Washington Conference Gets High Marks
“I had a great time, learned a lot, and made many lifetime friends. I’m excited to go back home and share what I learned. I can’t wait to come back again. Thanks for a good conference. You all ROCK!” That was one of the comments from the students attending the Washington Leadership Training Institute (WLTI). Here’s a comment from a teacher: “This was my first time attending WLTI and it will be one of my top memories in 15 years of SkillsUSA involvement.”
Of course, perennial highlights for student delegations during WLTI are the congressional office visits. This year, in the space of about five hours, the students and teachers from 21 states made at least 78 office visits. The delegation reports are in and transcribed, and here’s a sampling of what the students had to report:
“We met with Representative Neugebauer (Texas). He said he strongly believes in what SkillsUSA is all about and he said that Perkins funding is very important. He said without CTE programs we wouldn’t have a productive nation; it’s the basis of our work force.”
“We met with a legislative aide in Representative Arcuri’s (New York) office. It was the first time she’d heard about SkillsUSA and she was interested to know more. She said the congressman had been approached last year to be part of the CTE Caucus and he was looking for local advocates in his district. The aide said “I think I’ve found the perfect group!”
WLTI 2010 received uniformly high marks based on surveys of students and advisors with scores averaging between 4.25 and 4.75 on a five-point scale. We also received recommendations for improvement, and we’ll be working on those. That’s how we keep the ratings high, but when we see the advisors’ rating of 4.71 to the question “did the training offered meet students’ needs?” we believe we’re on the right track. Congratulations go to the entire staff. We’ll just have to do it again.
Tags: WLTI
