The annual Take Our Kids to Work day is designed to give Grade 9 students an introduction to their parents’ work day. Megan Nahanee of Nanoose Bay took it a step further by putting in overtime.
Young learners from Ballenas and Kwalikum secondary schools will join parents, other family members or friends for a day in the workplace Wednesday, Nov. 2, in the 2016 edition of the nationwide program.
When she signed up last year, Nahanee, then a Grade 9 student at Ballenas, spent one day at the Parksville Shar-Kare, where her mother is the store manager, and another at the Coast Bastion Hotel in Nanaimo, where her father is a server in the restaurant.
“I think kids should try it,” Nahanee said. “The work experience is pretty fun. You learn what your parents do when they’re not at home, you learn what work is like and what real life is like.”
That, said Ballenas career counsellor Luc Ouellet, is exactly the point of the program.
“The objective is to get the students an idea of what happens in the workplace and put some realism to what we’re doing in school, and where that might be taking them,” said Ouellet. “When they’re finished, chances are they’ll go home, have a discussion with mom and dad, and that may be the first time they’ve had that discussion.”
Take Our Kids to Work is sponsored by The Learning Partnership, which began the program in 1994 in the greater Toronto area. It has since grown into a nationwide program, held the first Wednesday of November each year, that integrates Grade 9 students into the community through visits to the workplace, usually that of a parent or other relative.
Ouellet estimated about 60 per cent of the eligible Grade 9 students in School District 69 have taken part in recent years. He is hoping to bump that participation rate to 80 per cent through discussions with students, parents and the Parksville and District Chamber of Commerce, where he serves as a director.
“We’ve gotten buy-in from the chamber,” said Ouellet. “We have a whole new working group looking at how to include young people in the community, how to engage them. People are starting to recognize these students are valuable resources.”
Take Our Kids to Work day is not intended as a work experience program — which the district also supports — though students have been known to get hands-on. And in cases where a parent is not available or their job is not suitable for a workplace visit, students may be hosted by willing employers.
During last year’s event, Ballenas student Damon Thompson, who was interested in mechanics, shadowed mechanic Adam Barnard at Stanford Auto Centre.
Ballenas student Megan Nahanee, right, spent last year’s Take Our Kids to Work Day at Shar-Kare in Parksville, where her mother, Alison, is the store manager. — Image credit: J.R. Rardon/PQB NEWS
Nahanee’s day at Shar-Kare was actually nothing new, said her mother, Alison Nahanee. The girl has regularly helped her mother at the pet, farm and garden supply business since watering plants as a three-year-old. Ironically, though, when she spent Take Our Kids to Work day there last year, she shadowed another employee.
“It was my day off,” Alison said. “I asked my boss if I could bring her, and they had no problem at all with it. We’ve had students work there or job-shadow before; it’s a very family-friendly place.”
The following week, Megan joined her father at the Coast Bastion for a 4-11 p.m. swing shift.
“I got a tour of the whole hotel,” said Megan, now 15. “I got to look around, see the back kitchen and was told how everything was made. I already knew about Shar-Kare; it was pretty cool to learn how the hotel works.”
While she still has plenty of time to decide, a couple of Megan’s prospective career options at the moment are veterinarian, or English teacher abroad, possibly in Japan.
Even thinking that far ahead puts her ahead of many students currently in Grade 9.
“In Grade 9, a career is not part of the conversation,” said Ouellet. “They’re saying, ‘I go to school because I have to go to school.’ We want to kick-start that process, and get them to start that conversation themselves.”
