The CTE Honors Recognition Certificate is a honors designation that any senior graduating from a high school in the State of Hawaii Department of Education may receive upon graduation, provided they complete certain requirements on time. Its purpose is to show academic excellence and depth of persistence, which can improve a student's chances of getting into a specific college or of qualifying for a scholarship or other financial aid.
Although CTE Honors is something you receive as a senior upon graduation, it absolutely requires planning ahead and being aware of requirements, so it's important for students in the first year of any CTE program of study to consider pursuing this designation as soon as possible. CTE teachers will send home paperwork about this designation within the first quarter.
The paperwork your student brought home is very important. The Kalani CTE department recently updated the CTE Honors interest form, and it now asks the parent/guardian to identify if their student is interested in pursuing CTE Honors. This is not a final decision by any means! But it allows the Kalani CTE department to gauge interest in the honors designation, which can help teachers to follow up with any students who may be falling behind on the requirements for it.
Parents are a very important component in any student's academic career, so it's important that they are aware about this valuable honors designation as early as possible. And of course, communication with parents about student opportunities is a top priority for all teachers.
For the Kalani AFNR program of study, there is only one option for the first-year course: Foundations of AFNR. For the second-year course, there are two options: Small Animal Systems or Principles of Agriculture, Agribusiness, and Food Systems. Either option will allow a student to achieve CTE Honors upon graduation as long as he/she completes all requirements by April of their senior year. The performance-based assessment (PBA) is carried out during either second-year course and it will consist of a year-long Supervised Agricultural Experience (SAE) project. (Even if a student is not pursuing CTE Honors, the PBA is still a required assignment for the course.) The curriculum in the Foundations of AFNR course will train students to carry out the SAE project and can help them identify their topic for the project, and then the project is actually carried out and completed in the second-year course.