Cape County students practiced real-life skills at the Job Olympics, preparing to enter a rapidly changing workforce

JACKSON, Mo., (KBSI) — Students from five Cape County schools practiced job and life skills at the Job Olympics in Jackson.

High school students preparing to graduate will soon be entering a rapidly changing workforce landscape.

For students in special education, government agencies like vocational rehabilitation provide opportunities that prepare and empower them to join the workforce.

The University of Missouri’s Pre-employment Transition Services (PRE-ETS) Director Kim Pudlowski said the event is a part of the program’s mission to provide equal opportunities for all students with disabilities to participate in employment – empowering them to live independently, work in the community, and be contributing members of society.

“Our goal is to unlock their potential, whatever that might be, regardless of their ability level or their skill level,” she said. “We want to be able to find that thing that lights a spark in them.”

The events set up for the students included tasks that are a part of real-life job responsibilities such as stocking shelves, sorting laundry, cleaning parts of buildings, or areas such as vacuuming, sweeping, and more.

At the grocery station, students took items from the table, matched them with their label on the shelves, and neatly lined them up.

Carter Kuntze said stocking the shelves was his favorite task.

The Job Olympics is a part of PRE-ETS. Through the school based work program, student Kaitlyn Johnson said she got to see what it’s like to work at Cape Healthpoint. She plans to apply for a job there after graduation.

Johnson had the opportunity to practice her interviewing skills at the advanced interviewing station where she was asked about her strengths, weaknesses, and work experience.

“It was a struggle for me at first, but I kind of got a hang of it,” she said.

With diversity, equity and inclusion programs losing federal funding, Pudlowski said their program — funded by the government agency vocational rehabilitation — is potentially at risk of losing funding.

“Vocational rehabilitation receives their funding from the Department of Education on the federal level,” she said. “So certainly any decisions that are made there could trickle down and impact on the state level.”