Want to motivate your students? Need a practical way to show your students how things are in the “real world”? Want to make certain that your students have a better chance at success past high school? Then make certain that a CTSO is a part of your program!

Just what is a CTSO? Career and Technical Student Organizations (C-T-S-O), are more commonly known as FFA, Skills USA-VICA, FBLA, FCCLA and DECA. These are the organizations within Arizona Career and Technical Education (CTE) that make the programs of Agriculture, Industrial Technology Education, Family and Consumer Science, Business Education and Marketing Education come alive. 

Students see these organizations as the fun and social aspect of these educational programs. Educators see them as a motivational tool where the competencies in the classroom can be put to practical use.

Tech Prep sees them as an integral part of helping deliver hands on and practical aspect to the secondary program. Programs with strong CTSO components are much more likely to attract students than are those programs without CTSOs.

A study by Purdue University showed that students involved in CTSO activities enjoy their classes more, find their classes and activities to be more challenging, have a clearer focus on a career, and are better prepared to enter a career than students not in a CTSO. Check out the full report at http://www.ffa.org/news/alger/downloads/pdf/news_release.pdf.