Thompson Falls to host countywide fair
THOMPSON FALLS – Sanders County students will be encouraged to plan their future in a smart way as Thompson Falls High School hosts a county-wide career education day.
High school students from Hot Springs, Plains and Thompson Falls will participate in the event. The career education day is called Balance Your Future.
According to organizer Jerry Pauli, the day will test whether the rewards students receive after high school are worth the risks.
Pauli explained many people nowadays are headed to college and come out with huge debts and no jobs. The average loan debt of students graduating from the Montana University system is over $27,000. The goal is to show the kids all of their options after high school.
“We want them to know all of the opportunities they have,” Pauli said.
The day will be packed full of speakers and overall, there will be nine presentations.
Dr. Laurie Barron will kick off the day. Barron is currently the superintendent of the Evergreen School District in Kalispell. Her speech will go from 8:30 to 9:30 a.m. and from there, the students will move onto the presentations.
The kids will be broken up into groups of 25 to 28 students and every kid will hear all of the presentations.
The presentations will include information on military opportunities, current apprentice/job opportunities in Montana by Department of Labor and Industry as well as future and current medical opportunities.
Montana Tech from Butte, Missoula College, Flathead Valley Community College and Montana State University Northern will also give presentations.
There will also be one on personal finance by Mary Howard with Student Assistance Foundation and Sanders County graduates will relate their personal experiences to the students.
Sophomore and junior students from Plains and Hot Springs will be in attendance, as will all the grades from the Thompson Falls High School. Noxon is on spring break during the career education day.
In later years, the event may be expanded to the senior class if all goes well.
“If our seniors give us positive feedback then the next go around, we’ll include them,” Pauli said.
He explained that at this late in the year, most seniors already know what their plans are after high school.
The event was deemed noteworthy for a number of reasons.
“(It’s important) to give our kids better information in selecting where they are going for higher education,” Pauli said. “You just cannot go to college anymore period without checking it out. The colleges want students, they are funded on students. They will take anyone who walks through the door and yet kids may be majoring in areas that there are no jobs in.”
The point is to show kids they need to spend more time researching their future.
All presenters will relate the current job opportunities to the cost of investment and the starting salary or wages earned achieving that training.
With approximately 260 students in attendance, the school will be packed for the event. Lunch will be provided and the students will also receive a t-shirt for their participation.
Thompson Falls Superintendent Jason Slater secured a Carl Perkins Grant. The grant allowed the school to host the fair and the hope is to make it a bi-annual event later on.