CSI Day 1 This is the first of a two day sessions (Tuesday) for School Counselors to offer them a deeper understanding of CTE and provide them with resources to better aid them when advising student regarding CTE pathways. Counselors attending will gain an understand how CTE is a bridge to a variety of postsecondary opportunities. They will have the opportunity to network with other school counselors, learn about pathways working with ATC's and CTC's and guidance to other sessions during the conference that will be of specific benefit to them.
Hard Hats! Bright Futures! How Gen Z Is Redefining Success explores how today’s students are reshaping postsecondary decision-making and what that means for effective school counseling. Designed for counselors and advisors, this session reframes postsecondary education as a set of multiple, equally valid pathways—including apprenticeships, skilled trades, technical education, community colleges, and four-year degrees—rather than a single hierarchy. Participants will examine labor market realities in Kentucky, unpack common data and advising biases that unintentionally elevate one path over others, and gain concrete strategies for helping students identify best-fit options based on interests, learning style, financial realities, and career goals. The presentation highlights Kentucky-specific workforce data, CTE pathways, apprenticeships, and stackable credentials, equipping counselors with practical tools and language to confidently guide students and families toward informed, aligned postsecondary choices in a “college and careers” reality.
Traditional career conversations often focus too narrowly on job titles rather than skills, identity, and evolving opportunities. This interactive session equips counselors and CCR coaches with practical questioning frameworks that shift conversations from What do you want to be? to Who are you becoming? Participants will learn how to guide students in exploring strengths, values, transferable skills, and career clusterswhile reducing pressure and perfectionism. Walk away with ready-to-use conversation scripts, reflection tools, and advising structures that work across middle and high school settings.
Are you ready to start a CTE Career Lab in your middle school? During this session attendees will learn about how I run my Paxton and Patterson Career Lab. We will explore the 16 different modules that I currently run in the classroom at one time. They will receive different teacher created resources and resources I have been using that will work in any career lab.
CTE Career Lab Teacher at a middle school level. A KEDC Renaissance Teacher Learder 2024-present time. I have presented at KAST and the KEDC Grant Summer Conference.
Explore how the Kentucky Postsecondary Advising Scope and Sequence can strengthen Individual Learning Plan (ILP) implementation and support meaningful college and career readiness. Participants will learn about new ILP training resources and how to leverage the Kentucky Postsecondary Advising Scope and Sequence alongside Futuriti, Kentucky's career exploration platform, to help students make informed postsecondary decisions. Discover strategies for integrating these free resources into various advising structures while building strong school and community partnerships to support robust, student-centered advising systems.
Director, Kentucky Advising Academy, Council on Postsecondary Education
Mitzi Holland is an education leader with more than 25 years of experience in Career and Technical Education (CTE) and postsecondary readiness. She began her career as a business educator, spending 15 years developing students’ practical and career-focused skills. She later served... Read More →
Senior Fellow, Kentucky Advising Academy, Council on Postsecondary Education
Susie Burkhardt is a lifelong educator with a 35-year career of fostering student-centered learning and academic excellence. Currently serving as a Senior Fellow for the Kentucky Council on Postsecondary Education, Susie is supporting the development of the Kentucky Advising Scope... Read More →
This session focuses on how CTE instructors can collaborate with local business and industry to establish, design, and sustain inclusive employer-engagement partnerships that create authentic, real-world career readiness for all students, including those with disabilities. Participants will learn intentional partnership design strategies to co-create vibrant learning experiences, equip employers with the tools, resources, and supports they need to participate confidently, and reduce employer uncertainty.
This session introduces Kentucky’s newly adopted Middle School Career Studies and Financial Literacy Standards and highlights a set of ready-to-use lesson plans designed to support their implementation. Participants will explore how early career awareness and financial literacy help students recognize their strengths, set meaningful goals, and make informed decisions about their futures. Through discussion, practical examples, and implementation strategies, school counselors and educators will gain tools to create engaging, real-world learning experiences that prepare all students for success in high school, postsecondary pathways, and beyond.
In my service as our CTE Coordinator I have coordinated with our students, leadership team, CTE departments, and community stakeholders to identify areas of strength and areas of needed growth in our CTE programs. This systems-based approach has supported significant growth in post-secondary readiness the last few school years, with our school earning the highest postsecondary readiness score in its history on recent state accountability measures. This session highlights the key strategies that drove that growth. Our work centered on elevating student voice, restructuring scheduling through advocacy to ensure pathway access and clarity in communication, informational posters that are personalized to our school/district, highlighted communications through our school news program and our local news programs within our community, reflecting on workforce and accountability data to align programs with employability trends and community needs. Through strong PLC collaboration, shared leadership among counselors and pathway teachers, intentional community partnerships, and the implementation of a readiness tracker, we created a unified, outcomes-driven CTE system. Participants of this session have opportunity to gain practical strategies that have been utilized by our team that have supported team alignment, practical and repeatable data reflection, and building pathways and learning opportunities that meet specific student needs. This session would be appropriate to be attended by administrators, counselors, and CTE instructors.
