Career and Tech Courses Prepare Students For Great Careers!

Invest Wisely

You didn't spend years getting an education

only to lose your livelihood to foreign work-

ers. The monthly wages they earn wouldn't

pay your cable bill here in the U.S. That's

why it's imperative that you carefully re-

search your chosen degree area prior to

investing loads of time and money.

It Doesn't Matter What Color Your

Collar Is

Blue collar, white collar -- Nearly all indus-

tries can be affected by outsourcing. Any

company looking to save money is likely to

investigate what savings can be had by

moving some (or all) of their labor needs to

a foreign country.

Is Your Career Choice Vulnerable?

When outsourcing first began, most college

students and recent grads weren't con-

cerned with whether or not their chosen

industry would remain based in the U.S.

Today, many workers realize they have

equally educated and skilled workers com-

peting for the same jobs overseas. To be-

come more competitive, many now choose

a career path that is firmly planted on our

home turf.

Jobs That Are Here to Stay

Here are nine jobs that are not likely to be

shipped oceans away (source: U.S. Depart-

ment of Labor):

Dental Assistant

It's tough to clean teeth from across the

world. A career as a dental assistant usu-

ally begins with an associate's degree from

an accredited college or university.

Pharmacy Technician

People take their health seriously -- that's

why a certification as a pharmacy tech is

not likely to be outsourced.

F A L L 2 0 0 8 A L D I N E I N D E P E N D E N T S C H O O L D I S T R I C T 1 4 9 1 0 A L D I N E W E S T F I E L D R D . H O U . T X 7 7 0 3 2

V O L U M E 1 I S S U E 3

C A R E E R A N D T E C H N I C A L E D U C A T I O N

S P E C I A L P O I N T S O F I N -T E R E S T :

CTE Courses Prepare Students

Tuskegee Airmen Annual Visit

50th Annul FFA Livestock Show and Country Fair

A Word From The Director

Hospitality Students Visit

BRIDGES.com

Internships, A Winner For Students and Companies!

Fitness Professional

It's hard enough to be motivated in-person.

Offshore encouragement won't cut it. A career

in fitness can begin with a certificate program.

Teacher Aide

Teachers need live help to care for kids. An

anonymous, off-site representative just won't

cut it when it comes to educating our kids.

Auto Repair Technician

Most car troubles can't be repaired with simple,

over-the-phone instructions. An auto tech stud-

ies anywhere from 6 months to 2 or more years,

and will always have a steady stream of live

customers.

Pet Groomer

Along the lines of a dog trainer, pet grooming

just must be done in person. This is usually

only a certificate program.

Plumber

This career depends fully on local workers --

plumbers definitely won't be phoning in from

overseas to unclog your toilet.

Veterinary Assistant

A pet's health and happiness is of serious im-

portance to most owners, and they won't be

putting it in the hands of foreign workers. You

can become a vet assistant by completing a cer-

tificate program.

Electrician

This highly technical and hands-on job simply

can't be done any other way, except live and in-

person.

Information taken from Yahoojobs.com

Five members of the Tuske-

gee Airmen visited Aldine

students again this year bringing

a message of hope, tenacity, and

believing in your dreams. Lt. Col.

Robert Ashby, Corp. Don Elder,

2nd Lt. Thurston Gaines, M.D.,

Capt. Claude Platte, and 2nd Lt. Ed

Tillman spoke to students at Eisen-

hower and Nimitz high schools

during the week of Oct. 17th thru

21st. The Airmen encouraged the

students to stay in school and be-

come involved in new and emerging

careers. We look forward to the

Airmen visiting our students again

during the 2009-20010 school

The following program ar-eas in the CTE department had students earn industry standard licenses in the spring of 2008. The follow-ing is a partial list of the program area and numbers of students gaining certifi-cations/licensures. (Not all program areas have taken their particular certifica-tion exams. Some exams require that students not be tested until after their 18th birthday.)

Agriculture—NCCER Weld-ing

Building Trades—NCCER Carpentry

Cosmetology—Licensed Cosmetologist-19

BCIS II— Microsoft Of-fice Spec.

