Addison Trail celebrates Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month

To view photo captions, click on the images above.

Each year, District 88 students save an average of $1 million in college tuition by taking Advanced Placement (AP)/college-level exams and dual-credit courses and earn more than 1,000 career certifications in culinary arts, automotive technology, preschool, child development, building trades, business, education programs and engineering/manufacturing through Career and Technical Education (CTE) classes. CTE prepares students for careers in areas such as information technology, manufacturing, hospitality, management, business, education, photography and more. Addison Trail offers 45 CTE courses.

February is CTE Month, a public awareness campaign that takes place annually to celebrate the value of CTE and the achievements of CTE programs throughout the U.S. For more information, go to https://www.acteonline.org/why-cte/cte-awareness/cte-month. From Feb. 6 to 10, Addison Trail hosted activities/events to recognize this important initiative (see the image above for details). Each day highlighted one of the three CTE specialty content areas – Business Education; Family and Consumer Sciences; and Industry, Technology and Engineering – and students also had a chance to win prizes.

District 88 is committed to making sure students are college and career ready and continues to focus on teaching skills and offering learning experiences to achieve that goal through providing multiple and flexible pathways for students. A variety of CTE pathways are available for pupils to pursue, including the CTE Youth Apprenticeship Program, the Project Hire-Ed Apprenticeship Program, CNC Machining Fundamentals, the Education Teacher Preparation Program and Technology Center of DuPage (TCD). Read more about those opportunities at www.dupage88.net/Pathways.

For questions or more information about Addison Trail’s academic offerings and extracurricular activities in CTE, contact CTE Department Head Jennifer Kowalski at jkowalski@dupage88.net or 630-458-4214.