State Pilot Project Launched for
CTE Competency Recordkeeping

Eight school divisions—one from each superintendent’s district—have been awarded $5,000 grants by the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) to participate in the CanDo pilot project for electronic centralization of the state career and technical education (CTE) student competency records. On February 12 and 13, the CTE Resource Center will host training for one representative from each participating school and center:

  • Region 1—Henrico Co., four high schools and two technical centers
  • Region 2—Hampton City, two high schools
  • Region 3—Stafford Co., five high schools
  • Region 4—Shenandoah Co., three high schools
  • Region 5—Rockbridge Co., one high school
  • Region 6—Franklin Co., one high school
  • Region 7—Washington Co., four high schools and one career center
  • Region 8—Mecklenburg Co., two high schools

The CanDo electronic recordkeeping system was originally developed and tested by Arlington Public Schools for CTE courses several years ago and is now used by all of Arlington’s CTE teachers.

Among its benefits to users, the CanDo system

  • looks like a regular grading system spreadsheet and is easy to learn and use
  • offers a teacher view for classroom management and competency rating and a student view for competency attainment
  • ties directly to Virginia’s required CTE task lists
  • calculates the numbers for state reporting (the required percentage of students attaining 80% competency rating or better)

  • enables all participating schools to store and access their competency records using a common server, allowing for reduced updating and maintenance costs for localities.

Recognizing these and other potential statewide benefits, Arlington County’s CanDo developers offered the system, written in open-source software, to VDOE for statewide dissemination and use. The state CanDo pilot project is being funded and administered by VDOE’s Office of CTE Services, with assistance from the CTE Resource Center.

The CTE Resource Center will address many of the day-to-day coordination and system activities for the pilot sites. The Center will hold a full instance of the software and all participating teachers’ data. Teachers will have access only to the parts of the software needed to record and export their students’ competency information. This data will be stored at the Center on a secured server separate from other Center operations.

The role of the pilot sites will be to evaluate the functionality and capabilities of the system, with the value-added benefit of electronically recording their students’ competency performance.

As indicated in the grant application invitation sent in November to all local school divisions, regional technical centers, and CTE academies, each school division participating in the pilot is expected to meet certain requirements:

  • Each pilot site must include at least one school, with two or more teachers involved in the project.
  • Each participating school division must agree to the use of student testing numbers and last name/first name designations.
  • The sites must use Firefox as the Internet browser.
  • The sites must be able to export student data so that CanDo can import it into the new statewide system.
  • One teacher from each selected pilot site must participate in a training session in February. All travel expenses for this training session and substitute teacher pay will be reimbursed separately from the grant award and will be covered by the Office of Career and Technical Education Services, VDOE.
  • All participating teachers must use CanDo to track competency performance for all of their students for the second semester of the 2008/09 school year.
  • The pilot site teachers must participate in all feedback activities, including surveys, evaluations, and any meetings, calls, and conferences that are scheduled by the Office of Career and Technical Education Services, VDOE and the CTE Resource Center.

For further information about the CanDo pilot project, contact Elizabeth Russell, Director, Office of CTE Services, Virginia Department of Education (804-225-2051).