MOS-

HVAC— NCCER HVAC

OSHA-

Health Science Tech-nology III-Nurse Aid- CAN-52

Health Science Technology III-EMT -

EMT - 4

Food Production, Mgt, & Services I — ServSafe- 11

Hospitality Services-

American Hotel Lodg-ing Management

LMP-

Computer Mainte-nance I or II— A+

Health Science Tech-nology III- Pharmacy- Pharmacy Technician

I N D U S T R Y S T A N D A R D L I C E N S E S A N D C E R T I F I C A T I O N S

A G R I C U L T U R E T E C H N O L O G Y ’ S 5 0 T H A G S H O W !

This year marks a milestone in the Aldine Independent School District’s

FFA Livestock Show and FCCLA Country Fair.

This is the 50th Anniversary of the FFA Livestock Show and Coun-

try Fair will be held on January 28-30 2009 with The Sale of Champions

taking place on January 30, 2009 at 7:00pm. Several special events will be

held to commemorate this grand occasion. Events scheduled include an

Alumni Gala and an Old fashioned street festival.

The Alumni Gala (held on Friday, January 16th, 2009) invites all who have

been involved with the FFA Livestock show to participate in a night of

dancing, singing and a down-home dinner. On Saturday, January 24, 2009

a Community Street Festival is scheduled sponsored by the North Houston

Greenspoint Chamber of Commerce to encourage the entire community to

come out and experience a time of nostalgia as they relive the old-fashioned

street festival.

“We just can’t thank our Aldine community enough for the strong support

they showed our Students’ projects,” said Franklin Higgins, AISD Director

of Career and Technical Education. “Every year our community steps up to

the plate and exceeds in what they have contributed in the years before.

This year’s results are just remarkable. We had another successful

show because so many people and groups made a special effort to sup-

port our students and buyers.”

Page 2 C A R E E R A N D T E C H N I C A L E D U C A T I O N

2008-2009 Grand Champion

Laura Reyes- Nimitz HS

Reserve Grand Champion

Maria Rucoba- Eisenhower HS

Aldine ISD Hospital-ity Students!

A total of 7 students re-cently visited the Conti-nental Airlines Reserva-tions Center located on Sam Houston Parkway and Ella Blvd.

Fran Osten-Snowden of Continental Airlines gave the students a tour of the facility and talked to them about possible employment after graduation. Students were allowed to see the different areas inside the facility and were in-formed of the need for special language speak-ers, Disney Vacation re-servationists, the lounge and resting areas where employees are encour-aged to rest during long shifts.

The students enrolled in Ms. Milsaps class also saw the state of the art cafeteria for employees, and talked to an em-

ployee who won a Ford Explorer for his perfect attendance. Employees who do not miss work have an opportunity to enter their names into a drawing to reward their punctuality and produc-tivity. A highlight for the students was visiting the area that solves irate customer issues, the students marveled at the fact that the employees were in a secure area only accessible by entering a pass code and I.D. card scan.

Mrs. Osten-Snowden encouraged the students to apply for positions as soon as they graduated from high school in May and she further relayed to the students that the reservations group was a great place to start in the travel and tourism in-dustry.

ing sought after careers. In a recent symposium of construction profes-sional the need for craft workers is increasing while the number of public school that offer training programs is in decline. It is estimated that Houston will need an additional 10,000 new hires in engineering and construction related careers thru the year

Aldine ISD continues to stay abreast of the needs of our community by of-fering courses that lead to high-skills, high-wages and the opportunity to at-tend post-secondary edu-cation. Aldine still offers classes to students inter-ested in construction re-lated careers. Courses such as building trades, HVAC, and welding lead to opportunities for high pay-

2012. This number is what will be needed just to complete the contracts for con-struction of projects currently approved, hiring managers are fearful they will be forced to turn down projects because of a shortage of employ-ees.

Hospitality Students Visit Continental!

C A R E E R S I N C O N S T R U C T I O N S T I L L I N H I G H D E M A N D !

