CTE Month: How to Reach More Learners & Advocate for Career Technical Education
CTE Month: How to Reach More Learners & Advocate for Career Technical Education
What is CTE Month?
Every February, the Career Technical Education (CTE) community celebrates CTE Month® to raise awareness of the role that CTE has in readying learners for college and career success. CTE Month is also a time to recognize and celebrate the achievements and accomplishments of our CTE partners at the local, state, and national level. CTE Month is supported by a variety of CTE groups and organized by the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE).
While February is a focal point for the CTE community, raising awareness and engaging stakeholders is a year-round effort, ensuring that the value of CTE is consistently highlighted and celebrated.
How Can Your Team Plan for CTE Month?
Before jumping into activities for CTE Month, take a step back and define your goals. A strong foundation within your team ensures your efforts will have maximum impact!
Define your objectives
Think about what success looks like for your team during this month.
- Are you aiming to raise awareness about the value of CTE?
- Is your focus on engaging specific groups such as learners, educators, families, employers, or policymakers?
- Do you want to celebrate achievements and successes within the CTE community?
Craft messaging for your audiences
Every audience has unique needs and perspectives, and messages should align with what resonates the most. These resources can help you craft research-backed messaging to elevate your outreach efforts to achieve meaningful engagement for learners and other audiences.
How Can You Engage Your Community During CTE Month?
Host Events and Tours
Invite local community leaders, school counselors, non-CTE educators, and families to explore CTE programs firsthand. Showcasing real-world applications of CTE through school visits and career fairs (both virtual and in-person) is a powerful tool to share the breadth of career pathways available.
- Consider offering CTE Month Merchandise such as pens, pencils, and lanyards to distribute at events to entice audiences to learn more.
- Download ACTE’s CTE Month logo for use in your outreach materials for recognition.
For inspiration, check out our CTE Month Highlight blogs
Engage Policymakers
Invite policymakers to tours or CTE celebrations, or go to them through office visits. Now is the time to look at your state legislative calendar. Members of Congress should also be engaged – the U.S. House and Senate have posted their session calendars, which include at-home/district time the week of February 17.
Encourage policymakers to designate February as CTE Month. Use a sample proclamation created by ACTE. Advance CTE’s Engaging Policymakers page also provides a variety of resources and fact sheets for highlighting CTE impacts.
Collaborate with Employers
- Strengthen existing partnerships with local employers by highlighting their role in supporting CTE programs and systems in both education and industry communication channels. Invite them to share their story. This recognizes their contributions and demonstrates the value of partnerships.
- Host virtual office hours or a discussion panel for existing and potential employer partners. Use this time to utilize employer champions to elevate resources that reduce barriers to and dispel myths about CTE and work-based learning partnership.
- Leverage positive CTE coverage to recruit new employer partners with low-lift engagement ideas such as touring a program, or participating in a career fair or career day.
Celebrate CTE and CTE Learners
- Shine a spotlight on the learners, educators, and partners powering CTE with awards, social media shoutouts, or local media coverage.
- Personal stories resonate and can inspire others to be a part of CTE. Encourage learners to take an active role in sharing their CTE journey by creating videos, writing blog posts, or speaking at events, or create a contest that allows learners to share their work and ideas.
- Create or update spaces to allow learners to directly engage or share feedback on their CTE experience, including ambassador programs, advisory boards, focus groups, etc. Additional ideas can be found in Advance CTE’s Learner Voice Toolkit.
ACTEAZ Announces 2023 CTE Month Video Contest Winners
Special Opportunity: Encourage learners to enter the NASA HUNCH 2024-25 Student Video Challenge or sponsor the challenge via scholarships to winning students.
How Can You Amplify Your Reach & Impact During CTE Month?
Coordinate Messaging Across Partners
Unified messaging is key to maximizing impact. Provide partners with:
- Sample social media posts and hashtags like #CTEMonth.
- Messaging templates for websites, newsletters, and events.
- State-level promotional toolkits and plans.
Utilize social media, email campaigns, and blogs to amplify your message and extend your reach. Share event highlights and key data to engage diverse audiences.
Social media also provides a great opportunity to advertise an email sign-up form for families to receive emails with additional updates about CTE program exploration and enrollment.
Advocate Year-Round
CTE Month shouldn’t feel like a sprint. Instead, it can be part of a comprehensive, year-long engagement strategy.
Check out 5 Tips to Create Year-Long Impact Through CTE Month for additional strategies and tips to ensure your outreach is inclusive and strategic all year long.
Beyond February: Building a Lasting Impact
CTE Month is a powerful opportunity to raise awareness, celebrate achievements, and engage key partners across education and workforce communities. While February provides a concentrated time for outreach, the momentum built during this time should fuel year-round efforts. Strategic planning and coordination with your team and partners can ensure that CTE Month becomes a key part of a comprehensive, long-term advocacy strategy that maximizes the impact of Career Technical Education for educators, employers, policymakers, and most importantly, all learners!
