For CTE Specialists — Nominating Across Multiple Programs
If you're a Virginia CTE specialist, coordinator, or director — somebody who works across multiple programs and multiple buildings — you're the natural connector between VBCTF and the teachers in your division. Here's how to think about that role.
You can nominate students yourself.
Specialists who know a student's work and their post-graduation plan can be the nominator. You don't have to route nominations through the classroom teacher. If you've personally watched a student earn the credential or know them through a regional academy or work-based learning program, you have standing to nominate.
You can also be the conduit.
The more common path: you tell every CTE teacher in your division about VBCTF, you keep the qualifying courses list visible in your division's CTE resource folder, and you point teachers at the nomination form when they have a student who qualifies. You don't nominate everyone — you make sure no one falls through the cracks.
A few practical moves for specialists:
Audit your hard-trades programs against the qualifying courses list. Make sure every CTE teacher in those programs knows they have students who could be nominated. Even one nomination per program per year is a real impact.
Time the conversation. Late February through early April is when seniors firm up post-graduation plans. That's when a one-paragraph email from you to your CTE teachers — "reminder, VBCTF spring cycle closes April 30, here's the link" — pays off.
Track the outcomes. Specialists who can tell their division superintendents how many students received Apprentice Tool Grants over a few years build a case for CTE that goes beyond enrollment numbers. The grant is a tangible post-graduation success that boards of education like to hear about.
Talk to us about regional academies and work-based learning programs. If you run something where the structure is different — academy students at a regional CTC, governor's STEM academies with CTE pathways, work-based learning placements — we can talk through how nominations work for non-traditional structures. There's almost always a path; we just need to know the situation.
Why specialists matter
A great CTE teacher can nominate one or two students a year. A specialist can ensure dozens of teachers across a division know the grant exists and have the link handy when the moment comes. That multiplier is what gets a program from a handful of nominations to a real pipeline.
Ready to nominate, or to put this in front of your teachers?Open the nomination form →
