SkillsUSA is America’s proud champion of the skilled trades. Our mission is to empower students to become skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members.

The SkillsUSA Framework outlines all skills needed to be skilled professionals, career-ready leaders and responsible community members . Every aspect of our program is built around the Framework, which emphasizes personal skills, workplace skills and technical skills grounded in academics. The purpose of the Framework is to provide a common language to communicate what students learn in the classroom and laboratory .

Students learn and practice these skills through experiences found in the following areas:

CLASSROOM
With direct input from industry, SkillsUSA creates educational resources, materials and curriculum used in career and technical education programs across the country.

CHAPTER
Student-led chapters give students leadership experiences beyond the classroom including participation in local, state and national competitions that are assessed to industry standards.

WORKPLACE
Students can make connections and bring relevance to learning through job shadowing, internships, work-based learning and apprenticeship opportunities tied directly to business and industry.

Learn more about the Framework.

SkillsUSA is an integral part of career and technical education. Why is that important? It means that the chapter isn’t separate from the classroom experience. Not only are you able to integrate SkillsUSA chapter work into your classroom, but it is essential that you do so. Students need to work on building skills over time through multiple experiences and receive coaching along the way. 

Classroom Integration Example:
Building decision-making skills in the classroom might focus on diagnostic work while in the chapter, and/or it might focus on committee decision-making for a community service project.

Students must see the relationship and how these skills transfer from one situation to another. Students connect what they are learning and practicing today to the world of work.

Over time, the organization has learned that not only do students need to participate in skill building around the SkillsUSA Framework Essential Elements, but the chapter should provide rich and meaningful experiences in six categories that reflect the situations they will encounter in the workplace. 

A well-planned Program of Work provides intentional instruction of the Essential Elements. It is how SkillsUSA delivers the skill-building opportunities to students through active participation. Think of the PoW as a chapter management tool, an individual growth plan and as a student engagement tool. It allows students to define, develop and demonstrate the Essential Elements.

Learn more about the Program of Work.

SkillsUSA has developed multiple ways to measure student growth and career readiness. One is the SkillsUSA Chapter Excellence Program (CEP). This standards-based program recognizes chapter achievement in developing the Essential Element skills in its members. When your students complete each of the Program of Work activities, they can apply for CEP recognition. It is the celebration of the students’ achievement!