Penn-Northwest Explores Job Shadowing Programs for Students

HERMITAGE, Pa. – Penn-Northwest Development Corporation is exploring establishing job shadow days for high school students to visit manufacturing companies.

Jake Rickert, director of workforce development at Penn-Northwest, said the plan fits with the agency’s goals of repopulation.

Keeping young people in the region, “connecting with our local employers, connecting with the community,” he said. “Part of that mission is how can we expand on what we’ve been doing?”

An Education and Industry Partnership Brunch on Wednesday brought together representatives from school districts and manufacturing facilities in Mercer County.

“Predominantly, we’ve been bringing businesses into the schools, and we’d really like to move on to the next phase, which is to move students into the businesses,” Rickert said.

There are two ideas to accomplish that, and Wednesday’s gathering was to hear feedback from both schools and manufacturers about how to make it work. One idea is an online job shadow hub that would allow students and school officials to see what job shadow opportunities are available. That would be expanded to include internship and volunteer opportunities later.

The other plan is for job shadow days where students from throughout the county could visit manufacturing facilities on designated days.

Representatives from Farrell, West Middlesex and Sharon city schools, as well as officials from the Ellwood Group, Wheatland Steel, NLMK, Jamestown Coating Technologies and Lawrence-Mercer Manufacturers Coalition, attended the brunch.

“One of our goals moving forward is how can we help connect these high school kids with some of the opportunities we have with our local employers?” Rickert said.

He credited Emily Clare, supervisor of curriculum and instruction at the Farrell Area School District, for the idea.

“She really threw this at us as kind of a challenge to help educate our kids about these opportunities,” he said. “She mentioned that for a lot of these students, they really don’t have the connections or the resources to the local employers like we do.”

The goal for the online hub would be that companies could post opportunities for students.

Julie Michael Smith of the Mahoning Valley Manufacturers Coalition is working with the Lawrence-Mercer Manufacturers Coalition. She said the online hub could be a resource to inform companies of the details of job shadowing. But it could also be a resource for parents to learn more about manufacturing careers, too, she said.

“Oftentimes a barrier to students looking at careers in manufacturing are these other influences that are helping direct their careers,” Michael Smith said. “Their parents are misinformed or have misconceptions about manufacturing …”

Penn-Northwest also wants to schedule up to two job shadowing days per year for high school students to visit manufacturing companies. It’s difficult for high school students to visit manufacturing facilities though because of safety guidelines.

“The narrative behind manufacturing is it’s dirty; you don’t really want to work there; there’s no career growth,” Rickert said. “And that couldn’t be further from the truth. These are phenomenal careers.”

Mike Walton, CEO of Jamestown Coating Technologies, sees the value in prescheduled job shadow days. He agrees the number per year shouldn’t exceed two the first year. Then the participants could reconvene and determine what worked and what needs improvement.

Walton suggested reconvening the group again before the job shadowing day and then again after.

Rickert said he would work with the schools first to identify a couple of potential days for job shadowing in October and November, and then work with the manufacturing companies to finalize a date.

Pictured at top: From left are Emily Clare, supervisor of curriculum and instruction at the Farrell Area School District; Tom Taborek, vice president of human resources at NLMK; and Jack Rickert, director of workforce development at Penn-Northwest Development Corporation.

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