Supervised Agricultural Experience Program (SAEP)
Supervised Agricultural Experience Program (SAEP)
The Supervised Agricultural Experience Program (SAEP) is one of the three major parts of the agricultural education program. All sophomores, juniors, and seniors are required to complete a minimum 200 hours of approved agricultural related work per year. This can be paid or volunteer. Most students average around 500 hours per year. Hours start counting on June 1 and end on May 31 of the next year. By May 1 of the freshmen, sophomore, and junior years, all students must have submitted an SAE application for the following year. Students need to define what their project is and set five goals to try to meet over the next year. Along the way there are benchmark hours that need to be meant. For example by September 30, 75 Hours must have been accumulated and the list goes on. This is done to prevent a situation where on May 1 a student only has 100 hours. One of the Agri-science teachers comes out and visits every student over the summer to ensure that they have a good project and take pictures of things that they do. If a student is working far away from home, then the Ag staff must see pictures and employers statements. Some students do have more than one SAE. One or two good projects are recommended. It is better to focus on one or two things and do well, than have four jobs and not learn anything. Home improvement projects are not recommended to meet SAE hours. If the 200 hours is not completed or benchmark hours are not met, students can be placed on probationary status. That means that if the problem is not corrected, they could be removed from the Agri-science program. For completing at least 200 hours successfully 1 High School credit is awarded each year.
All juniors and seniors are required to complete an SAE proficiency award application for a grade in their Agri-science class during the winter and early spring during class time. This is an application written by the National FFA with many different parts. It takes many hours to do this project but in the end it is a good experience for many students. This application has students writing about their SAE, completing financial records, writing captions for pictures, writing a resume, and getting an employer's statement on their work experience. Their are over 40 different categories that applications can be submitted in for judging. Some areas have two different categories, one for placement and one for entrepreneurship. Placement is when you work for someone, and entrepreneurship is when you start your own business or project. Each FFA chapter can have one application from each category. Those that are the best at the chapter level, then go on to state FFA judging. Each state FFA chapter can then submit one application from each category for national judging from all of the FFA chapters in that state. State winners receive a check for $100 at their state convention. The National FFA then reviews 50 Applications in each category (one from each state) and picks 4 national finalists in each category. All of those people receive a check for $250 at the national convention. They are then interviewed by people in that particular industry to determine the national winner, who then receives more money. This past spring, the Woodbury FFA submitted Applications in 16 different award categories for state judging, and 12 of those were named state winners. All of those will go on to national competition as a representative for Connecticut in that area.
The following Woodbury FFA members had National Finalist winning applications in the following categories -
-
Pat-Graduate- Floriculture
-
Paige- Graduate-Agricultural Education
The following Woodbury FFA members had State of Connecticut winning applications in the following categories -
2007-2008 Results will be posted in April
The following Woodbury FFA members had Chapter winning applications in the following categories -
2007-2008 Results will be posted in April
