Awards
2023 Nebraska Excellence in Career and Technical Education Awards
The Nebraska Department of Education is proud to sponsor the Excellence in Career and Technical Education Awards to recognize outstanding Nebraska Career and Technical Education programs and outstanding partnerships. These awards will be presented each June at the Nebraska Career and Technical Education Conference in Kearney, Nebraska. They will be presented in cooperation with the Association for Career and Technical Education in Nebraska’s recognition honoring outstanding Nebraska career education instructors.
Award winners will be notified in advance and are required to be present to receive their award. Criteria and application details for the awards are explained below.
Selection of Awardees
Recipients of Nebraska Excellence in Career and Technical Education Awards will be determined by an internal selection team composed of Nebraska Department of Education Career and Technical Education Specialists.
Award Categories
This award is open to any teacher, counselor, administrator, or community member, business person, or legislator who has demonstrated sustained and outstanding statewide leadership and advocacy for Nebraska Career and Technical Education. The leadership and advocacy must have been at a level beyond a specific community or institution and spanned a significant portion of his/her professional career.
The individual selected for the award must have made significant advancement in the mission of Nebraska Career and Technical Education to enhance lifelong learning, earning and living skills and knowledge. Other considerations include:
- Passion for career and technical education
- Outstanding leadership and guidance in creating an environment conducive to career and technical education
- Contributions to Nebraska career and technical education over a sustained period of time
- Making a very real difference for career and technical education students and programs
- Perseverance in overcoming obstacles and challenges to offering quality career and technical education opportunities for youth and adults (K-20)
- Advocacy for Nebraska Career and Technical Education
This award is presented to an individual who has demonstrated outstanding collaboration and outreach to support the advancement of Nebraska Career and Technical Education. The award honors a person who has demonstrated a personal commitment and outstanding support for CTE that is “above and beyond” that his/her job or business requires. The award recognizes individual efforts and initiative that reaches beyond an individual organization, agency, school or community. The recipient of this award must have demonstrated:
- Commitment to the mission and goals of Nebraska Career and Technical Education
- Collaboration and involvement with groups, agencies, businesses, and/or educational organizations to expand opportunities for quality career and technical education
- Active engagement in efforts to enhance understanding of the benefits of quality career and technical education for all Nebraska citizens (youth and adults)
- Sustained participation in area/regional/statewide activities whose purpose is to support, improve, and expand Nebraska Career and Technical Education
This award is designed to recognize a business or partnership group that has made significant contributions to the success of Career and Technical Education at a statewide level. This may include support for a career field or career and technical education in general.
This award is presented to a Nebraska school administrator who has demonstrated visionary leadership in fostering innovation and growth of Nebraska Career and Technical Education on a local or regional basis. The award honors an administrator who has consistently demonstrated a personal commitment and outstanding support for career and technical education that enhances opportunities for students and prepares them with the technical skills and knowledge as well as the career readiness (employability) skills leading to career success. The recipient of this award must have demonstrated:
- Commitment to the mission and goals of Nebraska Career and Technical Education
- Collaboration and involvement with groups, agencies, businesses, and/or educational organizations to expand opportunities for quality career and technical education
- Active engagement in efforts to enhance understanding of the benefits of quality career and technical education
- Support for the efforts of Career and Technical Educators to enhance and grow their programs of study
- Sustained participation in area/regional/state-wide activities whose purpose is to support, improve, and expand Nebraska Career and Technical Education
This award is designed to recognize the outstanding achievement of career and technical education programs in junior high/middle schools, high schools, and postsecondary institutions. An individual instructional program within a school/college or a school/college as a whole are eligible for this award.
