The agricultural education program of an impressive Arizona FFA Chapter earned more recognition this week as it was featured on PBS NewsHour.
Monument Valley FFA Chapter, located in Kayenta, Arizona, is home to a career and technical education program that defies odds and serves students inside the Navajo Nation. The program is coordinated by Clyde McBride, recently named as an Education Week Leader To Learn From:
McBride, who is the director of career and technical education in the 2,000-student Kayenta Unified school district, started this program in 1990 and has built it into a powerhouse that catapults students past the odds they’d face without it. In a Native American community of high poverty and unemployment, his 200 students outscore their peers statewide on math and English tests, and 100 percent graduate from high school, outstripping the statewide average by 22 percentage points. Three-quarters of McBride’s graduates enroll in college or training programs. The rest go straight into the workforce.
“The work he does and the successes of his students are phenomenal,” says Jeanne Roberts, who oversees career and technical education for the Arizona education department.
In 2015, McBride was named ACTE Teacher of the Year. National FFA visited Monument Valley and the Navajo Nation in 2011 when the new agriscience center opened at the school:
