Program Participation in School Improvement

The Animal Science instructors have been instrumental in the effort to continually improve the Arlington Career Center. They serve on committees designed to improve various facets of the school.

Both instructors are current members of the Climate Committee. The Climate Committee was created with the express purpose of improving the cultural environment of the school. Both instructors have been chairs of the committee and Cindy is currently serving as co-chair. Recent projects for this committee include staff lunches, recognition of new staff and retirement/going way celebrations for staff.

Scott is a member of the Connections Committee. The function of this committee is to help teachers create partnership connections as well as curriculum connections. Creation of a standard résumé writing lesson for the school and encouraging partners to participate in the school wide Reality Store and Career Expo are recent projects for this committee.

Cindy is a member of the safety committee and the attendance committee. The safety committee is designed to review and recommend improvements to the various safety drills the school performs. The committee is currently reviewing the Lockdown/Shelter in Place procedures. The attendance committee was created to design a new attendance policy that more closely matched the work world. A few years ago the policy was changed to match new state regulations. Since that time the attendance committee has reviewed the policy and the implementation within the building. Problems are discussed and solutions are formed.

Both instructors are also called upon to test or implement new software. The CanDo competency tracking software that is currently available statewide has been used by the program, for many years. We adopted it early and have been a source of improvement suggestions since adopting it. In fact, we brought an issue to the developers’ attention this year and were asked to test the fix prior to it being released to the general public (see attached email). We have also been early adopters, and therefore resources for other teachers, of SmartBoards, Blackboard and TurningPoint technologies.