Cascade View Elementary holds first annual career fair

Published 1:45 pm Tuesday, May 17, 2016

Students from kindergarten to second grade gave all their attention to the guest speakers brought in for the first Cascade View Elementary Career Day on Friday, May 13.

Heather Kern, one of the organizers and a counselor at Cascade View, said the career fair is a program to help students think about what adults do all day and what types of skills they learned in school that they use today. Each of the speakers were parents of a Cascade View children and volunteered their morning to being part of the event.

“The idea is that early exposure to thinking about your future and what you want to do, what you want to be, exposure to those concepts helps students stay focused because they have an idea of what they might want to work towards,” Kern said.

“We know they are not going to pick their careers by age 5, but they look at what exists out there and get them looking beyond the typical careers they already know about.”

The parents were given general topics to cover for the first half of the presentation and left the second half for questions from the students. The questions covered topics such as what do you do every day, what skills do you use from school and how long have you done your job.

Phillip Hillhouse, a firefighter for the city of Everett, brought his firefighting gear to the school to show off as part of the presentation.

“When the opportunity came to volunteer I jumped all over it. I love teaching kids the importance of fire safety and it’s great seeing their eagerness and willing to learn,” Hillhouse said. “Sometimes it can come off as being scary because they see us with the gear and the mask so it’s definitely a great opportunity to educate and teach the importance of fire safety and my job.”

This first round of career presentations was just for the students up to second grade, but Kern said students from third through fifth grade will be getting their own career fair on Friday, June 3. Some of the fifth grade students got to participate this time as organizational helpers, directing both kids and adults to the proper classrooms during transition periods.

“It’s cool and it’s great for kids to learn about new jobs, I think all of this is a really good idea,” said fifth grade Mason Ostheimer.

His classmate, Jacob Crow, agreed, saying. “And it gives kids like us a chance to volunteer.”