course Titles and Descriptions begins on Page 201 and a summary of changes can be located on Page 202.
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