Our Early Childhood Coordinator, Cindy Lambe and Assistant HIPPY Coordinator, Gayle Slape hosted a meeting of the HIPPY/PAT Advisory Board . We value the input and collaboration received from the individuals and agencies that participate and support our early childhood programs throughout the year. Agencies represented were HFA:Circle of Life/Northark, Educational Opportunity Center/Northark, U of A Snap Ed, U of A Boone County Extension Service, Ozark Opportunities/Headstart, ADA/Forestry Division, Hope Cottages, Mt. Judea School, ADE/First Connections.
🔒 Stay secure this October! 🚨 The Arkansas CIRT (Cyber Incident Response Team) wants you to know these 4 essential actions to protect yourself and your district during Cybersecurity Awareness Month: 1️⃣ Create strong passwords 2️⃣ Enable multifactor authentication 3️⃣ Spot and report phishing attempts 4️⃣ Keep your software up to date. For more information or cybersecurity resources, contact your ESC’s Technology Coordinator. #CybersecurityAwareness #StaySafeOnline
Our CTE Coordinator, Emilee Tucker, continues to make significant strides in the field of education and workforce development. Emilee recently attended the NWAEDD Business Services/One-Stop Operator meeting, where discussions revolved around economic development, sector planning, and regional partnership strategies.
Mrs. Tucker has been appointed to the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District Workforce Development Board, where she now serves as the chair of the Youth Committee.
📚 The Youth Committee has some inspiring initiatives in the pipeline:
🗓️ On October 17th, there's a youth career fair conference at OUR Co-Op, aimed at empowering at-risk seniors.
📆 On October 26th, another conference is set to take place in NWA, targeting Benton County. Again, it's focused on guiding at-risk seniors towards promising career opportunities.
But that's not all! In the spring, the same students will be invited back to both locations for a second conference. This time, they'll engage in mock interviews and receive guidance on employment opportunities upon graduation.
Stay tuned for more updates as these initiatives unfold!
#OUR #OURCTE #CTE #BetterTogether #Education #YouthDevelopment #CareerOpportunities #NWAEDD #Partnerships
Celebrating the success of Workforce Initiative Network (WIN) Leadership Academy Session #1! 🎉👏 A big thank you to all attendees for their active participation in this afterhours session. Together, we're forging stronger connections between educators and industry partners to empower student success. 🌟 #WINLeadershipAcademy #EducationAndIndustry #CTE #SuccessInSession1 #HarrisonRegionalChamberofCommerce #Wabash #Partnerships
Schools with educators in WLA this year:
- Alpena (Ginger Armington, FACS)
- Berryville (Cassie Swofford, Counselor)
- Deer/Mt. Judea (Nathan Windel, Science - Keith Perkins, Agriculture)
- Flippin (Kelvin Hudson, Superintendent - Vicki Hurst, Counselor)
- Green Forest (Charlsie Polk, Career Development)
- Harrison (Micaela Fitts, FACS - Will Potts, Business - Kelly Regan, Career Coach - Ashley Massengale - Career Coach)
- Kingston (Angelia Mueller, Librarian & Parental Engagement)
- Marshall (Janet Seymore, FACS)
- Omaha (Mary Arnold, Counselor)
- Ozark Mountain (Melissa Smith, Business)
- Valley Springs (Scarlet Williams, Counselor)
Emilee Tucker, OUR CTE Coordinator, and Gordon Eichelberger, DCTE ESC Regional Specialist & Pathways Coordinator, are on a mission to enhance the partnership between DCTE and our local schools. They've already made visits to seven schools and will cover them all before the Fall semester ends. This statewide initiative ensures stronger connections in CTE and allows best practices to be shared across the state!
During these visits, several noteworthy achievements came to light:
1. Marshall High School witnessed remarkable enhancements to its Agriculture program under the guidance of Andrew Hendrix, the new Agriculture Teacher.
2. Jasper High School proudly unveiled its new Family and Consumer Sciences (FACS) classroom
3. At Green Forest Middle School, Charlsie Polk, the Career Development Teacher, showcased an innovative approach to engaging parents and staff in cultivating essential soft skills in students.
These positive discoveries underscore the collaborative efforts and commitment to excellence within our educational community!
We are excited to be hosting Cassandra Erkens, Solution Tree Assessment Specialist at the co-op today with PLC Cohorts 5 and 6. Personnel from these districts are learning best practices in assessment to increase student learning.
