In early 2019, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson signed into law a bill that restructured the state’s government, reducing the number of cabinet-level agencies from 42 to 15. As a result, Angela Kremers became the new Director of Arkansas’ Division of Career Technical Education, now housed within the Department of Education.
With the government’s reorganization and her new role, Angela is facing new challenges and procedures, as well as the unique complexities of the state’s CTE system. But Angela sees long-awaited opportunity.
“I am excited about the opportunity because we have such a perfect storm – we are on the precipice of change,” she said. Being within the department of education — along with higher education, which was moved there as well — “gives us greater capacity than we had before; the resources, the alignment, the conversations. When we talk about pathways, we all are discussing it under one roof, using similar language. I’m excited.”
Angela’s optimism isn’t purely based on good faith. She came into the position with a long-rooted background in CTE and related work. While in high school, she was actively involved in a career technical student organization (CTSO) and took on leadership positions, serving as a local and state officer and eventually being elected federation president. Following her time in the medical field, Angela served as a health sciences high school CTE teacher, then transitioned to the postsecondary side to support student articulation agreements. Later on, Angela served as a senior program associate at the Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation, where she managed the foundation’s education portfolio and engaged in national conversations addressing systemic gaps across the education continuum.
With her rich experience working to support students and CTE programs, Angela is set on advancing Arkansas’ CTE system. She is focused on improving program of study quality, strengthening professional development opportunities for CTE teachers and building pathways in new and emerging fields, such as artificial intelligence and analytics.
“Catching up and getting to Perkins V speed is great, but we still have to be looking five, ten years down the road. We can’t just be playing catch up if we want to meet the needs of students, industry, and communities.”
Tags: Arkansas