Volunteers needed for Pasco school’s Enterprise Week
Volunteers are needed to help teams of high school students participating in a week-long business simulation.
Pasco School District officials are looking for about 10 to 12 more people to help mentor the 883 high school seniors participating in the 17th annual Enterprise Week between Nov. 28 and Dec. 2.
The students from Pasco, Chiawana and New Horizons high schools will be assigned to one of 54 teams, which are taking on the role of an existing company, developing and marketing a product, and dealing with the other issues of running a business during the course of the week.
Volunteers for the adviser positions are the most needed, and have the largest time commitment, said Deb Thurston, the district’s assistant director of career and college readiness. They are asked to work between 7:20 a.m. and 2:30 p.m., but can split the time with another person, if they want.
“We really do need them. It makes it harder on the rest of (the advisers) if they have to take on multiple teams,” she said. “It’s a hard commitment, but once we get people hooked they stay with us.”
While the students benefit from having a professional available to them, Thurston said the event helps train potential managers.
“It’s (the adviser’s) job to guide them, and help them discover how to lead and how to problem solve,” she said. “It’s like training (for managers) without sending them away.”
The district is also looking for people to fill the role of judges to review the teams’ final projects on Dec. 1 and 2. The teams will present their website designs and human resource manuals on Dec. 1. The judges will review the teams’ presentations to the company’s stockholders on Dec. 1.
Each session take about two hours.
“We’ll take as many (judges) as we can get,” Thurston said. “The more judges that we have that are able to give feedback, the better.”
People interested in volunteering can email enterprise@psd1.org or call 509-543-6727.
This story was originally published November 22, 2016 at 6:47 PM with the headline "Volunteers needed for Pasco school’s Enterprise Week."