Emilee Tucker, OUR CTE Coordinator, Wilson Marseilles, Harrison Regional Chamber of Commerce President/CEO, and David Mason, North Arkansas College Dean of Workforce, had several collaborative meetings last week including a Manufacturer's Roundtable, NWAEDD Youth Committee, and a Startup Junkie planning session.
There will be ample opportunities for educators across OUR Co-Op to engage with CTE and local partners this school year!
#WeAreCTE #OURCTE #ArkansasCTE #BetterTogether #CommunityInvolvement #Collaboration #Northark #HarrisonChamber
The Arkansas AWARE program is beginning in the Berryville School District!
Teacher Child Interaction Training is a professional development, train-the-trainer model, designed to strengthen teacher-child relationship skills and increase teachers' confidence in their ability to manager challenging behaviors in their classrooms.
Eight staff members are currently being trained as coaches and will be coaching teachers and staff in the Berryville K-2 building, the ABC program, and The Learning Center Preschool.
To find out more about TCIT got to www.tcit.org
K-2 Literacy welcomed K-12 educators to participate in stand-alone Science of Reading days. The 3 days included phoneme awareness, phonics decoding, and phonics encoding. We had a room full of varied backgrounds and this was a phenomenal 3 days of learning!!
#RISEArkansas
OUR Cooperative teachers participated in a workshop with the Shiloh Museum learning about resources and activities to help build background knowledge and experiences in social studies.
Algebra I and Geometry teachers explored the new standards & ATLAS testing. Teacher collaboration focused on math curriculum ideas.
Earlier in July, Arkansas Cooperative Technology Coordinators (ACTC) and Arkansas Cyber Incident Response Team (CIRT) presented multiple sessions at the ADE Summit in Hot Springs. Sessions focused on cyber awareness regarding insurance, timeline & system reconnections, superintendent cyber panel, MFA, COOP, data responsibility, and Google for school leaders.
Preschool- 4th grade teachers explored students' mathematical thinking this week. We had great math progression & math understanding discussions! We also had a special student guest. I am starting to work with her on number sense too! :)
K-2 Literacy has worked on learning more about background knowledge, syntax, and developing inferences. Our guiding text was the Comprehension Blueprint. This group of educators really got into this information and the conversations were amazing!! Lots of deep thinking!
Baxter Health in collaboration with the OUR CTE Department hosted teachers, counselors, and career coaches for a 1-day teacher externship featuring in-demand departments where directors from Food Services, Imaging, Laundry, Engineering, Rehab, OP Surgery, and EMS led tours and hands-on activities in their departments.
Thank you Baxter Health for giving our educators a behind-the-scenes look at the medical field and letting us spend a day in your phenomenal work culture!
Cotter High School FACS Teacher, Deanna Franks, in collaboration with OUR CTE Coordinator, Emilee Tucker, hosted FACS teachers for a networking/retention session where teachers were able to learn about best practices, technology, curriculum, certifications, classroom management, and program activities used in the Cotter High School FACS Program.
OUR CTE Department in conjunction with the University of Arkansas Extension Service hosted FACS, agriculture, math, early childhood/HIPPY, and health teachers for a cross curricular session on growing, canning and selling fruits.
Thank you to the following UAEX agents for instructing this session!: Boone - Tamara Allen & Mike McClintock. Searcy - Ashley Fulks & Clyde Fenton. Carroll - Torrie Smith. Baxter - LeeAnn Blevins.
These agents are happy to come do classroom demonstrations. Reach out to Emilee Tucker etucker@oursc.k12.ar.us for contact information. Check out other UAEX programs here: https://www.uaex.uada.edu/.
OUR Co-op administrators had the opportunity to spend two days with Jon Harrison for leadership training with the focus being on building a positive work environment to drive excellent results.
OUR Co-op Superintendents' Conference Day 1: Dr. Mike Hernandez, Executive Director of AAEA provided updates on legislation passed during the 2023 General Session, and Dr. Eric Saunders, Asst. State Superintendent with DESE provided information on budgeting and financial topics.
K-2 Literacy kicked off the summer with two writing sessions!! We focused on the research and highly effective methods to increase and improve the writing of our young writers. We had such an amazing group of educators participate!! A great start to a busy summer!!
#RISEArkansas
#youngwriters