We are so excited to celebrating College and Career Awareness at WHES! You may be asking, why not continue with the traditional Career Day as we always have? Well, to begin with, many of the careers we introduced to the students will be very different or, in fact, obsolete by the time our students graduate from high school. In addition, our students are given many more opportunities at the high school level beginning with the 2016-2017 school year. If you attended the Education Expo, you know exactly what I am talking about. If you didn't, no problem. Here is a little info about the options our students will be given in high school: International Baccalaureate Programs at each high school, Advanced Placement classes at each high school, the Advanced College Academy housed at Lee Davis and Patrick Henry High school, the Hanover Specialty Center, housed at Hanover High School, and last but in NO WAY least...The Hanover Center for Trades and Technology. Many of these programs require applications from students who would like to enter these programs. In many instances, applications are required in middle school. In addition, many of these programs have classes that are necessary to take in the middle school....so...the long and the short of it....we need to start talking about what our kids want to do now. So, we have embedded career lessons this week into our language arts and math lessons. We have sent home parent activities you can do with your kids. We have various college displays in the front hallway as well as two bulletin boards about careers. Take a look at the "We went to college, you can too" hallway display of where our teachers went to college. Some of them have their pictures in more than one college's column. We have had a nurse, firefighters and police officers visit our Kindergarteners. Mr. Roerink, principal of The Hanover Center for Trades and Technology visited with our fifth graders. We are even having theme days where one day our students are asked to "dress for success"...dress in the professional gear of your chosen career and college gear day, where students are asked to wear their favorite college's sweatshirt, t-shirt, jersey, etc. Watch for pictures to be posted soon!!
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Sara Donaldson, M.S.WHES' Professional School Counselor Categories |