Professional Development-State Conference

This was the first year I took students to state conference. My student teacher and I brought eight students and seven of them competed in STAR Events. I was nervous for them since I had never coached students for the competition before, but it all turned out ok. No national qualifiers but maybe next year. :)

The best thing I did for myself was volunteered to be an event chair. I would truly suggest that any advisor that has not done this, should volunteer for this. It was so much fun to talk with students before and after their events. Because of all the interaction between students and of course the judges, this is the best way to learn about STAR Events and the whole process. I will plan to do it again in the future.

For some reason, I did not have any trouble getting students interested in competing at state. I was pleased with the number of students I had this year. I really placed the responsibility on the students to hold them accountable. I set a deadline before registration was due for them to meet with me with detailed plans for how they would get their project completed. I checked in with all of them about a month later. The week before state, each group presented in front of our members and we used the judges rubrics to give them feedback. Now that I have had one group go to state, it will be beneficial next year to have their projects to use as examples as well as a few of the students who were underclassmen, so they will be returning to spread the word about how fun and motivational it was.

As far as recruiting ideas for next year, I will continue making meetings meaningful so students' time is not wasted. One big goal of mine is to work on educating my staff about FCCLA because they just do not get it. We are also making a display board to be used at freshman orientation in August to spread awareness to new students. My biggest advice to newer advisers is to jump right in and get involved at the district and state level because it is really the best and most thorough way to learn.