Fairview Park City Schools seeks professionals to speak with students at Career Night

FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio — Pre-pandemic, one of the more exciting and influential evenings related to career development of Fairview Park City School students was the annual Career Night.

While the last two events were cancelled due to COVID-19, the career showcase targeting middle and school students returns on March 24 at the Fairview High School gym.

The casual, open-house-style event finds professionals stationed at tables sharing information about their careers while answering student questions.

“It’s really exciting to have the event back after two years,” Career Night co-chair Kim Crandall said. “Cathi Patton is the mastermind of the Career Fair for Fairview Schools. Her daughter has since graduated, but the framework that she established for the event will continue to be carried forward.”

Career Night co-chair and Fairview High School PTA Volunteer Kellie DuBay Gillis said due to the pandemic this year the affair is taking a different approach.

“Because of the break, we’re assuming that a lot of people may have pandemic fatigue, pandemic concerns,” Gillis said. “Some people may have changed jobs. So instead of us calling people who did it in the past, the approach we’re taking is starting out fresh and putting out a call to our community.

“We put out a request for people to showcase their career. We’re trying to generate interest that way and get some people who maybe don’t have kids in the middle school or high school and may not even know we do a Career Night. We have a lot of people who have a lot of interesting jobs right here in the community. We want to tap into that first.”

Gillis actually speaks from experience. Years ago, she was a Career Night professional telling students about her experiences as an environmental consultant.

Currently the organizers are seeking community members willing to share an evening talking to students about their career fields. From agriculture, architecture and construction to science, technology, tourism and transportation, Gillis said all careers are welcome.

“It’s obviously really important that kids start to think about and get exposure to all of the different types of careers as a way for them to figure out what they might be interested in moving forward,” Gillis said. “

“We want to expose them to less traditional jobs, things that are maybe more niche that they hadn’t really thought about and give them an opportunity to meet people one on one and talk about what those jobs involve and see if it’s something that might pique their interest.”

Currently Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s head school counselor, Crandall said conversations between students and various professionals can make a huge impact on the career choices.

“Exposure is the key in regard to the career development process,” Crandall said. “Many students learn about the careers of those people that they live with or closely interact with on a regular basis.

“That limits their career development. It’s through career nights that students are exposed to a plethora of careers, many of which they may have never been aware of before. The volunteers who give a few hours of time to this event may spark the interest of a student and positively change the trajectory of his or her future path.”

Career Night is a joint effort between Fairview Park City Schools and the PTA. Both Crandall and Gillis have children in the district.

“The school does a great job of preparing students to have meaningful conversations and prepared questions for the professional volunteers,” Crandall said.

Previous Career Nights have boasted upward of 125 professionals. This year Gillis said organizers would like to see roughly 75 careers represented.

“We’re excited about it,” Gillis said.

“It’s a really cool opportunity for people to showcase what they’re doing here in Fairview Park, the cool jobs of our local residents, and then just giving kids a chance to come out and interact in a way they haven’t been able to do for the past couple of years.”

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