Elective/CTE Credit
wa state bill 5617
Washington State Bill 5617 rewards academic credit to students in outside-of-school “skill centers”, specifically to CTE (Career Technical Education) credit to “competitive technology-based extracurriculars”. Which we strongly believe FRC, FTC, and VEX qualify for.
Plan of action
State Level:
To support CTE credit for robotics and the State bill 5617:
Comment on the bill
LINK WEBSITE
TEMPLATE
Contact your legislators in favor
Email
Invite to shop
If you've invited them to your shop, we suggest holding an hour of so long meeting with the intention of gaining legislator's support to include Highschool Robotics within State bill 5617
When Meeting with them, it's important to mention:
Robotics teaches:
science and technology
technical and nontechnical skills (media, business, advocacy, outreach)
soft skills like self-confidence, communication, leadership, etc...
Robotics prepares the future to face real-world problems
Robotics teaches 21st-century job skills
Robotics teams are usually structured like a start-up business
Robotics is one of the best activities for workforce prep because it is:
project-based learning/hands-on job training
Teaching students skills they can pursue post education
Teaching students skills they will need in the workforce
Teaching students "specific career skills" which align exactly with CTE credit.
6. Students spend an (avg hour calculation for your students annually) hours in robotics and learn extremely Career-specific skills at a depth that can not be taught in classes.
7. without CTE credit, our abilities are not reflected in our college applications.
8. then, opening discussion and feedback from your Legislators.
student association for stem advocacy
National Level:
The Student Association for STEM Advocacy (SASA) is a non-profit corporation with its mission to educate, engage and mobilize students to promote the expansion of and access to Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) programs.
SASA hosts a National conference in Washington DC where they coach students on meeting with Congress representatives to advocate for their needs.
"The 2019 FIRST National Advocacy Conference was an incredible experience. Personally, I was given opportunities that wouldn't be available to me anywhere else... NAC not only brings out the best in every student but also pushes students to perform in real-world situations with our nation's legislature. [Helping students gain] the confidence and presentation skills needed to help [them] in the future." - Tenzing Wiandt (FRC 1816 – The Green Machine
plan of action
Although attending the National Advocacy Conference is a great experience, we'd like to acknowledge that it is not practical for many teams. It is a very expensive trip, SASA membership costs $200 and NAC attendance costs $315 if you are a member and $345 if you are not per person. Additionally, travel, hotel, and food costs add up to be quite a lot, especially considering most people would have to take school off to attend.
Not attending this conference does not make you any less of an advocate or your impact any less meaningful to the world. We greatly appreciate your contributions, on any level. By advocating, you are actively supporting robotics and all the youth who passionately dream to pursue it, and that is a commendable effort you should be proud of.
If you are still interested in going here is the link to sign up for the National Advocacy Conference (NAC):
https://mysasa.org/national-advocacy-conference