The Culinary School of Fort Worth completed their second annual Summer Culinary Educators Workshop last month.

This year’s workshop consisted of three cohorts of educators and 35 participants in total. All educators completed 30 hours of American Culinary Federation® (ACF®) required Nutrition, Safety, and Sanitation courses and also completed a written and practical exam.

The workshop, led by CSFTW’s Director of Apprenticeship and HS Partnerships Jason Avelson, ran for six days per cohort. Educators were taught by Avelson and received guest demonstrations and instruction from each CSFTW full-time chef instructor.

“This summer, we as a culinary community came together to increase certification levels for secondary culinary arts instructors and pushed ourselves to accomplish it in just six days,” Avelson said. “In order to give our students our best, we must be at our best, which means consistently learning and evolving.”

Educators were trained on how to bring the Certified Fundamentals Cook® (CFC®) certification back to their schools and begin the process of helping their students get certified before graduating.

In addition, educators also had the opportunity to meet key individuals from both the ACF® and NOCTI®, as well as hear from another educator whose program has already made the transition to offering high school students a CFC® certification.

CSFTW’s Summer Culinary Educator’s Workshop

After receiving scores of 75% or above on both exams, all 35 educators were awarded their ACF® Certified Fundamentals Cook certifications.

“My hope is that these educators will return to their campus as an example of excellence for their students and raise certification levels at the secondary level as well,” Avelson said. “This summer was a tremendous success, and we hope to host another group of educators in the summer of 2022.”

For more information on how to sign up for next year’s workshop, contact Jason Avelson at jason@csftw.edu or 817-737-8427.

Written by James Creange.