PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE PROVIDED LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES FOR TEACHER MEMBERS

PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT CONFERENCE PROVIDED LEARNING OPPORTUNITIES FOR TEACHER MEMBERS

BY: RAY PIENIAZEK AGRICULTURE TEACHERS ASSOCIATION OF TEXAS EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

The 2021 Agriculture Teacher Association Conference held in Corpus Christi, Texas this past July was a success. We were excited to be holding an in-person event and we had a large number in attendance by virtual means as well.

The conference was the product of hard work by many individuals and made possible by the support of our many sponsors, including our title sponsor CEV Multimedia.

We kicked off Sunday with the move-in of exhibitors. This year we had 92 exhibits covering 216 10x10 booths. We appreciate the attendance of many returning exhibitors and a few new ones! The day ended with our annual board of directors meeting.

On Monday, the day started with certification workshops, several being held offsite at schools in the area. These trainings included “Painting Ag Mechanics Projects” at Tilden High School and a blacksmithing workshop at Calallen High School. Along with our regular Texas Parks and Wildlife, floral design, and pesticide workshops, we had a leatherworking workshop that was held on-site. Our area coordinators also met to get details from ATAT, FFA, and Foundation staff on the upcoming year and collaboration to plan activities for the year. In addition, a fun run and golf tournament was held that morning to support the scholarship fund.

Registration also began on Monday afternoon, with our in-person attendance totaling 1,865 active, associate, and student attendees.

Trying a new schedule for Tuesday, we kicked-off our general session in the Selena Auditorium, with Ryan Pieniazek serving as host for the session. Greg Peterson of the Peterson Farm Brothers shared their story of advocating for agriculture through music parodies and videos of what their daily lives as farmers entail. We also recognized our retirees and our tenure awards of 45, 40, 35, and 30-year members. Area meetings were held beginning at 11 a.m., with six areas meeting following by another six at 230 p.m. We concluded the day with our partners from the state livestock shows making presentations beginning at 5 p.m.

Throughout the week, Texas FFA programmatic committee meetings met to make decisions on rule revisions, travel plans, and ways to make items like degree check run efficiently.

Wednesday opened with workshops stretching throughout the day, along with the annual VATAT Credit Union meeting. Thursday continued with more workshops. Sixty-five in-person workshops were held between the two days. With over 500 virtual attendees, our offerings were expanded with additional prerecorded workshops for all to access. Additionally, several workshops were recorded on-site and placed on the conference website.

During the conference week, 1,496 unique logins occurred on the event site and were accessed 7,757 times, with 47% of the accesses from a mobile device. There were 527 that logged in to watch the live opening session, and 346 watched the closing session. As of August 16th, the three most accessed workshop videos on the conference site were “From the Classroom to the Board Room - Real World Public Speaking,” “Teaching Outside the Lines,” and “A Look Inside the Classroom of Award-Winning Teachers.”

The highlight of the week came Thursday evening with Family Night sponsored by Ag Workers Mutual Insurance. Nearly 1,900 meals were served, and a few hundred door prizes were given out. A cornhole tournament was held with over 30 teams competing. We recognized our Outstanding Teachers, including Victoria Espinoza as the Oustanding Young Teacher, David Laird as the Outstanding Mid-Career Teacher, and Missy Swarz as the Outstanding Experience Teacher. Our outgoing president, Ryan Pieniazek, was recognized and our new officers introduced, including Traylor Lenz as incoming president, Marco Barrientes as vice president, and Lynita Foster as incoming secretary-treasurer.

One new and significant highlight of the evening was the induction of 25 former ag teachers into the newly formed ATAT Ag Teacher Hall of Fame. Many of them had families in attendance to celebrate their awards and congratulate them. Individuals raised more than $35,000 to have these members placed in the hall of fame. The evening ended with a live auction performed by the Texas Auctioneers Association as they auctioned off items to raise money for scholarships. The effort raised over $4,000. Riverstar Farms also committed another $10,000 to the fund.

The week ended with our closing session hosted by Traylor Lenz. We honored members of the association who earned 20 and 25-year tenure awards, and hearing from Tiffany Drape, a former ag teacher and now a college professor at Virginia Tech University who spoke on the importance of recognizing the diversity of our agricultural programs in order to make all students feel comfortable.

We reached record membership for our association this year with over 2,380 members. Agricultural education plays a vital role in our school systems, and we are excited that our teachers are involved in promoting the future of agriculture.