Prairie State Wire

Illinois State Board of Education Illinois Committee for Agricultural Education met April 1.

Here are the minutes provided by the committee:

Winter 2025 University Council Meeting Minutes

1 - Compeer Grant Budget / Update from Diana

Report from Diana Loschen shared 12/2/24

She felt things were moving along well. She thought it was a good idea to combine efforts.

A total of 23 teachers started; only 1 didn’t follow through, and 6 started with the program during the semester. Some of the visits with the new 6 has already begun and we may add a seventh.

Diana asks mentors and mentees how to improve: both groups would like a second visit, one in the first and the second semesters. Maybe some extra support will be provided at the end of January/February to help when things are stressful. One teacher is looking for a quick lesson to use in a pinch. The teacher suggested one a month if they have to be gone.

Compeer would like information about the program to share with stakeholders and get the word out about how they are working to retain first-year teachers. Diana is working on this right now.

Gary asked if there was anything we should do to prepare preservice teachers better. They are insecure about using AET and how to get students started or compete with that. How can we make that seem less intimidating. They are also insecure about shop related items. This is not new.

2. Update from the FFA Center - John E

1500 students came to Ground Zero

Weather is uncertain for PAS on Thursday

IAVAT conference: registration will be released in the next week or so Signed a contract with Peoria for 2027 and are working on a contract with 2026 with the civic center in Peoria

John said there is money for the second mentor/mentee visits in the Compeer grant

3- CASE Middle School Pre-service Institute Information

November during Build; $550 per student (Monday and Tuesday November 24-25, 2025)

Last time U of I students drove and Western and Southern got hotel rooms

4 - Spring Student Branch

-Date:Saturday, Apr 26, 2025, 10am-3pm

- JJC

• Student Dues are due ($15) to Lori at FFA Center

• Ranked Animal Science, Food Science and CDE’s in general as important

5- Ag Education Lesson idea - Megan

During state staff meeting, they discussed creating a unit on ag ed to teach in a careers class or a leadership class. Could this fit in with a grad student and a project? Send Megan a message when you have a student who might be willing to work on this. Megan suggested something related to presentation skills and identifying an audience and objectives but wasn’t marketed as ag education.

6 - STAR Initiative Update - Megan

• STAR/GAST Tracking

IAVAT: do we need a preservice teacher track? Or go through the 1-5 year track?

Bus trip locations? Perhaps Springfield area?

Discuss in June

7- IACCAI Conference

• Date: March 27 & 28, hosted by Parkland utilizing UIUC campus • Looking at Ag Mech, Hort, Ag Econ, and Microcomputer Skills in Ag to line up curriculum and review

8- Future Summer Dates for Teacher Training Workshops at Colleges/Universities • FCAE-LPS has PD funds up to $2,000 for each university for teacher trainings

• What do we need to do to apply for this? Tell Jennifer.

• ISU Ag Mech Bootcamp; July 14-18, 2025 (JW Budgeted for this) • U of I: Food Science; June 24-26, 2025 (JW Budgeted for this)

• SIU: Not this summer

• WIU: Negatory

9. 2000 Hours verification

Gary wants to talk to Erica Thieman about this and if there is wiggle room. We reverted back to the 2000 hours per area for non-traditional licensed teachers. Thoughts from the group if we are ok with this requirement for our teachers? There was no dissent provided by the group.

Luke suggested to ask: can the university system have different rules for the 2000 hours?

10 - ISBE Report & Funding Recommendations for Ag Ed Line Item

A. University Incentive Funding

B. GAST grant - RFP will be coming out Spring 2025

C. PreService Internship Grant - Supposed to release FY26 on March 31st

D. FCAE RFPs - all delayed in legal. None released yet

FCAE WBL

FCAE CRM

FCAE LPS

Jennifer said that money from the FY 25 Preservice internship grant would be redistributed to the universities and the universities would decide how to use it. It should be about $30,000 per university. No idea of when it will be released.

Gary Comer would love to host students for the summer to help with their summer school programs. Talk to Luke about details.

11. Future camps at your College/Universities

• U of I Ag Ed Camp; July 14-16, 2025 (tentative)

• SIU Ag Ed Camp; July 14-16, 2025 (tentative)

https://www.isbe.net/Lists/ISBECalendar/DisplayForm.aspx?ID=7075