First and foremost, the core mission of career and technical education (CTE) is to prepare students for career success, and strengthening and expanding teaching and school leadership opportunities is the responsibility of the CTE team. Below are five recommendations for CTE instructors and administrators to consider as a way to lean forward to advance the CTE agenda.

1. Complete your LinkedIn profile. Improve your personal brand and that of the CTE department by completing your LinkedIn profile. This will lead students by example and encourage them to follow suit. It will present you and CTE in a professional manner to business leaders.

2. Develop ten local, regional and state corporate executive relationships that will assist your CTE students in their discipline pathway to facilitate internships, summer jobs and eventual employment.

3. Become an original content creator. Write a blog or record a short one-minute video to evangelize the value of the CTE courses you teach and promote them on the digital channels in which your school or district participate.

4. Make social media a part of your regular cadence of communications with your business community, student, parent, partner and district audiences. Promote the content of others as well as your own.

5. Convert one social media relationship that is valuable to your CTE discipline to an alternative channel. This could be email to a LinkedIn contact to set up an introductory call, meeting a colleague or speaker at an annual event, or simply grabbing a coffee with a local business leader to raise interest and awareness of CTE in your community.