The Association of Illinois Rural and Small Schools has launched the Rural Illinois CTE Project in partnership with the Illinois State Board of Education. The initiative aims to better understand what rural districts currently offer through career and technical education (CTE), identify challenges and opportunities, and provide direct local support to help expand these programs. As part of ongoing efforts to strengthen career readiness, Program Director John Glasgow is highlighting a pilot program that blends agricultural education with computer science.
“Students in a rural district have this opportunity to be broadly engaged. Another asset to being in a rural district is flexibility and freedom. Teachers consistently across the nation in a rural district will say they have way more autonomy to create the class they want, to lead the class they want, and to change with students and time. I took that as a starting point,” reports Glasgow. “Ag is the most offered CTE course in rural Illinois districts. What is difficult though is we also need a lot of computer science skills, but that is very difficult for rural districts to do. So, one pilot we have been working on is allowing ag ed classes to teach computer science skills.”
Through the program, interested ag educators can attend workshops to learn how to integrate the computer science skills into their existing curriculum:
“Really, it comes down to just needing one teacher. You need an ag teacher,” Glasgow adds. “An ag teacher with an interest and ability to want to go out and learn these skills. What we do for the computer science skills is a workshop for ag teachers to work with our partners at the Learning Technology Center to see how they can incorporate what is called a micro:bit into lessons they already have.”
There are approximately 862 public school districts in Illinois. Of those, 491 are classified as rural by the Association of Illinois Rural and Small Schools.
