Currents in Education
A day in the life: new job shadow program puts students to work
By Dave Cannata, Lindsay Putnam and Nicholas Trent
York High School junior Lexi Schaffer learned a lot about the law while job shadowing with local attorney Tom Elias, pictured here, as part of York High School's Career Quest program. Every student in the junior class had the opportunity to spend two days last week on the job with professionals in fields ranging from education to dentistry.
Photo by Dave Cannata
Its main goal is to connect students to the real-world after high school and to start them on a path to discover which job suits them. The process for each student was presented in several clear and easy steps. To start, they had to think of a career of interest and develop a list of possible jobsites.
To familiarize themselves with the job seeking process, they wrote a resume and began contacting jobsites that they were interested in. Once they confirmed where they would be job shadowing, they sent information packets describing the job shadow process to their supervisors. Once all of the paperwork was done, the students were all set to visit their job shadow sites.
York High School Career Coordinator Kevin Beatty and York School Department Community Program Coordinator Melanie Ladd worked on the creation of the program with a committee focusing on providing opportunities to all 175 York High School juniors.
The program, Ladd explained, came out a grant awarded to the York School Department in 2003 to boost students' college aspirations.
"We wanted the students to have an opportunity to research the varieties of careers available and what is required for them," Ladd explained.
The program was designed with a step-by-step folder complete with deadlines, information and a website link to provide students with opportunities to explore career options that would be of interest to them, Ladd explained.
On Jan. 30 and 31, students went out to their various job sites. While many students stayed in the town of York, some traveled to Portsmouth, N.H., Portland and even as far as Vermont. There was a large variation in the types of job shadow sites that were visited, from teaching elementary school children to attending a public defender's office and sitting in on court cases.
For our job shadow experience, we traveled around town to several job shadow sites and interviewed the students and the supervisors about how their experience was going so far.
The first site that we visited was Elias Law Office where Lexi Schaffer was shadowing attorney Thomas Elias. Elias, who has been a lawyer for 24 years, thought that the job shadow program was a great idea.
"I think it's wonderful for students to get a real experience in what they're interested in for a career," Elias said.
Schaffer spent the morning helping Elias go over papers for his most recent court case, and she also had positive things to say about the program.
"It's been pretty much what I was expecting and I've been enjoying it so far," she said. "I'm definitely glad that I chose this place to job shadow at."
Next we stopped by Deb Bradburn's fourth-grade classroom at Coastal Ridge Elementary School. Shadowing her was Ali DiElsi, who happened to be her former student.
Bradburn recalled having Ali as a student years ago, saying, "She was always interested in what we were doing and why we were doing it."
That interest has continued, and Ali returned to the school to learn what it was like to be a teacher.
While talking to Ali she admitted, "I didn't really know what I wanted to do for my job shadow site. I thought about teaching, and I remembered how much I enjoyed having Mrs. Bradburn as my fourth-grade teacher."
Bradburn thought that the program definitely benefited the students, especially since they spent two days at the site instead of just one.
DiElsi had a different view on the program, stating it is a good idea but she felt it needs more planning.
"Junior year is a good time to have it though, because students are starting to think about what they want to do with their life," she said.
The last stop that we made in York was at the local café, Food & Co. Shadowing there were two students, Chrissy Keroack and Emily Boorman. Keroack said that she chose to shadow at Food & Co. because she really enjoys cooking and that she enjoyed the calm atmosphere at the café. She and Boorman spent the morning cooking in the kitchen and taking orders up front.
Keroack felt that the newly formed program was not as organized as it could have been, saying she wanted more time to look at different places.
"Some people didn't get to go where they wanted to because of lack of space or the company was unable to schedule enough time for students to come, so some people didn't get as good of an experience," she said.
Next we traveled to Kittery to visit Desjardins Dental, a ceramics laboratory involved in creating prosthetic parts for teeth reparations. Tom Foley, one of the employees there, only had positive thoughts on the program.
"This is our company's first experience with a job shadow program. It's a good idea because it gives students a much broader understanding of the job, and knowledge of what is done in the real world," he said.
Job shadowing Foley was student Jason Roy, who was very interested in the work that Desjardins Dental does.
"I like to do things that are hands-on, keeping my mind and body busy and focused on the task," he said.
Our last stop of the day was in downtown Portsmouth, N.H., at Ceres Bakery where Katie McGuigan, like Keroack, had chosen a bakery because she enjoys cooking. She spent her morning baking pizza, making soup and cookies and never got much time to rest, not that she cared.
"It's been really fun but also hard because there's always something to do while working here," she said. "There's always baking or cooking to be done."
Like some of the other students, McGuigan felt that the idea of the program was good, but just that because it's the first year it didn't run as smoothly as it could have.
"We had all the students placed and we've gotten a lot of positive feedback," Beatty said after the event.
Both Beatty and Ladd said some students were not as pleased with their participation, but the overwhelming majority enjoyed the experience.
"We went from team to team to hear the kids the day after," Ladd explained, "and 95 percent of the kids could not stop talking about it. They were really excited."
Beatty said the most positive feedback has come from students who were able to take part in "real-life experiences," such as a hands-on opportunity to rebuild a computer.
"It was definitely worthwhile," Beatty said, adding, "This is going to be an annual program and we're looking at other components for every year to help the kids think about it early and build on it every year."
Associate Editor Jennifer L. Saunders contributed to this report.
