Colleagues,
There is full agreement that vocational technical & agricultural schools need unfettered access to our middle schools so we can inform students, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, about the value of vocational education. Actually, even younger students can benefit from learning about careers and what their future may hold.
We were excited to learn that, in Springfield, an elementary school, the city vocational technical school, and about 20 professionals in the area partnered in a career fair to help students explore school choices.
Great job Milton Bradley Elementary School and Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy!!
David
Career fair helps students at Milton Bradley Elementary School calculate options
Aprell May Munford | AMunford@repub.com Feb. 19, 2023
A career fair kicked off a math and writing lesson for a group of students at Milton Bradley Elementary School.
About 20 professionals in the area, many of them Springfield Public Schools graduates, participated as mentors in a career fair for 5th grade students on Tuesday afternoon. Approximately 60 students eagerly filled the gym carrying pencils and blue clipboards and to ask them questions such as: Where did you go to school? What is your favorite and least favorite part of the job?
Graduates shared their current experience in career fields that included a doula, marine engineer, digital creator, locomotive engineer, real estate agent, videographer, entrepreneur and 911 dispatcher. Also participating was Hampden County Sheriff Nicholas Cocchi.
Student Tyler Rodney said she was most interested in the locomotive engineer who worked at Amtrak. “It sounds fun,” Tyler said.
The career fair kicked off writing and math lessons teachers will use to help students see how specific skills can be applied in real life, said Brianna Cicero, grade 5 math teacher.
Cicero said she organized the event with the help of her friends and as a way to inspire students to explore local schools and career path options early so they will have a head start at life planning. “I reached out to my friends on Facebook and asked them if they would come and talk to our students,” Cicero said. “I wanted to expose students to all there is to offer so they can be prepared to begin their lives after high school.”
Additionally, Cicero said she reached out to Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy in Springfield to join in the career fair to help students explore school choices.
“Students don’t know about schools like Putnam, yet in 8th grade they have to choose one,” she said. “They mostly know that their sibling attends a school. (The career fair) is another way to show students different paths they can take to high school.”
Christina Darkwak, a junior at Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy, said she is an aspiring hairstylist who is currently enrolled in the marketing shop class which was represented at Tuesday’s career fair.
“I came here to talk to students to hopefully get them to understand all that Roger L. Putnam Vocational Technical Academy has to explore like the marketing shop class,” Darkwak said. “We also have criminal justice, cosmetology, and lots of other different choices to help students explore their passions. I know that Putnam has prepared me; I wouldn’t have the background information and the know how if I had gone to any other school. Plus depending on the shop, a student can receive their certificate before leaving high school.”
Darkwak said she would tell parents to encourage their students to come to vocational-technology schools. “Students will be more prepared either way,” Darkwak said, “If they go to college or into the workforce, they will have that extra steppingstone.”
Cicero said the career fair was an attempt to show students the job opportunities available to them in the Springfield area. As a graduate of Springfield schools herself, Cicero said she could not imagine working in any other school district.
Cicero said the main goal of the career fair is to motivate students and arm them with the knowledge that the career mentors present at Tuesday’s fair have all been in the students’ shoes. During her first-year teaching, she had to learn how to budget, spend money and plan.
Principal Kristen Hughes said the assignment is in connection with the school district’s goal of “reimaging school through project-based learning.”
The career fair kicked off a math and writing project where the students will research a career. Using what they learned at the career fair, students embarked on a hands-on math lesson by creating monthly budgets.
A financial advisor was at the event who helped students create hypothetical budgets for the careers they were interested in, calculating taxes, savings, the cost of home and car, and variable expenses such as clothes and food, Cicero told The Republican.
Later, for the writing portion of the project, Cicero said students will research a career and write a mock cover letter to a future employer.
David J. Ferreira
MAVA Communications Coordinator
DavidFerreira