Career Fair at Reagan HS

Today, we participated for the third year in the annual Reagan HS career fair.  It's one of the only high schools that still does career fairs, and it's a good opportunity to meet other folks who are providing post-high school options to students.  We learned from an Americorps member who helps Reagan students with college prep that 15 Reagan students plan to graduate this spring with not only their HS diploma, but with an Associates Degree from ACC through the Early College program at Reagan.  That shows a lot of hard work.

Hart counting pennies from the Penny Poll jars after the career fair

We appreciated having the opportunity to talk with students, and the t-shirt challenge elicited some good comments from students and staff, too.  As always, the Penny Poll showed strong support for funding Education (31% of the penny votes) and Health Care (28%), and 21% for the Environment, 13% for the Military and 7% for Humanitarian Aid. When students see the tape unfold showing actual government spending priorities, we can see the surprise on their faces.  The tape shows 6% for Education.

Susana showing the graph of actual federal spending after student votes in Penny Poll

The down side of the day was seeing Army and Navy recruiters there who were asking students to fill out forms with their contact information.  I went over and showed them the written AISD policy prohibiting that, but the Navy recruiters continued to ask students to fill out the forms throughout the career fair, directly flouting AISD policy.  We are following up with AISD about this.

Our reflection poster received thoughtful responses, as always.  The question was:  Which Super-villain do you want to fight:  Sexism, Racism, Ecocide, Poverty or War -- and how?

  And one student said that she would fight against Trump, because he represented all the super-villains!  We don't promote candidates at our tables, but we appreciated that response!

Thanks, Reagan students, for visiting our table and sharing your thoughts with us.