With the start of the 2024-2025 school year on the horizon, Shannon Fritsche is settling into her new job as a college and career coach with the Booneville School District.
The Booneville School District is one of 120 in the state to employ a college and career coach through a program overseen by the Arkansas Department of Education Division of Career and Technical Education.
Fritsche said she will “meet with students and help them get a plan for what they’re going to do after high school, whether it be technical education, enrolling in college, enlisting in the military, or being employed.”
This is the fourth year of the program and Fritsche says there are some schools came on board at the beginning, most did not.
“There are several of us who are starting our first year,” she said after recently completing another round of training.
After an orientation introduction to students when the school year begins, Fritsche will meet with students in grades eight through 12.
“We’ll start introducing students to their career path earlier, get them to start thinking about it earlier,” said Fritsche. “The hope is to bring additional meaning to the high school experience and bring students back into the high school environment, for those that question if they want to graduate. That’s kind of the goal.”
Seeing a benefit to education in terms of what they intend to do after high school, should then increase graduation rates.
Although helping a student find an immediate focus is crucial to the role, Fritsche said she hopes to help students develop possible alternate career aspirations, a Plan B or even Plan C.
Fritsche will work out of an office which is located door to counselor Ginger Loyd inside Booneville High School.
Besides meeting with students one-on-one in her office, she will be in various career technical education (CTE) classes, and see students who are involved in the JAG program.
“We’ll be working as a team. Myself, the counselor and the CTE teachers,” said Fritsche.
Fritsche would have liked to have had such an opportunity when she was attending schools in Bentonville.
“If I had had a career coach back then I think things would have been different for me. I feel like I needed some guidance and that’s what I hope to do. It’s an important decision,” said Fritsche.
Fritsche of course is no stranger to the district having spent 11 years working here, first in the high school office and then the administration office before moving into her new role.
Fritsche has a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Arkansas Tech University and has been married to BHS grad David Fritsche for 30 years.
They have two sons, Tanner, a teacher in Clarksville, and Chandler, an electrical engineer who lives in Washington, Missouri. The Fritsches are also the grandparents of a to-be BES kindergartner.