Snowflake High School Skills USA officers attended the Feb. 9 meeting of the Snowflake Unified School District Governing Board to make a presentation celebrating Skills USA Week. Brianna Farber, a Television 3 student who will compete in Broadcasting, was present, as well as SHS Skills USA President Chett Chapman, Secretary Rhett Chapman and Parliamentarian Michael Hamlin.
Daily activities showcasing Skills USA went on at SHS throughout the week of Feb. 6-10. During lunch on Feb. 9, several carpentry students built an 8’x8’ building in a limited amount of time and with the same materials.
“Skills USA improves the quality of America’s skilled workforce through a structured program of citizenship, leadership, employability, technical and professional skills training. Skills USA enhances the lives and careers of students, instructors and industry representatives as they strive to be champions at work,” according to the Skills USA website.
Skills USA has 13,000 school chapters in 54 state and territorial associations, with more than 300,000 students and instructors.
Skills USA students are preparing to go to state competition, but first they must go to regionals, which will be held on Friday, March 3, at SHS for television production and broadcasting. Carpentry, masonry and electrical competitions will be held in Flagstaff. The top students will go on to state and hope to go to nationals again this year on April 18 and 19 at the Phoenix Convention Center.
This year 18 of Daniel Prestwich’s students in carpentry, cabinetry, masonry, team works, plumbing, electric and drafting will go to the state competition. Twelve of Denice Westover’s broadband, television production and digital cinema students will also go, as well as six or seven of Andy Wood’s Cisco Networking students.
“Competition is tough, but we’ve done really well in nationals,” said Prestwich.
A video is posted on the school blog under Teams USA.
“Good luck at state. We can’t wait for you to come back and tell us how good you did,” said Board President Cory Johnson.
In other business, Federal Programs Director Neil Westover briefly reported on the Edivate and Illuminate programs paid through Title I and Title II funding.
The board approved the Parental Involvement Policy, which is required by the federal grant guidelines.
Westover said that over the next few months the district’s involvement policy will undergo significant changes as they work to bring it in line with the newer mandates of the Every Child Succeeds Act, altering areas that were part of the previous policies governed by the No Child Left Behind Act.
He further explained that the policy must be approved in order to submit the Title I budget for this year. “They want a better paper trail,” said Westover, noting that they must show how they involved everyone, including parental and family engagement.
