Twenty percent of your grade is not about talent. It's about whether you'd be hirable — whether you show up, communicate, meet deadlines, and are someone other people want on their team.
An apronym is an acronym chosen so that the resulting word is itself meaningful — the computer language BASIC stands for Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, and it also happens to be basic. CRED stands for Career Readiness, Engagement, and (self) Discipline. It also happens to be the thing you either have or don't in a workplace.
Graphic Design, Game Dev 1 & 2, and Yearbook Design are Career Technical Education pathways. The point is to prepare you to enter the workforce after high school or college, and to build a portfolio and a set of habits that make you competitive when you apply somewhere — gaming, film, VFX, design, journalism, or any job where people have to work together.
These courses follow CTE standards for career readiness. Learning professional standards, meeting deadlines, communicating effectively, participating earnestly, submitting work correctly, responding amicably, collaborating productively, and regulating your emotions under pressure — that is the coursework. It is not separate from the design work. It is the job.
You will not receive a CRED grade without the signed rubric agreement at the bottom of this page submitted to the instructor. Signature link is at the end.
Same weight in every CTE course I teach. One standard across all of them.
You start each month at 40 by earning the six lines below. Infractions subtract.
A brief self-assessment on Canvas, due a few days after each month ends.
The monthly self-assessment is your chance to self-advocate — to tell me about an achievement I missed, a roadblock I didn't know about, or a month that went sideways for reasons that aren't visible from the front of the room. I read all of them. It's the single easiest way to affect this grade in your favor, and skipping it is the single easiest way to wreck it.
Productive, authentic participation. Observing lessons and actually engaging with them.
Respectful communication with your teacher and peers, in class and out. Checking in with me after absences, tardies, and roadblocks — before they become a problem, not after.
Cleanliness of your desk. Respect for the room and the equipment in it.
Staying current with announcements, class events, projects, and assignments.
Being on time and using time wisely. Posting a substantial daily update in your course's channel. Following directions on projects, following school rules, and remembering the passwords to your own accounts.
Positive, pro-active, problem-solving, collaborative. The person others are glad to be assigned to.
Unexcused tardiness. Food or drink at your desk. Not pushing your chair in or logging out. Leaving trash behind. Leaving class without a pass or leaving early. Downloading anything without permission.
Negatively disrupting the class. Accidental damage to equipment.
Being unreliable with your responsibilities or flaking on teammates. Wearing headphones during instruction, not paying attention to a lesson, doing or watching other coursework, or otherwise being off-task.
Unauthorized use of a phone, Chromebook, or other device.
Disrespectful, cruel, inappropriate, hateful, or troll speech, actions, or "jokes." Harassment. Reckless or intentional damage to equipment. Cheating, talking during tests, plagiarism, or passing off disguised AI content as your own.
Submitted after the deadline a few days past month's end.
Not submitting it at all. Half the month's points, gone, for a form that takes five minutes.
Using AI tools is part of this industry and there are places in these courses where you're expected to. Disguising AI output as your own work is not one of them. The rule is disclosure: say what you used and what you did with it. Undisclosed is what gets penalized, not the tool.
Every working day, you post a substantial update in your course's channel. Not "worked on my project." A real one has three parts:
What actually got done since the last post. Specific. "Three logo directions roughed out" beats "did some sketching."
Name the blocker out loud. Half the time you solve it while typing it. The other half, someone answers you.
From me, from a teammate, from a client. Asking early is a professional skill. Asking the day it's due is not.
Every studio you will ever work in runs some version of this. By June you'll have a written record of your own process for an entire year — which is also the single best thing to have when you're writing about your work later.
Per CCHS mandate, student phones are deposited at the front of class during learning time. You may use your phone in the last five minutes of class after your desk area is cleaned up, or with teacher permission for a specific need — returned immediately once that need is done.
This is not a trust exercise and it isn't personal. It's the same reason phones are away in most professional environments where something is being built.
I, the parent or guardian of the student named below, representing any and all other legal guardians, and the student enrolled in this CTE course at Culver City High School, hereby acknowledge that we have read this rubric agreement on Career Readiness, Engagement, and Discipline standards for this Career Technical Education course, and that we will abide by its rules.
We agree that, at the instructor's and CCHS's discretion, access to equipment, community platforms, field trips, and any and all other privileges offered in connection to this course may be restricted should the student repeatedly violate its rules.
We agree to communicate first with the instructor, kiandarien@ccusd.org, regarding any inquiries, misunderstandings, concerns, or miscommunications, and to hold grades received and disciplinary actions arising from the enforcement of these rules in good faith on the authority of the instructor and CCHS.
Submit the signed agreement here: [ signature form link — replace before distributing ]