Guest Opinion | Open letter to State Board of Education

||| FROM DR. KARI LYNN SCHUH |||

Dear Chair Fertakis and Members of the Washington State Board of Education,

I am unable to attend your August 12 meeting in person, but as you consider adopting the FutureReady resolution, I hope you will allow me to put one very important request—and the students I serve—into the room with you.

Please preserve at least one CTE credit as a true graduation requirement for every Washington student. 

I serve as Director of WANIC Skill Center, supporting students from seven school districts and more than 30 high schools in Northeast King County, and I am also the newly installed President of the Washington Association of Career and Technical Administrators (WACTA). Every day, I see firsthand what happens when students have the opportunity to connect what they learn in school with what they might actually do with their lives. As I often say, “CTE and Skill Centers is where our students can find their people, place, purpose, pathway, and passion.”

I can appreciate FutureReady’s goal of giving students greater flexibility. However, my concern is that the current proposal says students are “expected” to complete a CTE experience but may substitute an elective through their High School and Beyond Plan.

Here is where I struggle:

The HSBP is just a plan ….. CTE is an experience. A plan cannot replace the hands on connected deep learning experiences that helps a young person to steer that plan. How can we expect a 14-, 15-, 16- or 17-year-old to make informed postsecondary decisions if we allow them to graduate without ever directly experiencing meaningful career-connected learning?

At WANIC, a student interested in healthcare doesn’t simply input “healthcare” into the HSBP platform. Our Nursing students learn patient care, practice technical skills, participate in 40 required hours of clinical experiences with real patients, earn college credits, and have the opportunity to pursue industry credentials. Our industry clinical partners have commented on how exceptionally well prepared these students are when they arrive.  In fact, a student this year was awarded direct entry into the prestigious Nursing program at University of Washington.  An exceptional recognition of the rigor of our preparatory CTE classes.

At the other end of the spectrum are our DigiPen Art & Animation students—many of whom absolutely intend to attend four-year colleges. They develop sophisticated art portfolios and numerous technical skills through their learning, and many times we have celebrated these skill center students gaining admission to their first-choice postsecondary schools.

So is the future engineer who first discovers engineering through a high school Core Plus Aerospace Manufacturing class, the future accountant or entrepreneur who takes Business & Marketing, and the future teacher who discovers education through a high school Teaching Academy pathway.

CTE is not the alternative to college (a mindset that is often misunderstood by many). College, apprenticeship, technical education, military service, industry certification, and direct employment are different steps students may choose on their journey toward a career and adult life. CTE helps them to experience and figure out which pathway makes the most sense.  

Washington’s own outcomes reinforce what those of us working with students get to see every day. Recent Washington Workforce Board data show a 96.1% four-year graduation rate for CTE concentrators—students who complete at least TWO CTE credits within a single career cluster pathway—compared with 82.6% overall. This tells us, CTE creates relevance, engagement, belonging, skills, and—for some students—the only reason to stay connected to school in the first place.

Of the 24 credits Washington requires for graduation, asking every student to experience a minimum of one CTE credit intentionally connected to careers and the world beyond high school is not an unreasonable requirement. Based on the data, I would argue earning two credits is absolutely foundational to being “Future Ready.”

I am also concerned about eliminating the CTE graduation pathway. Your own 2025-26 Basic Education Compliance Report shows that 263 districts/LEAs—96% of those serving 12th grade—offer the CTE course-sequence graduation pathway. That is an extraordinarily accessible statewide pathway — perhaps it is one worth preserving.

I respectfully ask the Board, before adopting its FutureReady resolution, to:

• Retain at least the one dedicated CTE credit as a graduation requirement that cannot simply be substituted with an elective; and
• Consider making two full credits a graduation requirement of which only .5 can be WorkBased Learning connected to a CTE course.
• Preserve meaningful recognition of a coherent CTE course sequence as a valid graduation pathway.

Please don’t make CTE’s career-connected learning optional at precisely the moment Washington is investing so heavily in pre-apprenticeships, workforce development, dual credit, industry credentials, and the SchoolLinks High School and Beyond Planning. Our business and industry partners—and the economic sectors across Washington that depend upon a skilled future workforce—are counting on our education system to do the right thing. We cannot say workforce preparation is a statewide priority while simultaneously removing a credit specifically designed to make that connection.

If we truly want every student to leave high school prepared for what comes next, then every student deserves an opportunity to experience the connection CTE makes between school and industry long before we hand them a diploma.

Thank you for reading—and especially for considering all our students behind these statistics.