Criteria for this award includes:
- Instructional programs aligned to the Nebraska Career and Technical Education Model
- Programs that demonstrate quality areas such as:
- Student achievement in both career and academic arenas
- Innovative instruction based on a state model program of study
- Leadership and personal development through career technical student organizations
- Effective implementation of career guidance and work-based learning
- Alignment to Nebraska’s workforce needs and economic priorities
- Community engagement
One award for each of the following will be presented:
- Outstanding Middle School/Junior High Program
- Outstanding Secondary Program
- Outstanding Postsecondary Program
- Outstanding Rule 47 Career Academy
2022 Nebraska Excellence in Career Education Award Winners
Bonnie Sibert, Lincoln
Kelly Clapp, ESU 10
Younes Hospitality, Kearney, Nebraska
Susan Christopherson, Administrator, Omaha Public Schools
King Magnet Middle School, Omaha Public Schools
Louisville Public Schools, Skilled and Technical Science Program
Northeast Community College CTE Programming
The Career Academy (TCA) Lincoln Public Schools
2022 Richard Katt Outstanding Nebraska Career Educator Award Winner
Jason Hirschfeld is currently completing his 18 year of teaching in Ag Education. Jason teaches 6-12 grades at York High School. He is passionate about educating
students and exposing them to the wide range of careers available in the ag industries. Jason is very creative and spends hours thinking and creating
pedagogy that is unique for his community, school and students. Jason helped design a program where York was one of the first programs to offer a live animal
lab. This lab has over 100 animals which are housed at the school and are incorporated into the curriculum. In addition, Jason teaches York Middle School, York High School, Adjunct for Southeast Community College as well as serves as the Swine superintendent at the Nebraska State Fair, mentors UNL Student Teachers and serves on the Ag Advisory Board at Concordia University. Jason currently advises Skills USA and FFA at York High School. He proudly advises over 200 students in these organizations. Jason, along with his wife Jennifer, are proud parents of three daughters.
2022 Outstanding Educator Career Field Winners
Tennille Allison is the College and Career Readiness Coordinator for Kearney Public Schools. She supervises work-based learning experiences at Kearney High School
and coordinates several activities such as mock interviews, job shadows, and college visits. In the past year, she has helped coordinate mock interviews for 300
seniors. With her school’s leadership team, she organized a day of college and career readiness experiences for the entire high school of 1550 students. She also
continues to teach their Information Technology III course which is dual credit with Central Community College. During her career, she has taught at Humphrey St.
Francis Jr.- Sr. High School and Wood River Jr.-Sr. High School. At all three schools, she has served as an FBLA adviser. In FBLA, her members have earned state and national recognitions and awards. She is currently serving as the Nebraska FBLA Board of Directors Chairperson. Besides school, Tennille is married to John Allison. They live in Kearney in a home that was built by students through the Kearney High School Construction Tech course. They enjoy watching and attending sporting events together. Favorite teams include UNL Cornhuskers, UNK Lopers, Kearney High Bearcats, or watching her nephew or niece in their activities. Other than school, she enjoys reading, crafting, and watching television or movies.
Dawn has devoted 34 years of her life teaching business. The past 25 years have been at Wausa Public Schools in Wausa, Nebraska. Throughout her time at Wausa, she has
aligned the curriculum to meet state Programs of Study in the Business, Management, and Marketing field along with the Communication and Information Systems career
field. In 2011 she connected her Personal Finance class with W!se (Working in Support of Education), a non-profit organization located in New York that provides financial
education. My students have done amazingly well on the national test by placing in the top 10 four times and the top 100 seven times. Dawn began an FBLA chapter in 2000 and truly found her passion for helping students learn the relevance of business education. She has taken several students to the State and National Leadership Conferences. Throughout the years, the chapter has maintained over 80% of its students in grades 9-12 as members.
Tonya Stutzman is a Family and Consumer Science Teacher in Omaha, NE, in the Millard Public School District at Millard Central Middle School. Ms. Stutzman has a passion for
keeping bodies healthy through healthy eating and keeping minds healthy through positivity and wellness. This is what led to her training in nursing early on at Northern Arizona
University. She later combined her love of nursing with her love of helping others learn, and she received a Masters in Education from Liberty University. Now she teaches others how to live healthy lifestyles through her Foods and Nutrition classes and her school garden that she was able to bring to reality. Ms. Stutzman sees the value in her curriculum as practical and necessary for students. As a special area educator, she teaches valuable skills for the kitchen and the home, but she also loves to build relationships with students to help them learn other lifetime valuable skills such as coping, understanding life, etc. She is the cross country and volleyball coach as well as leads the FCS club, Garden club, and Spirit Crew.
Over 15 years of teaching at Omaha North High Magnet School, Robert Hjelle has taught 8 different math courses and 4 different engineering courses. From
Consumer Math to Calculus and Tech EX to Engineering Design and Development, he has used a passion for problem solving to help students develop their own
skills and appreciation for challenges. Robert has served his school on the School Improvement Team, Model Schools Transition Team, and MTSSB. Within the
Engineering Academy, he has served as the Lead Engineering Teacher, a sponsor for Student Advisory Board, and a member of the Industry Advisory Board. In 2015,
he presented at the NCAC Annual Conference on “Teaching English in a Career Academy.” Robert has a passion for bicycling and convinced a fellow teacher to cycle
with him across the United States in 2011. He now enjoys shorter rides with his wife and 3 kids.