By Rebecca Burk / L’Observateur / March 18, 1998

RESERVE – The School-to-Career Alliance in St. John the Baptist Parishrecently created two subcommittees to research and plan four of the different programs that STC wants to tackle in the future.

One of these is a speakers’ bureau, where speakers from different businesses and industries come to talk to students about their careers.

Julia Remondet, of the St. John Economic Development Department, saideach month a different career will be discussed by the different speakers.

“We want to gear the topic towards one thing each month,” Remondet said.

And that gives plenty of time for students to hear some informative speakers. Beverly Harris, STC director, said all sixth-, seventh- andeighth-graders are supposed to have six events each year that are related to careers.

Another committee discussed job site visits. Leroy Mitchell, school boardmember, said the visit needs to be specific to a career in which the student is interested.

In other business, STC Alliance members are preparing for a tri-parish job fair to be held June 5 at West St. John High School.Remondet said before the job fair begins STC is going to do some research so it will be able to track the success of the fair. She said the groupwants to find out how many job openings are available and how many were filled as a result of the fair.

And besides employment opportunities, the fair will also feature other valuable tips.

“JTPA will provide resume writing and application and interview skills,” Remondet said. “We feel this is a good follow-up for the conference.”The conference is also a tri-parish event that will be held March 26 at 4:30 p.m. at East St. John High School. The event, sponsored by RiverParishes Education Initiatives, will feature several prominent guest speakers to increase business and industry involvement in the STC effort.

It is also aimed at creating an awareness among parents and community members so they will have a better understanding of what skills and learning opportunities students need in the pursuit of careers.

The alliance also discussed teacher job shadowing. Harris said it wasn’trealistic for all of the teachers to do their shadowing during the summer because businesses and industries just couldn’t accommodate all of the teachers at once. She suggested teachers use holiday time to shadow,adding that 13 teachers gave up their Martin Luther King holiday to do just that. She also suggested that teachers could possibly shadow for a day,learning much to bring back to the classroom, instead of teaching in the classroom.

“I think they don’t want to take the teachers out of the classroom during the school day, but I like the idea of the holiday,” Lily Galland, chairperson, said.

Associate Superintendent Chris Donaldson agreed with Galland.

“I would stress to you that as much as possible you would not take the teachers out of the classroom,” he said, “because it’s already a problem.”Mitchell said he is excited about all of the things that STC is accomplishing for the students and the education system.

“Everyone is focused on education,” he said. “It is the most exciting timein I’ve seen in over 30 years.”

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