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Career and Technical Education

CTE Content Areas

Oversight and Guidance

Integrated and Specialized Academics

Integrated Coursework

CR100.5 (d)(6)(i)(a) An integrated career and technical education course shall mean a course that combines career and technical education and academic commencement level learning standards and may be jointly developed and taught by an academic subject teacher and/or a career and technical education teacher. Successful completion of one unit of study in an integrated career and technical education course may be awarded only one unit of credit but may be used to meet the distribution requirements in more than one subject.

  • Academic content isÌýinherentÌýwithin theÌýCTEÌýcurriculum covered in the program of study and includes a minimum of 108 hours of content in the academic area.ÌýÌý
  • Courses must be jointly planned by appropriately certified academic and career and technical education teachers. Courses can be delivered byÌýappropriately certifiedÌýacademic and career and technical education teachers or by a certified career and technical education teacher.
  • Successful students earn one unit of credit toward the 22 credits required for a diploma. That unit may be used toÌýmeet distribution requirements of more than one subjectÌýbut may only be awarded one unit of credit, e.g., an integrated science credit may be used to meet the minimum credits required for program approval and the credit may be applied toward diploma requirements for science. It is a district’s decision to determine how the credit will be distributed for diploma requirements.

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Specialized Coursework

CR100.5 (b)(7)(iv) A specialized course is a course that meets the requirements of a unit of credit as defined in section 100.1(a) of this Part and the 91¾«Ñ¡ State commencement-level learning standards as established by the commissioner. A specialized course develops the subject in greater depth and/or breadth and/or may be interdisciplinary. Successful completion of one unit of study in an interdisciplinary specialized course may be awarded only one unit of credit but may be used to meet the distribution requirements in more than one subject. In a public high school, an interdisciplinary specialized course shall be taught by a teacher certified in at least one of the subjects.
  • Specialized credit isÌýavailable to students who have passed the required assessment in the academic area.ÌýCredit is earned when a student demonstrates achievement of the learning objectives (based on commencement level learning standards) for a unit of study.ÌýIn addition to theÌýtime requirement, demonstration and assessment of content knowledgeÌýisÌýrequired before a unit of credit is awarded.Ìý
  • Academic content isÌýbolsteredÌýand not inherentÌýwithin the CTE curriculum covered in the program of study and includes a minimum of 108 hours of content in the academic area.
  • Successful students earn one unit of credit toward the 22 credits required for a diploma. That unit may be used to meet distribution requirements of more than one subject but may only be awarded one unit of credit, e.g., a specialized science credit may be used to meet the minimum credits required for program approval and the credit may be applied toward diploma requirements for science. It is a district’s decision to determine how the credit will be distributed for diploma requirements.

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A Comparison of Integrated and Specialized Coursework

A graphic comparing the differences between integrated and specialized coursework including the characteristics of what they look like in practice.

The graphic aboveÌýcompares the differences between integrated and specialized coursework including the characteristics of what they look like in practice.

The key difference is not as much inÌýwhatÌýcontent exists butÌýhowÌýit exists.ÌýIn an integrated course,Ìýa student mustÌýknow the commencement level academic content in order to learn the CTE content.Ìý In a specialized course, the academic content is not inherently there but is bolstered so that 108 hours of academics can be provided in the program.Ìý

Information on current commencement level academic standards for ELA, math, science, and social studies can be found on the Office of Curriculum and Instruction web page.Ìý

Example 1:ÌýAn engineering program may seek approval for integrated ELA, math, and science credit as students need to learn commencement level standards in all three of these academic areas in order to learn the engineering content of the CTE program.ÌýÌý

Example 2:ÌýAn information technology (IT) program may seek approval for specialized mathematics as the information technology program does not inherently include commencement level mathematics content. To meet commencement level requirements for math in this example, a school would bolster the mathematics content within the program.ÌýÌý

Note:ÌýThese examples are being given to help define the difference between integrated and specialized credit. Each program application that is received is individually evaluated for the appropriateness of integrated or specialized credit therefore not all engineering or IT programs may qualify as described in the example.Ìý

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Templates

To provide additional assistance to the field, the Office of CTEÌýandÌýthe Office of Curriculum and Instruction have developed math and science crosswalk templates that can be used for documenting integrated and/or specialized math and science within CTE programs. These templates are an optional resource and are not required for program approval or re-approval.ÌýSince the use of theseÌýtemplates is optional,Ìýschools can continue to use past methods or softwareÌýthat have been effectiveÌýfor crosswalk development (e.g., Atlas, Excel, word document tables, etc.).ÌýThe templates belowÌýwereÌýdeveloped toÌýprovide assistance toÌýapplicants who have not found an effective wayÌýto document integrated and specialized academics and for others that may be looking for new ideas or approaches to documenting this information. These templates are an optional resource—not a requirement. 

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