July 24 the Russellville City School system hosted its first-ever joint advisory Career and Technical Education luncheon.

CTE personnel have had advisory meetings in the past, but this is the first when all departments under CTE came together to discuss the program as a whole and individually.

“We want to connect students with industries. We need to know what businesses and industries need,” CTE Director Natalie Bendall said.

Bendall hosted the luncheon and updated those attending on the previous academic year’s changes as well as what the program is looking forward to in the 2018-19 school year.

In 2017-2018, the CTE department added an EMS/EMT course, held industry tours, updated buildings and celebrated CTE Month in February among other achievements.

In the upcoming year, Bendall said some of the things to look forward to are a new computer science teacher, a new engineering teacher, a new entrepreneurship course and new child development courses.

“We want to make better decisions and impact more lives,” Bendall said.

Following Bendall’s recap and new information, the individual departments within CTE talked among themselves about the upcoming year. Those departments include agriculture, business education, health science, family and consumer science, engineering and auto tech.