Recruitment involves the buy-in and support of many stakeholders—administrators, business and/ or the community, parents, and students alike.    The public relations strategies are organized addressing each of these targeted audiences  below:

 Administrative Staff – (Administrators, Middle and High School Directors of  Student Services and Guidance Counselors)

1.       Academic Advisement Meetings- This meeting allows the Department Chair to present the CTE department electives to Administrators, Directors of Student Services and all the middle and highs school guidance counselors. These stakeholders are directly related to the student enrollment process and master schedule. See attached power point presentation below. 

2.       Preliminary Staffing Meeting- after the initial student enrollment process, the Department Chairs are given a print-out of the number of students signed up for each elective option in the CTE department. The department chair and CTE administrator jointly decide the number of sections for each course and staffing positions that will be requested for the upcoming school year.  We strategize with a Plan A and Plan B within the budget constraints, having discussed negotiating points and the justifications to keep certain electives that do not meet maximum enrollment.  

3.       Final Administrative Staffing Meeting – The CTE supervisor and department chair meet with the overall Administrators and the Directors of Student Services to discuss and arrive at final staffing of all CTE elective course offerings. 

4.       Development of Mock Department Schedule - A  mock master schedule with “must have considerations” is presented to the Directors of Student Services. This process is completed before the master scheduling process has begun and meetings continue throughout the summer as the master schedule is being built.

Parent and Community Public Relations

1.       Special Parent Orientation Night for Electives – This meeting is scheduled annually in early February.  Focus for this evening is on freshman course offerings in CTE, with emphasis on today's changing Career and Technical Education Department.  The academic rigor combined with technical skills that the students receive in CTE classes, not only prepares them for postsecondary education, but work readiness skills that everyone needs in the 2lst century workplace.  Parents are impressed with the relevance of the programs, industry certifications offered, and articulation agreements with the higher institutions of learning.  They express a need to sign up for our classes themselves and wish these types of courses had been offered when they were in high school; hence the universal community message is that CTE is valued in the Hayfield community. After the meeting, parents are encouraged to view the CTE discipline table displays to discuss particular areas of interests with lead teachers. Attached is the flyer for rising freshmen. 

2.       Back to School Night – Presentations given by by the EFE teacher not only pull the parent support for EFE and co-op programs, but highlights the career path options which the child may wish to continue pursing throughout high school.  Likewise, emphasis is placed on helping students obtain scholarships and being available to advise parents and students in goal setting and career planning.  

Business Community

1.       Public Relations within the Business Community – The key to successful public relations efforts has been the development of Cooperative Education business partnerships through face-to-face contact and engaging employers actively in the classroom as guest speakers and resource persons. See attached co-op brochure.

Students

1.  Word of mouth and peer networking are the most effective means of communicating the importance of Education for Employment and Cooperative Education to friends.  Student created flyers and display board presentations at elective fair venues remind the student body of their elective course options during registration advisement time. View the attached public relations flyers created by current EFE students. In addition a department created video is also attached (see web link section).  Please allow time for uploading as it is about four minutes long. 

Best Practices in the Education for Employment Classroom

The three best practices in teaching Education for Employment  and maximizing student performance are the instructor, student-teacher rapport, and active engagement by students in learning. An instructor's "persona" displayed to students is the first priority.  “Professionalism” should define an instructor’s persona including the total package of knowledge, dress, attitudes, character traits, communication, and interactions with others.  Impressionable teens look to adults that of worthy of their respect as a role model. To earn this respect, the teacher needs to display current knowledge in the content area and be diplomatic; if an answer to a student’s question is not known, be honest and focus on the fact that everyone is a lifetime learner and the answer will be addressed after further research.  A teacher’s daily appearance speaks louder than words to adolescents.  An instructor's attire should always be appropriate for a workplace setting and never goes beyond business casual on Fridays or workdays. Along with neatly groomed appearance, students should be able to sense an instructor's confident self-image conveyed by  body language, a positive attitude towards life and work, a passion for the teaching profession, and a genuine commitment to students. Those teachers who are excited about teaching and learning, convey this positive and accepting attitude to learners. Smiling is a universal communication symbol to everyone!  

Secondly, development of a teacher-student rapport can be observed through warm and supportive interactions in the classroom rather than demoralizing emphasis on academic weaknesses and struggles.  Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, we are all human, and making mistakes is a learning process; that is the message to the Education for Employment students.  An instructor must capitalize on student strengths to maximize achievement.  Likewise, one must celebrate the successes in EFE, which many of these students have never experienced before in a school setting. Students can sense the genuineness of an educator and the sincerity of caring about them as individuals and learners.  This familiar quote sums up it nicely, “Students don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care.” At the beginning of the year, it is especially important to build mutual respect and collaborative relationships with one’s students in order to develop a rapport that allows for meaningful instruction.  Hayfield Secondary School’s motto is Academic Rigor + Relevance+ Relationship Building = Student Achievement.  An instructor can have all the content knowledge and relevant information; however without the relationship building skills, a piece of the equation is missing from a student’s ability to reach his/her full potential.  Through the developed rapport, educators can communicate to students the high expectations that they have for them because they care; students in turn will perform to achieve as they want to please.   

Now that professionalism of an instructor and teacher-student rapport is established, learning will occur if the proper preparation for instruction is completed.  Effective lessons do not just happen: they require planning and preparation. In creating lessons for any content area, one must be aware of the objectives, assessments to measure student learning, and  what instructional method(s) are needed for the best delivery of the lesson. No matter what strategy is chosen, the key is active engagement in the learning process by students. Motivating students to be excited about learning and engaging them actively in their achievements is the reward in teaching!