UW Restarts Career Technical Teacher Education Program

A program to train career technical education teachers for Wyoming high schools is being revived, following action by the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees.

The board voted today (Thursday) to restart admissions in the UW Career Technical Teacher Education (CTE) Program, which had been eliminated due to budget reductions in 2017. The action maintains the program for two years, during which time a task force will work to re-envision the CTE degree in collaboration with Wyoming community colleges and other key education stakeholders.

“The program’s persistently low enrollments, averaging 2.5 graduates per year over a decade, required us to act when the university was called upon to reduce its biennial budget by $42 million in 2016,” College of Education Dean Ray Reutzel says. “Since that time, legislators, school districts and other constituents have made it clear just how important it is for us to graduate career technical educators, and we are responding accordingly.”

The College of Education aims to develop and propose a newly revised, broadened and distance-delivered Career Technical Teacher Education Program as a 3+1 degree program in consultation with community colleges, the Wyoming Professional Teaching Standards Board (PTSB), the Wyoming Department of Education and the Wyoming School University Partnership. The newly developed program will have to be reviewed and approved by the PTSB for initial licensure, and also approved through UW’s new degree approval process by no later than May 2021, so it can be ready to admit students statewide by fall 2021.