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Dexter hosts first high-school career fair; students report strong engagement
Summary
Dexter High School held its first career fair on March 10 with roughly 1,000 students attending. Organizers say the event exposed students to a wide range of careers, produced sizable positive survey responses and will inform follow-up post‑graduation planning work.
Dexter High School hosted its first career fair March 10, drawing roughly 1,000 students from grades 9 through 12 and 17 presenters representing careers across the district’s 16 career clusters, Career Development Facilitator Caitlin Muffin told the Board of Education.
The fair was part of the district’s board goal to “implement a robust postgraduation planning process” for high school students by the end of 2024–25 and to expand that planning to middle and elementary students in later years, Muffin said. The district has been using Schoolinks (career-and-college planning software) and one-on-one family meetings to build Education Development Plans (EDPs) required by the state for graduating seniors.
“[The career fair] is making a huge difference in the lives of our students who either are reconsidering what they thought they wanted to go into or solidifying the choices that they have made,” Caitlin Muffin said. Muffin described EDPs as a “roadmap” that includes career and college goals, learning-style assessments, résumés and SMART goals; she said seniors completed EDPs during a testing window and will receive their approved documents by email.
Students rotated through three 30-minute presentations, selected by preference via an advisory-period Google form. Presenters included a retired Air Force pilot, a U.S. Homeland Security special agent, the University of Michigan director of environmental health, a forensic scientist, a physical therapist, a construction project manager and several attorneys representing different specialties. Organizers built rotations from students’ top choices when possible; Muffin said about 700 students submitted preferences and staff attempted to honor those requests, while about 300 students who did not submit were assigned to balanced rotations.
Exit surveys showed generally positive responses across grades: among seniors, 46% rated presentations “excellent,” 50% “good” and 4% “fair”; juniors and underclassmen reported similar distributions. Muffin summarized district-wide student feedback as roughly one-third “excellent,” more than half “good,” and a smaller share “fair” or “poor.” Speaker feedback included comments that organization and communication were strong, though check-in and registration slowed during the event because of the unexpectedly large number of volunteer presenters.
Board members praised the organizers and suggested procedural improvements for next year. Planned changes include streamlining check-in for presenters, clearer signup directions for students, limiting the total number of presenters to match available space and AV, creating industry-specific panel sessions (for fields such as law and health sciences) and offering more follow-up “hands-on” sessions — for example, local photographer Melanie Reyes, a Dexter parent, has volunteered several Saturdays to work with students on photography skills.
Muffin said the district will add teacher-facing notes to the presenter guidelines so guest presenters who are not educators will have concrete tips for engaging students. The district also plans to increase outreach to colleges, military recruiters and trade-training programs and to use the data collected this year to refine next year’s event.
Board members stated the fair fit into the district’s wider postgraduation-planning work and commended staff for the first-year execution.
The district did not vote on policy changes regarding the career fair; the presentation was given for the board’s information and for continued planning direction.
