Representative Salinas, Assistant Secretary of Education Visit Chemeketa Community College

Salem, OR – On Tuesday, April 23, U.S. Representative Andrea Salinas (OR-06) joined U.S. Department of Education Assistant Secretary in the Office of Career, Technical, and Adult Education Dr. Amy Loyd at Chemeketa Community College Brooks. During their visit, Rep. Salinas and Assistant Sec. Loyd discussed the importance of career-technical education (CTE) and ways to overcome the barriers that rural students face in accessing these opportunities.

The officials also highlighted a Career-Connected High School Grant that Chemeketa received from the U.S. Department of Education in January. This funding, authorized under the Perkins Innovation and Modernization grant program, is being used to expand college credit opportunities for high school students and set them on a path to careers in health care, agriculture, and other STEM fields.
 

Click here for usable photos and videos
 

“CTE provides students with the knowledge and skills they need to find good-paying jobs in agriculture, tech, health care, and other in-demand fields. However, many rural students are geographically isolated or unable to access these kinds of opportunities,” said Rep. Salinas. "With the support of the U.S. Department of Education, Chemeketa Community College is becoming a national model through its efforts to make CTE more available to rural communities. I am so pleased that Assistant Secretary Loyd could join me in the Sixth District to highlight what our community is doing right. I look forward to working with her, as well as our partners at the state and local levels, to replicate those efforts throughout Oregon and across the country and help put more students on the path to success.”

“I appreciate and thank Representative Salinas for her leadership and support of the Career-Connected High School grant program. Young people from this region will have bright and rewarding futures thanks to the powerful career pathways that Chemeketa Community College, high schools, and their partners are co-creating in in-demand fields such as healthcare and agriculture,” said Assistant Sec. Loyd. “We are excited and inspired by the collaboration that this grant has fostered and will continue to grow through these funds. Thank you so much to the President, staff and community at Chemeketa for a wonderful event highlighting P-12, workforce and higher education coming together to build career pathways to create talented young professionals, and to ensure a strong and thriving workforce and economy, contributing to the vitality of these wonderful rural communities.”

“We are very grateful to Congresswoman Salinas and Assistant Secretary Loyd for their leadership and continued work to deliver federal funding for career and technical education,” said Chemeketa Community College President Dr. Jessica Howard. “This award will allow Chemeketa to reach rural students throughout its tri-county district to provide critical access to educational opportunities that transform lives.”

Rep. Salinas and Assistant Sec. Loyd held a roundtable with local school district officials and community college leadership, including Chemeketa Community College President Dr. Jessica Howard. Their discussion centered around the importance of CTE for rural students and what Chemeketa is doing to improve access to these opportunities.

Following the roundtable, Rep. Salinas and Assistant Sec. Loyd toured the 22-acre campus and attended a ribbon cutting to celebrate Chemeketa’s new partnership with Kubota Tech, which will provide students with the skills and knowledge they need to become certified diesel technicians at Kubota dealerships around the country.

In Congress, Rep. Salinas has been working to expand access to higher education for all Oregonians, including career-technical education. She is a cosponsor of the Clean Energy Workforce Act, which would invest $100 million to help develop and implement CTE curricula in renewable energy fields, prioritizing low-income and disadvantaged students who are often left out of these jobs. She alsointroduced a bipartisan bill that would encourage universities to partner with community and technical colleges to provide more STEM learning opportunities in emerging high-tech fields for their students.

###