WYNNE — Last week, 8th graders at Wynne Junior High School took part in an annual rite of passage for career development students – job shadow.
“We have a project during that class called job shadow. They have a day that they’re excused from school to go job shadow someone in their workplace. That hopefully is a career that they’re interested in and can learn more about,” said WJHS career development teacher Kelly Vaught. “We have a unit about researching careers so we use magazines and videos. We do an interview and do a lot of online research, but there’s no research like going and actually doing a job for a day.
“It’s a great opportunity for students to make connections in their community, learn about a career, network, and kind of see if that’s something that they really do want to pursue as they get ready to do their high school schedule.”
Vaught said she has seen a lot of success from the program, which has been a part of the curriculum at Wynne Junior High for nearly 20 years.
“I’ve had lots of students over the years that have gone into the career field that they did job shadow, and then I’ve had students who thought that’s what they wanted to do and came back and said you know that’s not what I thought, maybe I need to pursue other options, which is just as successful as the people who decided that is what they want to do,” she said. “It is a great opportunity and our community is so wonderful about taking on our students. I never have trouble with them opening their doors and letting our students spend the day there so we’re very grateful.”
Vaught said her students were able to job shadow a diverse range of businesses this year, ranging from local medical offices to the office of Arkansas Governor Sarah Sanders.
“The dental offices in town and the medical clinics and the hospital are always good to have our students. I have someone there almost every time,” she said. “We did have a student that was at K8. He’s interested in meteorology and got to learn the green screen and travel around in the storm chaser car. … I had two students who job shadowed Martin Smith and they got to meet the architects who are planning the new high school. They also got to be at a ribbon cutting at a new bike park that opened in Jonesboro. The governor’s husband, the mayor of Jonesboro, and a lot of people were there. I have a student who got to job shadow the governor’s team at the State Capitol.”
