Career Day – Making It Manageable and Meaningful Carrie Jackson and Tiffany Ward Swansboro Middle School

Why do a Career Day? Students begin exploration of career options Community involvement Staff connections/involvement High school course planning ASCA/NC Essential Standards covered

Different Forms of Career Day Career Fair Students rotate around booths Interest-driven Career Day Speakers Assembly with guest speakers Fewer career options Career Showcase/Expo Students participate in activities Heavy focus on trades Career Day “Conference” Multiple presenters/multiple “sessions” Students choose sessions Random sessions are assigned to fill spaces

“Conference” style career day Held on Early Release Day Only career activities are done on this day Students attend three career day sessions Send out a schedule of the day Contact your cafeteria/office staff/other essential personnel – whole school participation!! Students are integrated (no division between 6th, 7th, and 8th grade) Teachers allowed to rotate among sessions, as long as a staff member is in a room with students and a presenter

Presenter information Letters mailed and hand delivered * Forms sent home with every student * Staff members who had previous careers invited to present Get one (or more if interest is there) of your teachers to present on teaching Staff members will be asked for the 2015-2016 Career Day to provide us with one contact – WE will make the contact, we just need names!  Presenters RSVP on a GoogleDoc GoogleDoc used to keep track of presenter data

Presenter information, cont. Presenters committed are contacted week prior to event Nametags created Student tour guides are available morning of Presenters stay in same room – students rotate to them Hand-written thank you cards mailed to presenters

Students Choose Sessions Once presenters are secured, students take a Career Day Survey For our 2013-2014 Career Day, students picked three sessions Sessions that weren’t full were then filled so that session numbers were balanced Took a LONG time – we learned from our mistake! For our 2014-2015 Career Day, students picked their top choice and one alternate We hand scheduled all 820 students Instead of having to shift and move students, students were placed by first choice and then assigned two random sessions – MUCH easier Only took two hours

Students choose sessions, cont. Nametags were created for every student through a mail merge Nametags given to Advisory teachers the day before Career Day Students checked their nametags for duplicate sessions and hand-wrote room numbers Students hand-wrote versus being printed so conversation took place about where rooms were located on our campus Morning of, students received their nametags and wore them Staff could view nametags to help students navigate and ensure they were in the correct session(s) and not with their friends! 

Career day activities We are a 1:1 campus except for 6th grade Activities were created with this in mind 6th Grade completed worksheets Career Day word search created on puzzlemaker.com RIASEC worksheet created by counselors 7th Grade created CFNC accounts and took the Career Key Completed on their individual computers If they finished early, they explored careers listed under their Holland code 8th Grade explored chosen career Used OOH and CFNC to research a career they were interested in Worksheet was completed on Edmodo

Pre/post surveys For the 2013-2014 Career Day we conducted a pre-survey to determine careers of interest Students were disappointed when careers they chose were not present at Career Day Students and staff provided feedback on a post-survey after Career Day Used data from the post-survey in 2013-2014 school year to make adjustments to Career Day Post-survey used again for 2014-2015 Career Day Staff members also completed a post-survey Results will be used for next year’s Career Day Ideas we are taking from it Labeled hallways Worksheets completed DURING sessions Sessions on college information

Timeline One to two months before: One week before: Week of: Invite presenters, make deadline a month before Career Day date Send home Career Day letter with students One week before: Contact presenters again Student news promotes Career Day Send out schedule to all staff members for Career Day (time blocks, lunch schedule, advisory, etc.) Week of: Make student schedules Make student nametags Make presenter nametags Give staff a layout of who is presenting where (room #s) Day before: Order refreshments Students review nametags and room numbers Tour Guides selected

Timeline, cont. Day of: Day after: Set up refreshment area Students receive nametags Welcome guest speakers Guest speaker photo Student news interviews (with selected presenters) Students complete Career Day activities Students complete post-survey School staff complete post-survey Day after: Write and mail thank you letters Analyze survey data

implications of career day – what now? Field trip Planned for local community college for those students who selected a career requiring a two-year degree CFNC will be invited back to continue creating a college-going school environment EXPLORE results will be linked to careers chosen by eighth graders Data on students’ outlook on Career Day Those who rated 1 or 2 were spoken to individually to see what concerns there were Overall, on a scale from 1-5, students ranked Career Day being meaningful at a 3.8

Career day suggestions from the audience Invite the college school liaison and this session is mandatory for the 8th graders Do Career Day on Tuesday of Thanksgiving week with 40 minute sessions Invite the Superintendent Invite the mobile veterinarian or a vet tech Invite a Judge or Department of Corrections Students get a choice of 5 and give them 3 of their choices Give the presenters a talking point sheet to help them fill the 40 minutes If doing it all day have Career Day in the morning and then have a presentation in the afternoon as a whole school