MOUNT VERNON – If you think elementary school is too early for students to start thinking about careers, think again.
Children in kindergarten through fifth grade aren’t expected to make a lasting decision about the work they will do one day, but career awareness among those young Knox County students is the first step in a career readiness network that continues through high school.
It is a process that ultimately involves local manufacturers and other employers.
“Every single student in Knox County, kindergarten through 12th grade, is exposed to career awareness. Every single high school or Knox County Career Center (KCCC) student can have a career pathway after graduation,” said Sean McCutcheon, career navigator at the Knox Educational Service Center.
Shelly Laslo, career connections educator at the KCCC, works with K-8 students in the center’s six partner school districts: Centerburg, Danville, East Knox, Fredericktown, Mount Vernon and Clear Fork.
“Career awareness for the youngest children, K-3, is related to recognizable uniforms (police, fire, nursing, sports, etc.) or what their parents do,” Laslo said. “We talk about the odds of becoming a professional football player, for example, and the need for a backup plan.”
She teaches classroom courses, has created middle school healthcare expos and partnered with Knox Community Hospital for an elementary school healthcare expo. Working with Ohio Means Jobs Knox County she has provided virtual reality headsets to classrooms for students to “experience” different careers.
“The goal is to make students aware of career pathways. College is right for some but not needed for all,” Laslo said.
At the high school level career preparation is the work of Christine Keaton, career readiness adviser at Mount Vernon High School, Beth Marhefka, coordinator of work-based learning and career development at KCCC, and McCutcheon.
“Because of Shelly’s efforts by the time students reach high school we don’t have to start over. She helps us get them into pathways quicker,” Keaton said.
Keaton, who has 32 years in education – the last 16 at MVHS – helps students utilize career clusters in more than a dozen areas, including health science, information technology, manufacturing and business management. Clusters provide a framework for students to compare various career paths against their interests and strengths.
“Our goal is to create direction through good plans,” she said. “We want to help seniors understand that college is not their only pathway option.”
Keaton also works with students to meet state graduation readiness requirements for careers, college, military or the workforce. In cooperation with the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services Mount Vernon offers electrical and nail technician pre-apprenticeship opportunities.
Marhefka is KCCC’s work-based learning and career development coordinator. She oversees the center’s job site and apprenticeship opportunities and works with employers who want to employ and mentor students through work-based learning.
“Student-company relationships start during the junior year,” she said. “Seventy-nine percent of KCCC seniors are out working while still in school and a fairly significant number still work there after graduation.”
McCutcheon meets one-on-one with seniors at the county schools except Mount Vernon.
“I help seniors find jobs or determine what they want to do after graduation,” he said. “I help to create face-to-face contacts with businesses and create a lot of job shadowing. A big part of my job is connecting kids with area places that are interested in hiring.”
Marhefka and McCutcheon are involved in Knox ASPECT, a five-week career readiness program sponsored by the Knox Area Development Foundation. Again this April approximately two dozen seniors who applied will interact with 13 local manufacturers, focusing on specific skills that will lead to employment interviews with each of the companies in early May.
Several previous ASPECT participants were hired on the spot.
“I want to be clear: There were some really good things in place in the county before us,” Marhefka said. “But now there is more continuity, more structure. More continuity, elementary to middle school to high school, is our goal.
“Knox County is a good community for collaboration,” she said. “The attitude is ‘Let’s share. Let’s work together for kids.”
“That’s our employers’ mentality too,” McCutcheon added.