Each year over 200 high school students combine class work with outside jobs to match their skills and gain experience in the real work world.

The high school district's Work Experience program provides approved jobs and career counseling to juniors and seniors at Amador and Foothill high schools. The program is designed for students to be able to continue their regular class load and to go out and work. The day for a Work Experience student usually combines four or five periods of classes and an afternoon of work in retail, clerical or technical jobs.

Charlotte Curtis is the Work Experience Coordinator at Foothill High School and oversees the program for over one hundred students. Her job includes reviewing and approving jobs and work sites, meeting with employers, career counseling the students, record keeping and teaching one class a week.

Curtis says the students in the program are both career-bound and college-bound. The students planning to go to college participate in the program to give themselves a preview of the careers they plan to pursue. One third of the students are in retail jobs, both sales and management positions. Other work areas favored by the work experience students are office and clerical and positions as medical technicians.

Another component of the Work Experience program is field trips. Last month, the 200 Work Experience students made weekly visits to Hacienda Business Park to meet with representatives from Crum and Forster and the Career Network.

In sessions held in the Chabot Community Room, presentations were made to the students on job seeking skills, interviewing, resume writing and interpersonal skills by Ron Hernbroth and Bonnie Nichols of Crum and Forster and Sylvia Johnson of Career Network. They also gave the students an overview of the current employment scene in Pleasanton.

Business growth in Pleasanton has provided a wider range of jobs for the students; and in the four years she has been program coordinator, Curtis has seen an upgrading in the positions and the salary the students are receiving. It has also made her job busier, trying to make contact with the many new employers, but it means greater opportunities for her students.

The program continues, though on a reduced scale, throughout the summer. Students or employers interested in participating in the Work Experience program should phone summer coordinator, Genny Underwood, at 462-1615 x54.

To see a reproduction of the original article and edition of Pleasanton Pathways, visit: June 23, 1986 Pathways.