Laker teachers learn from local businesses

On April 10, while students had the day off, Laker teachers had an action-packed professional development day that involved visiting several local businesses. Lakers has the privilege of operating a school system in a very vibrant, supportive, and close-knit community. Years ago we set out to build our district on four key pillars – Character, Culture, Curriculum, and Community. Monday’s teacher-focused field trips would fall under the Community pillar. It’s one thing to live and work within a community, but we also want to be intentional about interacting with our community whenever possible. For this professional development day, we were able to identify some specific businesses that have demonstrated the ability to adapt and innovate to overcome changes in the marketplace, which we must do in education as well. We were able to spend time in their workplaces, get to know more about their companies, learn how we can better prepare students for these careers, and take back some things that will make us stronger as an organization. It was a value-packed day that was a lot of fun for our teachers, and our business partners said they really enjoyed it too. The businesses included Autokiniton, Bay Port Fish Company, Buchholz Transport, Inc., LJ Gascho Furniture Co., and Scheurer Hospital. Here is a group pic of our teachers as they met in the auditorium to talk about their day of learning, and a pic of one of the teacher groups at Autokiniton.