Life Lessons

Story by Jackie Hostetler |Photographs courtesy Shawnee Chamber of Commerce

Anyone who has ever spent any time in a school building knows teachers wear many hats. Not only are they educators, they’re nurses, referees, entertainers, and event planners— among many other roles. The teachers in the area are taking the concept to a whole new level through a unique collaboration between the local school districts and the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce.

The Teacher Immersion Program was born out of a conversation between Ann Smith-Tate, president and CEO of the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce and Shawnee Economic Development Council, and De Soto USD 232 superintendent Dr. Frank Harwood.

“We were just having a conversation about the workforce and helping students train for real life jobs as a learning experience in the classroom,” Smith-Tate says. “We proposed that we bring the teachers out of the classroom and into the businesses.”

The Shawnee Chamber of Commerce serves both the communities of De Soto and Shawnee. The program was piloted by high schools and middle schools within USD 232, with the Shawnee District joining in during the second year. Almost five years later, the program is still running strong in both districts.

The program allows for teachers to take field trips to local businesses. They then bring new information back from these experiences to their students, who apply the knowledge as they begin to make their way into the workforce.

“It can be tough to have 70 kids walk a small manufacturing floor,” Smith-Tate says. “This is a way for the teachers to go and have those conversations and then share that information with their students.”

Areas explored in the past include marketing, bioscience, manufacturing, and STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) careers, among others.

The school district plans the visits as professional development experiences, providing time, transportation, and meals, as well as taking care of all of the preparation with the local businesses.

Amy Niemann, IOM, programs manager with the Shawnee Economic Development Council, has directed the Teacher Immersion Program for the past four years. It’s Niemann’s role to oversee the program from beginning to end. She plans and determines the date with the school districts, finalizes topics, seeks out speakers and businesses to tour, sets the schedule, coordinates the meals, and executes the session on the day of the event.

The teachers have two annual opportunities to explore community businesses, typically hitting multiple locations in one day. The sessions are thematic in nature, perhaps exploring manufacturing during the fall session and marketing in the spring, for instance. Last year, the sessions focused on health care and bioscience, and teachers explored everything from nursing in a newborn intensive care unit to mortuary science.

According to Niemann, everyone involved hopes the experience will reverberate well past the singular field trip.

“Our Teacher Immersion Program allows for a connection between our educators and our businesses in a way that we hope extends past the one-day session. Our hope is that these participating educators will reach back out to the businesses when they have a student looking for an internship or are looking for a real-world problem that their class can look to solve.” Niemann says.

Smith-Tate echoes the importance of building strong connections between students and local businesses and emphasizes how these relationships can benefit both parties.

“Teachers meet with business owners and ask the questions. What skills are you needing? Are you looking for certifications? Are you looking for degrees? What kind of things do our students need to be thinking about when they are heading off to college or trade schools? What soft skills are you looking for?” says Smith-Tate. “And we do hear again and again about the need for these soft skills.” (See the sidebar.)

By opening these lines of communication, students have a clear idea of what lies ahead, and businesses have the opportunity to define the qualities and skills they are looking for in potential employees. In terms of “future employees,” Niemann recalls one such instance. “For our fall 2019 session, our topic was manufacturing, and we had the opportunity to tour C&R Manufacturing Inc. During the session it was brought to our attention that one of the visiting teachers was a past teacher for one of the C&R Manufacturing employees. What a great reconnection to be made during the program,” Niemann says.

Aside from C&R Manufacturing, other businesses highlighted through the program include Bernstein-Rein Advertising, Schier Products, SKC Communications, Hans Rudolph Inc., and Russell Stover Chocolate.

Most featured businesses are members of the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce. However, if an opportunity arises, the program is open to businesses from outside the chamber, such as the experience with Russell Stover Chocolate.

“With the visit to Russell Stover, the teachers looked at everything from start to finish with the relaunch of the new Russell Stover box: the creative, the finance piece, the project management. It was a great opportunity to bring it all back to the students in the classroom,” Smith-Tate says.

Niemann, too, sees the strong opportunities presented through the program.

“Providing the students, our future workforce, with the opportunity to be made aware of all the possibilities that lie before them in the work place, right here in their own backyard, is the biggest benefit of the project,” she says.

The opportunities are numerous indeed, as well as the benefits. Like so many other aspects of the education system, it truly takes a village, and this particular village consists of not only the school districts, but also the Shawnee Chamber of Commerce and businesses throughout the area. At the heart of it all are, of course, the teachers themselves. On top of all of those other traditional teacher hats, they can now add marketer, manufacturer, and chocolatier.

When you think about a possible career path, you likely think about the specific skills needed to be successful in that career. But there is more to it than just degrees, certifications, and trainings. It’s becoming increasingly important to employers that employees are proficient in a universal set of “soft skills.” These skills include things like critical thinking, problem solving, both written and oral communication, professional attitude, and work ethic. A strong grasp of soft skills ensure that employees can carry out the most basic functions of any job, such as being on time or clarifying expectations around a project. These skills may be “soft,” but they are just as important as anything you may learn in the college or trade school classroom.

SHAWNEE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE & SHAWNEE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL

15100 W. 67TH ST., SUITE 202

SHAWNEE, KS 66217-9344

913-631-6545

EMAIL: INFO@SHAWNEEKSCHAMBER.COM

WWW.SHAWNEE-KS.COM/CHAMBER

WWW.SHAWNEE-EDC.COM