Photo by Lester Smith
Suffield High School student Deni Markov, job shadowing a possible future employment, works on a section of the upstairs front hallway of a Suffield home.
Suffield High School students transitioning to adulthood in the special ed program are given the opportunity to build skills in social interactions and vocational activities through “job shadowing,” in which they can observe and sometimes participate in “a day in the life” of a company employee. As special education teacher Katherine Vanase explained, this is a temporary, unpaid exposure to a workplace area of interest to the student, helping identify possible next steps toward what life after high school may hold. The 18-to-21 transition program is in its third year at SHS, and Vanase says it has shown great momentum this fall in placing students in a variety of settings.
This reporter was invited to observe a job-shadowing engagement when Scott Zielinski, of ChemDry, was cleaning carpets in First Selectman Melissa Mack’s home on December 2. Deni Markov, an SHS senior, seemed to enjoy the task he was given, wielding the apparatus in an upstairs hallway. We wish him well.