Tarik Barnes, a health science student at Cleveland High School in Cleveland, Texas, was elected June 26 to serve as a national officer for the high school division of SkillsUSA.
The newly elected SkillsUSA national officer will serve a one-year term as a leader and role model for over 352,000 career and technical students. As a student leader for the national nonprofit education association, Barnes will speak on behalf of SkillsUSA to students, instructors, school administrators, legislative leaders and representatives of business and industry at various events.
A highlight of the officer’s year, Barnes will lead SkillsUSA members during SkillsUSA’s annual national conference. He will also receive continuous personal and professional development opportunities over the next year.
Being a national officer is considered the ultimate personal growth and student leadership experience within SkillsUSA. The national officer programs focus on five key essential elements of the SkillsUSA Framework: responsibility, communication, teamwork, leadership and professional development. The skills learned through the high school and college/postsecondary national officer programs will help these student leaders not only be successful in serving the organization, but also throughout their lives and future careers.
“Tarik’s passion for hard work and education makes him an outstanding leader and role model for our student members,” said Chelle Travis, executive director of SkillsUSA. “I look forward to working with him this year.”
To run for national office, SkillsUSA members must follow the election candidate process for their local training program, school and state. Officer candidates must then meet detailed national criteria and have earned a credential in the SkillsUSA Career Essentials suite demonstrating their personal, workplace and technical skills grounded in academics.
Because SkillsUSA’s national conference was not held in person this year, the 2020 SkillsUSA national officer elections took place online. Virtual campaigning was conducted along with voting delegate business sessions and “Meet the Candidate” sessions on June 23-24 via Zoom; then voting for the national officer positions was done via an online system.
Barnes will serve his role through June 2021. His advisor is Andi Pope.
About SkillsUSA
SkillsUSA is a nonprofit partnership of education and industry founded in 1965 to strengthen our nation’s skilled workforce. Driven by employer demand, SkillsUSA helps students develop necessary personal and workplace skills along with technical skills grounded in academics. This SkillsUSA Framework empowers every student to succeed at work and in life, while helping to close the skills gap in which millions of positions go unfilled. Through SkillsUSA’s championships program and curricula, employers have long ensured schools are teaching relevant technical skills, and with SkillsUSA’s new credentialing process, they can now assess how ready potential employees are for the job. SkillsUSA has more than 372,000 annual paid members nationwide in high schools, colleges and middle schools, covering over 130 trade, technical and skilled service occupations, and is recognized by the U.S. departments of Education and Labor as integral to career and technical education. With the addition of our alumni, membership is 434,141. We have served nearly 14 million members since 1965. For more information: www.skillsusa.org