Whitmer High School is known for the on campus Career Technology center where students may gain valuable training for a variety of career fields and a variety of core and elective courses, but many may not know about our fantastic job-training program run by special education teacher-Mrs. Jen Nino.

A lot of people might have different definitions or thoughts when ‘job training’ comes to mind, but. Mrs. Nino clarifies the definition. She explains that job training is “a program for students who are thinking about heading into employment after high school or for anyone who is interested in employment practice prior to being employed.” The focus is on life-skills.

“They get real-life work experience through various job sites, job situations/tasks, and customer and employer interaction,” Mrs. Nino shares.

Furthermore, it not only benefits the student’s future, preparation-wise, but it also lands employers good and trained employees. Nino discusses that it’s an “incredible benefit” for the students involved and also for the job sites that are visited. The program contains around 16 programs for the students to feel flexible with their choice of career path they want to pursue in the future.

“We have up to 16 job sites some years so the variety of sites is amazing as well as the variety of tasks that students are able to do at each job site is great as well. Some days we show up and do something as simple as raking leaves and other days we show up and work with giraffes.”

In addition to variety and valuable experiences, the program is free.

When asked if there any negatives to share Mrs. Nino shared “the cold!”. Because of the cold weather during November, Mrs. Nino admits that she dislikes that “some jobs require us to work outside and we’ve had a very chilly November this year!” While she was joking, Ohio weather is about the only downside to this program.

While the program’s daily experience is more extensive than some of the other programs in Whitmer, the routine is pretty set.

“We leave at the beginning of third period and come back at the end of fifth. We have three different groups that go to different businesses to work. We work with a few of the businesses the entire year and the rest change at semester time. This gives us a wide variety of businesses to work with and job skills to learn, “ Nino explains.

The program requires students to be more open and outgoing as they are going to have to work with people they are not going to know. When asked what a student new to the training program could do to prepare Mrs. Nino shares, “be ready to step outside of your comfort zone and work with people you don’t know and businesses that you would have never thought about stepping into”.

It might seem like students may get scared and drop the program as many students aren’t comfortable with in person interaction, but in truth, it inspires them. Credit also goes towards the teacher as well. Her guidance and support make the difference.

“My favorite part of this job is seeing my students conquer a task that they were initially apprehensive about. The growth of confidence in my students is amazing!”, Mrs. Nino proudly shares.

Mrs. Nino does wish there was one change in the program, besides working out in Ohio weather. She’d “love for more people to know about our program…” and how it works. The program gives students the chance for a head start in their career plan all at a free price, you can’t say no to a free work experience”.