Erie Ambassador Program: Session 4 – Education

Week four brought us to the Erie County Technical School (ECTS) on Oliver Road for the education session of the Erie Ambassador Program’s Spring 2014 class. My husband, Jim, and I hadn’t been in the building for nearly a decade. The last time was when we attended an informational meeting regarding a sister-city trip to Zibo, China, that our son participated in. But even many years earlier than the China meeting, I spent quite a few school days in that building as a high-school senior attending a special keypunch course.

Our fourth Erie Ambassador session coincided with one of the regular ECTS Occupational Advisory Committee (OAC) meetings, during which community professionals learn about what’s new at the school and offer guidance from their professional perspectives. Each ambassador was assigned to an ECTS program, so Jim was assigned to the computer program, and I was placed with the early-childhood education program.

But first, the large group gathered for a bountiful buffet dinner and a presentation on a new program, called Career Street. Each small group dined together at assigned tables. After dinner Dr. Aldo Jackson, director of ECTS, introduced us to the new initiative.

Career Street Pairs Business and Education

Funded by an Erie Community Foundation grant, Career Street offers career exploration for eighth graders and is designed to help young people transition from high school into the community. The Career Street program serves all Erie County youth, and aims to provide more experiences of higher quality to more youth through more businesses. The theory is that stronger relationships between business and education will result in a better-prepared workforce.

Goals for the program include ensuring that 80% of eighth graders will have three or more career-exploration experiences by the end of the school year. In the end, they expect that this will result in young people who understand the value of work, have clearer career aspirations, and are better prepared to pursue their career goals.

Dr. Jackson then introduced Jennifer Nygaard Pontzer, Career Street’s executive director. Ms. Nygaard Pontzer encouraged everyone in attendance to register at the new Website, www.careerstreeterie.org, and create job-shadowing experiences for students to search through and choose from according to their own interests.

The second portion of the evening featured breakout sessions for each program at ECTS. As I mentioned earlier, I was assigned to the early-childhood program, so I was delighted to visit the bright, colorful preschool room where small groups of children meet twice weekly during the school year. They are taught by instructor, Donna Erdman, and high school students from the various Erie County high schools. After the tour of the classroom, we gathered in the theory room, where a business meeting was conducted with the advisors, approving a curriculum for the next school year.

For the benefit of the Ambassadors, Ms. Erdman provided an overview of the impressive program. The high-school students learn create to make lesson plans, room arrangements, and written reports for parents of the preschool students. For each preschooler, there is a three-ring binder with updates containing narratives written by the high-schoolers and drawings by the preschoolers. This binder produces quite a keepsake by the end of the school year.

I was also impressed by the amount of writing required of each high schooler. This takes the form of the peer-edited narratives for the preschoolers, but there are also writing prompts responding to specific topics, and something called sunshine bags. Each high schooler has a sunshine bag attached to the wall, which contains small notes on which he or she writes something good that happened during the week to make them smile. At the end of the school year, there is an accumulation of these positive experiences, and this provides a keepsake for the high-school student.

We are greatly looking forward to the next session, which will take place at Erie Waterworks, where we will learn all about power and water.

Ann Silverthorn (Twitter: @annsilverthorn)  is a versatile blogger who’s written about a wide variety of subjects in a vast number of genres. She’s a proven writer on technology topics, in addition to travel, creative, and grant writing. Ann is currently working on a biography on the life of William E. Dimorier (1871-1951), the nearly forgotten poet and assistant principal of Academy High School in Erie, PA, who dedicated his life to the betterment of young people. Dimorier’s story will demonstrate how this man of humble beginnings positively influenced many lives around the world.