Essential standards (highlighted in green below) are big, powerful ideas that are necessary and essential for students to know to be successful in a course. Essential standards identify the appropriate verb and cognitive process intended for the student to accomplish. Essential standards provide value throughout a student's career, in other courses, and translate to the next level of education or world of work.

Objectives/Indicators (rows not highlighted in green below) provide another level of detail for each Essential Standard.

Adapted or Adopted Course includes essential standards and, in many cases, specific objectives/indicators aligned with business and industry standards and/or criteria for credentials or certifications. The course standards are designed using the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy (RBT). If the POL is a CTE State Assessment, the course is written at the level of the ESSENTIAL STANDARD and assesses the intended outcome of the sum of its objectives/indicators.

The six NC Essential Employability Skills are Communication, Ethics, Problem Solving, Professionalism, Resource Management, and Teamwork. These skills are covered among the course essential standards and objectives/indicators as listed beside each. NC CTE curriculum provides and supports career awareness, career exploration, career development, technical skill development, and career readiness where six Essential Employability Skills are included in CTE Curriculum Standards. CTE builds a career and college ready workforce through the K-12 pipeline and provides a consistent and 'common language' for identification of the six Essential Employability Skills.

Career and Technical Education conducts all activities and procedures without regard to race, color, creed, national origin, gender, or disability. The responsibility to adhere to safety standards and best professional practices is the duty of the practitioners, teachers, students, and/or others who apply the contents of this document.

This blueprint has been reviewed by business and industry representatives for technical content and appropriateness for the industry.

Column information

• Standard/Obj #: The essential standard is denoted by the digits before the dot; objectives/indicators are indicated by the final 2 digits.
• Standard: Essential standard and specific objective/indicator statements per essential standard. Each essential standard statement or specific objective/indicator begins with an action verb and makes a complete sentence when combined with The learner will be able to... Outcome behavior in each essential standard or objective/indicator statement is denoted by the verb plus its object.
• Course Weight: Shows the relative importance of each essential standard or objective/indicator. Course weight is used to help determine the percentage of total class time that is spent on each objective/indicator.
• RBT Designation: Classification of outcome behavior in essential standards and indicator statements in Dimensions according to the Revised Bloom's Taxonomy:
  Cognitive Process Dimension: 1 Remember, 2 Understand, 3 Apply, 4 Analyze, 5 Evaluate, 6 Create.
  Knowledge Dimension: A Factual Knowledge, B Conceptual Knowledge, C Procedural Knowledge.