The Association for Career and Technical Education (ACTE) announced Clyde McBride, an Agriculture teacher and CTE director at Kayenta Unified School District in Kayenta, Arizona, as the 2015 ACTE Teacher of the Year. The ACTE Teacher of the Year award recognizes the finest career and technical teachers at the secondary school level who have demonstrated innovation in the classroom, commitment to their students and dedication to the improvement of CTE in their institutions and communities.
“When I first became a teacher, I quickly realized students do not learn unless they get a little dirty,” says Clyde McBride, the agricultural teacher and CTE director for the Kayenta Unified School District on the Navajo Nation. Unemployment and poverty rates on the Navajo Nation are some of the highest in the country, and many families who depend on healthy livestock lack easy access to veterinary care. Collaborating with the Second Chance of Flagstaff, students in the Monument Valley High School agriculture program provide low/no-cost veterinary care for hundreds of miles around Kayenta. McBride’s students have even provided emergency care as first responders, once travelling in the middle of the night to rehabilitate survivors of a sheep herd ravaged by dogs.
McBride’s classroom started out in a converted garage bay in the high school with students practicing medical procedures on fruit. After years of lobbying for funding, in 2011, McBride successfully orchestrated the design and construction of a $2.4 million, 22,000 square foot agri-science center for excellence. The school’s FFA chapter currently boasts 251 members from the seventh through 12th grades. His students have received honors from the Arizona Senate and have been invited by the National Department of Agriculture to participate in the Native Voices Conference and American Indian Symposium. McBride has earned numerous accolades, including a feature in TIME magazine in 2012. “He is honest, a person of unmatched integrity,” says Roger W. Ellis from the Arizona Department of Education. “In the education world, what remains a lasting impression is Clyde’s genuine concern for the welfare and improvement of the student.”
The ACTE Teacher of the Year award is sponsored by Express Employment Professionals. “Sponsoring these awards is our way of highlighting the importance of career and technical educators and your impact on business. We know that your work matters, and it matters profoundly. Consequently, Express believes we should be rewarding those educators who do a great job,” said Express Employment Professionals CEO Bob Funk. “Express is pleased to show support and enthusiasm for career and technical education teachers. You are an integral part of helping improve industry and help our economy thrive. As educators, you don’t often get recognized as you should for the great job that you do and for the time and effort you put into helping people find better jobs and better careers.”
McBride was one of 5 finalists for the 2015 national title. McBride was named the national winner at the ACTE Awards Banquet, a dinner and award presentation recognizing the best CTE educators in the country, which took place on Wednesday evening, November 19, during ACTE’s CareerTech VISION 2014 in Nashville, Tennessee. More than 400 fellow ACTE members, business representatives, colleagues, friends and family attended the event, which featured opening remarks from U.S. Secretary of Labor Thomas Perez.
The Awards Banquet was sponsored by Kuder, Express Employment Professionals, Certiport, Stratasys and ASVAB. For more information about the ACTE Excellence Awards, visit https://www.acteonline.org/awards.