HD33 - Report on the Development of a Template for a Statewide Articulation Agreement for Career and Technical Education


Executive Summary:
House Joint Resolution 125 that was passed by the 2004 General Assembly directs the Board of Education, the State Board for Community Colleges, and the State Council of Higher Education to develop a statewide template for articulation agreements for career and technical education (CTE). While there are currently more than 426 articulation course agreements in effect between school divisions and community colleges, these agreements generally do not extend beyond a single community college service region. Also, there are significant differences in both the requirements of community colleges for students to receive articulated credits and the intake processes through which community colleges advise and award credits to students qualified to receive college credits for high school course work.

As a result, a taskforce of staff members and stakeholders from Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), Virginia Community College System (VCCS), and State Council of Higher Education for Virginia (SCHEV) met to identify obstacles and issues related to statewide articulation of CTE programs. The State Committee on Transfer-comprised of representatives of VDOE, VCCS, and four-year institutions-also dedicated several meetings to the topic.

A decision was made to develop statewide articulation models for each of the seven areas of career and technical education (Agricultural Education, Business and Information Technology, Family and Consumer Sciences, Health and Medical Sciences, Marketing, Technology, and Trade and Industrial) identified by the Virginia Department of Education. The identified components of a CTE articulation agreement are a first step in building a common foundation for all CTE programs and in stimulating increasingly productive partnerships between career and technical programs of differing level and different locales.

Work teams were organized to identify both those components of an effective articulation agreement common to all seven CTE program areas and those features of an effective articulation agreement that the group deemed to be specific to their assigned program area. The teams developed a general articulation model as well as a sample articulation agreement for each program area that incorporated the following components:

• General Conditions
• Maintenance of the Agreement
• Specific Conditions
• Assessment and Data Collection
• Implementation

Staff of the three leading education agencies (VDOE, VCCS, and SCHEV) met following the taskforce meeting and determined that the VCCS would complete a report on the statewide articulation agreement template. The VCCS presented on behalf of the three agencies, a report to the Advisory Council on Career and Technical Education by November 30, 2004, as well as this report approved by the board of each agency, along with an executive summary, to the Governor and the General Assembly by the first day of the 2005 Regular Session of the General Assembly.