Feature Story

Liz Anstine believes a child’s passions for what they may want to pursue later as a career should be fostered by Career and Technical Education (CTE) principles all along the continuum of a student’s education. 

“Maybe in third grade, you wanted to be a firefighter, maybe in fourth grade you wanted to paint nails, maybe in fifth grade, all of a sudden, you're interested in feeding the homeless because you did that as a project,” said Anstine, the 2025 Kansas Teacher of the Year. “So now we want to help drive that (passion) for them and help them make sure that they're keeping that purposeful curiosity. I'm so big on that because it's going to make their story bigger because they've kind of learned about all of these things along the way.” 

Two Kansas chapters of the Future Farmers of America (FFA) are proving the organization teaches high school students more than just farming and agriculture.  

This year’s FFA officers at Riverton High School, Riverton USD 404, met for a leadership retreat in late summer to begin planning their activities for the 2024-25 school year. That’s when the concept for the “Ag for All Ages” program took root. 

February is national Career and Technical Education month, a public awareness campaign hosted by the Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) and sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders. The celebration shines a light on the accomplishments of CTE programs across the U.S., including Kansas. 

Some attendees of the annual CTE conference in Manhattan this week got the chance to tour Manhattan High School’s CTE program that includes courses in business, welding, journalism, architectural drafting and agriculture, to name a few.  

“We’re a big school with more than 2,000 students in the building,” said Chris Holborn, CTE coordinator at Manhattan High School for the past five years. “Some kids are really diving deep into areas but we’re also in an exploratory phase with some of our students. We try to give them options to find that field they want to go into or go to college for. We also have students who dabble in trying to figure out what they want to do. We try to serve all of those populations.” 

Kansas parents appear to be more positive than they were five years ago about their children’s pursuit of career and technical education during high school according to the parent perception survey conducted by HirePaths, a career exploration company based in Manhattan.

“I think this is a pat on everybody’s back here,” Kristin Brighton, founder of HirePaths, told members of the Kansas State Board of Education during their August meeting. “I think that is an exciting thing to celebrate.”

Asher Swank started his freshman year in 2020 at Southeast of Saline High School, Southeast of Saline Unified School District 306, in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, spending a lot of time at home. That’s when he decided to join Family, Career and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA).