On Wednesday, Sept 3, McKenzie Snow, the director of the Iowa Department of Education, paid a visit to Atlantic to discuss the amazing career readiness opportunities we have here in Atlantic. Snow, accompanied by two others, Doe Heather and Tina Walhart, had three 30-minute sessions with student body representatives, school staff leaders, and teachers on staff, in addition to work-based learning opportunities.
The first thirty-minute session with Snow involved discussing career readiness programs with student body representatives, including journalism, SkillsUSA, FFA, and many others. The students selected to attend were Olivia Jensen, Gavin McLaren, Makenna Schroeder, and Jacob Simonton.
Snow took the time to talk to each representative and find out a little bit about each student. Jensen discussed the leadership skills she learned through Newspaper Lead Editing. McLaren chatted about his future career in flight. After taking year one of flight at AHS, McLaren discovered his passion for aviation and has since decided to pursue it as a career. Shroeder talked about her experiences with all her activities, like building up the FBLA chapter. Shroeder also said her love of journalism brought her to an interest in pre-law after her continuous coverage of the phone policy last year. Simonton discussed the skills he developed from working closely with Mr. Widrowitz and Trojan Tech. Simonton learned skills like these in high school, which persuaded him to go into the field of Civil Engineering. Snow was astonished at all the skills the student representatives had learned through the career readiness programs offered here at AHS. Snow even got the chance to talk with Jackson McLaren, a former AHS student and success story, about how Mr. Miller guided him into a welding program. He now has a lifelong career in welding and has started a scholarship to two students every year who wish to follow the same career path.
Snow opened up for questions to the student representatives, and Schroeder took that opportunity to ask what roles Snow, Heather, and Walhart played in helping the school system all the way to post-secondary schools. Snow’s role is to guide and communicate with educators and school systems on how to implement systems in schools to make their education top-tier.
Snow then transitioned to talking to the people in Authority at AHS who make all of the programs happen. She first thanked everyone who attended and proceeded to answer questions Mrs. McKay had talked about, teacher shortages and workforce-learning opportunities, because most apprenticeships require applicants to be 18 to apply, much like the one Camblins Mechanical offers. The stipulation is that you must be 18 to apply. Superintendent Beth Johnsen, Mr. Mitchell, and McKay all expressed a need for change in the age requirements for Snow and her accompanying employees.
After the discussion about school matters with teacher shortages and apprenticeship struggles, Snow moved on to talk to teachers and other staff personally about their role in teacher-mentoring, student teaching, and para-to-teaching. Snow spoke with both Eric Miller and Anna Pauley about mentoring Pauley when she came onto staff. Hannah Misner also spoke about her time as a mentee last year while she was gaining her teaching degree. Snow got to speak with Noah Widrowicz about his time as a student teacher. Another story told to Snow was about a special education para, Kay Schmit, on our staff, who is going to school to become a full-time special education teacher. Snow was equally impressed by the opportunities teachers had to grow to their full potential.
Snow concluded the visit with a tour of the school led by McKay. Snow was glad to learn more about AHS and all the opportunities that are available to students. She was pleased to have questions and hear of an actual success story, as well as view the amazing things Trojan Tech had made. In the short hour and a half Snow was here, she got to see AHS in a nutshell and the students and staff who make it great.
