Eastern PAAE

The Eastern Region PAAE meeting was held this past April 6^th at Garden Spot High School.  If you’re keeping up on things and are observant.  I am teaching at Lampeter Strasburg High School home of the Garden Spot FFA Chapter however, Garden Spot High School is known as the Grassland FFA Chapter confusing, right?  This high school is just up the road from us so Mrs. O, Mr. Smith, and I didn’t have a long drive at all.  

In my travels to Garden Spot High School Mrs. O pointed out the New Holland sale barn to me.  It is the largest sale barn on the East Coast.  FYI it really isn’t much to look at.  But, it is an integral part of livestock production on the East Coast.  Many farmers in my area use this sale barn. 

When I arrived at Garden Spot High School I got to observe their facilities and their greenhouse was blossoming with vegetables and flowers!  During the meeting we had guest presenters from the Center for Dairy and PDA.  The Center for Dairy Excellence was promoting their Dairy Leaders of Tomorrow Curriculum and if you haven’t checked it out yet you should!  Mr. Sheely, from PDA gave use some food for thought.  There are 163 schools that offer agricultural education courses in Pennsylvania.  Seventy percent of those programs are comprehensive high schools within the commonwealth.  On a side note twenty four percent of these programs are not approved programs.  Meaning they do not meet PA Department of Education requirements for the Career and Technical Education Standards.  Another interesting fact is that Pennsylvania employs 238 agricultural educators!

Other topics of discussion during the meeting consisted of SAE integration throughout the state and incorporating AET into our programs.  NOCTI was also brought up and these are exams that students take if they are “completers” of your program.  Lampeter Strasburg conducted theirs April 6-7.  The PAAE conference being held at MiddWest High School was discussed.  What intrigued me about this conference were the vast opportunities agricultural educators could choose from to meet their individual needs.  Overall the meeting was very productive and informative.