I am excited to introduce myself as the new part-time Inclusion, Access, Equity, and Diversity (IAED) Manager for ACTE. My name is Candice Mott, and I bring over 16 years of experience in CTE and the education sector. As the IAED Manager for ACTE, I will lead certain facets of ACTE’s IAED programming, including the IAED Advisory Group and opportunities to implement new and related IAED initiatives.
My most important work in CTE is a catalyst for closing the wealth and achievement gaps for students and families. I work toward this goal daily, knowing that sustainable education opportunities create sustainable communities. My professional portfolio also includes supporting the implementation of programs of study and career and technical student organizations (CTSOs) at the school, local and state levels, creating policies around teacher licensure, and executing professional development opportunities for CTE stakeholders in the District of Columbia.
As a member of ACTE, I have been fortunate to serve our esteemed organization in various capacities, including DC ACTE President, Region and National ACTE Awards Chairperson, IAED Mentee and National Fellow. These experiences have allowed me to evaluate my work as a practitioner and servant leader within ACTE while also allowing me to contribute to the IAED programming and initiatives of the organization. These initiatives and activities were important to advancing equity and access within ACTE and the CTE community. As the National Awards Chairperson, I set goals to increase IAED within the awards program to ensure that our winners reflected the diversity of people working in CTE across the country and our membership. To achieve this, I revised our rubric scoring to include a category to evaluate the IAED work done within our CTE community.
Beyond my professional work, I have committed to supporting IAED within my community. As a parent, I cofounded the Brent Elementary Diversity Working Group, a group of dedicated parents hoping to reduce the achievement gap within my daughter’s elementary school and increase diversity among students, faculty and staff. We developed a research strategy to support internal data analysis and research to study the achievement gap between black and white students at Brent Elementary. We used this data to create an afternoon intervention program for students, resulting in a 7% increase in PARCC scores for black students at Brent. We also hosted activities to increase cultural responsiveness, hosted implicit bias training for faculty and staff, and restructured several aspects of the hiring process at the school, which informed practices at the district level as well. I also support the work of Black Millennials for Flint, a grassroots organization founded in response to the Flint water crisis. Their efforts include connecting CTE to environmental justice initiatives as a trained workforce is needed to ensure communities have the necessary infrastructure to survive.
My greatest inspiration for this work is my daughter, a black, queer CTE student that deserves a space where she is seen. I desire IAED to be more than just an initiative, but how we do CTE; through this work, that can happen. I plan to engage multiple audiences within ACTE and identify internal and external partners for collaboration to create a space that supports and empowers CTE professionals as we navigate IAED issues within the CTE community.
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