Page 3 V O L U M E 1 I S S U E 3

Careers In Air Cargo In

Demand!

According to Delta Farley ,

Human Resources Di-

rector of CEVA, more en-

try level employees are nec-

essary in the Air Cargo in-

dustry because of an aging

workforce. As baby-

boomers retire more work-

ers are needed in all aspects

of the industry. CEVA em-

ploys 54,000 people and

runs an extensive global

network with facilities in

over 100 countries. Follow-

ing the merger with EGL in

August 2007, the new com-

bined company had pro

forma sales of more than

$ 5 billion dollars.

For more information on

Air cargo careers make

plans to attend the Janu-

ary 22, 2009 Advisory

Council meeting.

W H A T ’ S N E W A T B R I D G E S . C O M ?

This has been an outstanding year for the Aldine ISD Career and Technical Education Depart-ment.

Aldine’s Career and Technical Education pro-grams are quickly growing and expanding to pro-vide a wider variety of career and technical op-portunities to the student body.

Students have made excellent gains this year in gaining industry standard certifications, ad-vanced technical credit, licensures, and acquiring quality industry specific internships. This will continue to be a critical component of the CTE department’s vision and goals.

Our goal is to continually update the valid certifi-cations and licenses for all of our high school stu-dents, as well as encouraging our students to gain at least an associates degree in their chosen field of study at the post-secondary level.

Thank you for all that you do to prepare our stu-dents to truly be the nation’s best!

Sincerely,

Franklin Higgins

Franklin Higgins

I N T E R N S H I P S G O O D F O R C O M P A N I E S A N D S T U D E N T S !

Internships provide high school students with an opportunity to gain valuable experience in an identified career focus area. Students have the opportunity to observe and apply the skills they have learned in the classroom.

A great example of how effective this process can be is the case of Central City Air. Central City is one of the city’s larger HVAC installers in the commercial sector. Central City sought out many school districts throughout the Houston area before contacting Aldine.

Once the request was made through the CTE office Mr. Jesse Davila at Aldine HS responded with several stu-dents interested in training as AC installer helpers, Central City was pleased with the students and asked for 2 additional students, those students did well and before long all of Mr. Davila’s 8 seniors were placed for trainee positions at Central City. The following is a testimonial from the president of Central City Air, Suzanne Debien.

“ We are hiring some of the students trained by Mr. Davila, what a great program that is, he has done an impressive job

of educating and preparing the students to enter this job market. We looked all over for schools with a technical training

course, only found 2 school district with such. Our install crew leaders make more money than my daughter who gradu-

ated from the University of Chicago and is completing her Masters at NYU.”

A W O R D F R O M T H E D I R E C T O R

Bridges.com. Bridges is the web-based version of Choices® This year, the Program has new and cus-tomized features that will better assist our students with the career planning process.

Clearer Relationships Between Interests and Career Clusters In order to highlight how interests can connect to career clusters, Interest Profiler results have been matched with career clusters. After com-pleting the Interest Profiler, students can choose to see their top career clusters, in addi-tion to their top careers.

New Career Information Choices Planner adds new careers in each year in order to reflect the changing world of work. New career options have been added to broaden students' possibilities. Also, the career data has been updated in response to the latest information from O*NET.

New Content The world of work is constantly changing. New articles on emerging careers, new education programs and trends in the labor market have been added. In addition, articles have been up-dated to give students the most current informa-tion possible.

Bridges also has been customized to reflect Aldine’s 4-Year Education Plans, along with requirements of The Recommended High School Plan. As students stake the career assessments, such as Interest Profiler and Cluster Finder, they will be directed to the district’s Education Plan that aligns with their identified Career Cluster.

Aldine Independent School District does not discriminate against persons because of race, creed, national origin, age, sex, disabili-ties, economic status or language disability in employment, promotion or educational programming. Any complaints or grievances which cannot be solved at campus level through the principal may be submitted in writing to Dr. Archie Blanson, Deputy Superinten-dent, 14910 Aldine Westfield Rd., Houston, TX 77032.