On a page taken from the West Virginia’s Department of Education book, PCHS CTE Director Megan Atkinson has asked the PC School Board for permission to implement a program called Simulated Workplace into the PCHS CTE curriculum.
PCHS currently has VA school-based enterprises such as Cougar Den, Floral Design, Small Animal Care, Automotive programs, and Preschool. However, these programs are led and run by instructors with the help of students. Simulated Workplace would have the instructors teaching about basic workplace essentials and safety, then all the power is put in students' hands. This would allow for students to make their own businesses from scratch.
Using Culinary as an example, with Simulated Workplace students would create a company name, logo, employee handbook, safety handbook, and uniforms. Then they will need to create and assign jobs that are essential to running a business, such as a chef, kitchen manager, marketing, sales, etc. There would also be safety inspectors who make sure that everyone is being safe and wearing their PPE. Safety inspectors from other programs would come over and use culinary’s safety checklist to ensure that everyone in culinary is following the protocols that they created.
“Hopefully, next year (2022-2023) teachers can start using Simulated Workplace and we can start taking teachers' requests (for business ideas),” Atkinson said.
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