CLEVELAND, TN (WDEF) – Walker Valley students recently got to look into their possible futures at STEM Career Day. Employers from throughout our region were on hand to show kids who they are and what they do. And that’s a far-reaching example of “What’s Right With Our Schools.”
David Gluckner is the Principal at Walker Valley STEM Academy.
He explains, “So, this is so this is our STEM field day where every manufacturing month. October is manufacturing month for all of the United States. So, here in Cleveland, Tennessee all of our schools do our best to invite at our industry leaders to come to our schools. Here we have industry leaders from Mars we have Whirlpool we have Corte. We have our Armed Forces. We have Eaten electrical. We even have post second education coming everytime. We do this every year, and we want to introduce our kids to those opportunities. What is it going to be looking like whenever they graduate from Walker Valley.”
Aleksio Praniuk is a Junior at Walker Valley.
He says, “So we went to the Mars factory and we’re learning about how they make chocolate and stuff, and then we went over to the helicopter, and we looked at the helicopter.”
Principal Gluckner adds, “Do they get to go into the industry immediately? Do they need to go get more education at a post-secondary education? Or can I just go into the armed forces. So, we want to have everybody here to be able to talk to them and show them what those possibilities are.”
Damion Wilvourn is a Nuclear Electronics Technician/Recruiter for the U.S. Navy.
He says, ” We’re just out here Walker Valley STEM Day, which brought the STRIKE group to show kids some different careers that are offered in Navy, and just tell them what the Navy is about.”
Josueosorio Garci is a junior at Walker Valley.
He says, “So, I picked up the very peak and interesting things I’ve seen around. I’ve seen this big van. I’ve seen this interactive stuff. I’ve seen controllers and stuff. It looks very interesting, and it piqued my interest, so I just wanted to come over and check it out.”
Recruiter Wilvourn adds,” We have both of our simulators here it’s got a few different jobs in it. I went through myself. It’s got a few different jobs in it. I went through them myself. Ones I did, was flying a Seahawk helicopter and another one was being what we call shooter. They’re the ones who guide the Jets up to hook up to the catapult and launch them off the aircraft.”
Principal Gluckner concludes, “Every year it seems to have drone and grown and grown. This year has been a little bit of a struggle with the recent political climate the shut down and think some visitors were not able to make it this year, but our community are especially our local community has been beautiful to want to come and reach out. There are people here today that heard about it that we didn’t even invite and mentioned to come today, but they heard about they wanted to come so our community is wanting to be here for this. They were talking to our kids all day long. This is about a 3 1/2 hour visit so for them to be here and spend time with our kids talking about what they do every day. It’s just a beautiful thing to have a local community show up and show out.”
