Appropriations committee reviews CTE budget, hears VR career-exploration pitch and funding requests

The Appropriations — Education and Environment Division held an extended review of the Career and Technical Education budget contained in Senate Bill 2019, heard a virtual-reality career-exploration pitch, and questioned agency officials about a series of funding requests.

A remote presenter, Matthew Chelsea of Be More Colorful (the CareerVXR/ CareerView product), described a statewide pilot that used immersive media and virtual reality headsets to expose K–12 students to careers. Chelsea said the private company and partners had deployed nearly 100 virtual field trips, installed an immersive room at the Red River Valley Fairgrounds, and developed a professional-development course at North Dakota State University for teachers. He said the state’s prior appropriation of $500,000 leveraged roughly $2,000,000 of in-state production spending, helped secure $9,900,000 in federal funding for Bismarck State College, and attracted headset donations that supplied a device to every middle and high school in the state. Chelsea asked the committee to restore a CTE line item intended to support virtual-reality career exploration (the agency requested $2,000,000; the Senate…