2026 K-ACTE Career Tech Summit

The OSHA 10-Hour Credential of Value provides Kansas students with a strong foundation in workplace safety across multiple CTE pathways. This interactive session explores how schools can pair OSHA 10-Hour training with employability skills to strengthen workforce readiness and align instruction with employer expectations.


Participants will see brief classroom examples, engage in discussion, and reflect on an essential question: What are you currently using to teach safety in your classroom or lab? Attendees will leave with practical ideas they can apply immediately.

Educators shape far more than academic outcomes. They help shape students’ confidence, character, and career trajectories. In this engaging and interactive session, educator, former financial advisor, and motivational speaker Justin Roger shares how teachers and mentors helped him overcome adversity and change the direction of his life. Participants will explore practical ways to build strong relationships, raise expectations, and inspire students to develop purpose, resilience, and a mindset that prepares them for both the workforce and life.

Reality U is a 75-minute, hands-on simulation where students experience the financial realities of adulthood. Based on their current GPA, they step into the role of a 26-year-old and manage income and debt while navigating real-world financial decisions.


Through interactive booths staffed by local business and community volunteers, students make choices about housing, transportation, insurance, food, and more while balancing a checkbook that cannot dip below zero.


More than an event, Reality U is a powerful instructional tool. Students quickly see how academic performance and decision-making directly impact their financial stability and career pathways.


In this session, each participant will learn how Reality U boosts engagement, strengthens community partnerships, and reinforces career and life readiness skills while providing practical implementation strategies. From small schools to large, Reality U creates an unforgettable, hands-on financial experience for all students.

This high-energy presentation delves into the synergy between Career and Technical Education (CTE) and the ADHD brain. While neurodivergent individuals often face underemployment due to a lack of engagement in traditional academic settings, CTE offers a game-changing alternative. By prioritizing hands-on learning and industry-recognized credentials, CTE paves the way to high-wage, high-demand careers that align with neurodiverse strengths.
Attendees will explore recent research on access and supports, learn strategies for guiding students through career clusters and pathways, and discover effective methods for student leadership and work-based learning. This session is highly interactive, featuring an Executive Function Match-Up activity, collaborative sharing of educational methods, and a competitive quiz game with prizes!

Session Overview
 
 This interactive presentation will introduce participants to the University of Kansas School of Health Professions and the U-CHaMP program. The session is designed to increase awareness of health professions degree programs, highlight career pathways in healthcare, and actively engage participants through a hands-on career exploration activity.
 
 Participants will gain a better understanding of the variety of health professions careers available, the educational pathways required, and how U-CHaMP supports students pursuing careers in healthcare.
 

 Learning Objectives
 
 By the end of this session, participants will be able to:
 1. Describe the mission and goals of U-CHaMP and its role in supporting students interested in health professions.
 2. Identify degree programs offered through the KU School of Health Professions.
 3. Connect healthcare careers to real-world patient cases, job responsibilities, and required education.
 4. Actively explore health professions careers through an interactive matching activity.
 

 Presentation Format & Time Breakdown
 
 1. Welcome & Introduction (5 minutes)
 • Presenter introduction
 • Overview of session objectives

 
 2. Overview of U-CHaMP (10 minutes)
 • Mission and purpose of U-CHaMP
• How U-CHaMP prepares students for professional health programs
 
 3. KU School of Health Professions Overview (10 minutes)
 • Overview of the School of Health Professions
 • Introduction to select degree programs and career outcomes
 

 4. Interactive Career Exploration Activity (10–12 minutes)
 Participants will work individually or in small groups using a set of five cards:
 • Card 1: Healthcare career
 • Card 2: Job description
 • Card 3: Patient case
 • Card 4: Diagnosis
 • Card 5: Interesting fact about the career
• Card 6: Degree required
 
 Participants will match the cards correctly, encouraging critical thinking and discussion around how healthcare professionals work with patients and within care teams.
 
 5. Wrap-Up & Q&A (3–5 minutes)
 • Group discussion and reflections
 • Questions and next steps for students interested in health professions

Developing strong community and industry partnerships is essential to expanding meaningful work-based learning opportunities for students. In this interactive session, Dr. Ceresa Schaffer from De Soto USD 232 will share practical strategies for building and sustaining partnerships with local businesses while increasing student participation in internship programs. Participants will learn how to effectively recruit business partners, market internship opportunities to students, and create systems that support successful placements. Attendees will engage in collaborative discussion and leave with ready-to-use ideas, outreach strategies, and tools they can implement immediately to strengthen business partnerships and expand student access to real-world career experiences.

This session explores how electronic portfolios can transform the Individual Plan of Study into a dynamic, student-driven showcase of growth, achievement, and future readiness.


Discover how electronic portfolios help students document skills, reflect on progress, connect academic learning to career goals, and take ownership of their educational journey. Learn practical strategies for implementation, assessment alignment, and meaningful reflection that moves beyond compliance to true engagement.

Youth Registered Apprenticeship is a recognized Career Preparation Work-Based Learning activity for CTE in Kansas, providing students with meaningful earn-while-you-learn opportunities that can lead directly to full-time employment across industries such as construction, healthcare, education, and manufacturing. Attend this session to learn how the Apprenticeship system works and explore how districts across Kansas are implementing this model, leaving with a clearer understanding of how Youth Apprenticeship can be structured, supported, and expanded within your local context.

This session will spotlight Kansas’s pilot Youth Teacher Apprenticeship Program, implemented during the 2025–26 school year by Topeka Public Schools, Spring Hill Public Schools, and Liberal Public Schools. Designed as a “grow your own” strategy, the program blends paid, work-based learning within the teacher/training CTE pathway with intentional access to dual college credit, creating an early and sustainable pipeline for students interested in becoming educators.


Moderated by Joel Gillaspie of the Kansas State Department of Education, who oversees the program statewide, this panel discussion will feature district leaders Laura Nichols (Topeka), Leah Good (Spring Hill), and Tasha Ebeling (Liberal). Each panelist will share their district’s unique approach to designing and implementing the pilot, including partnerships, scheduling, student supports, and lessons learned during the first year of operation.


Attendees will gain practical insights into how districts of varying sizes and contexts are leveraging youth apprenticeships to strengthen educator pipelines, support student career exploration, and align CTE, higher education, and workforce goals in meaningful ways.

Students are asked to walk into locations they are not familiar with, work with people they don't know, and learn from those experiences.  At the end of this session, participants will get a gift from the KHSIA, as well as:


1.  Examine issues that students could encounter on the way to and from a work-based learning experience and how to mitigate those risks to them and your program.
2.  Examine issues within the work-based learning experience that a student may need to deal with and how to mitigate those risks.
3.  Explore how to improve a student's work-based learning experiences by addressing how to get the most out of their learning.  

Discover how artificial intelligence can elevate learning in the CTE classroom using the IAVES framework—Instruction, Assessment, Visibility, Engagement, and Support. This session showcases practical applications of AI in CTE classrooms, adaptive teaching tools, and AI‑powered project work to strengthen technical and academic skills. Participants will explore how AI enhances instructional planning, provides real‑time assessment insights, increases visibility into student progress, and boosts engagement through personalized learning. Attendees will leave with actionable strategies aligned to the IAVES model that can be implemented across any CTE pathway to better prepare students for an AI‑driven workforce.