Elliott Point Elementary School hosted its third annual Career Fair on Tuesday, bringing together 44 local professionals to expose students to career options ranging from the military to the skilled trades.

• The event grew from 38 presenters last year and from 31 at its inception, with Principal Scott Nuss saying the school had to turn people away this year.

“We’re over 40,” Nuss said. “We’ve actually had to turn some people away this year, which is a great problem to have.”

About 30% of this year’s presenters came from the military, Nuss said, a nod to the school’s partnerships with local installations. Presenters spoke to students across every grade level, from pre-K through fifth.

Nuss said the fair is rooted in two of the school district’s pillars, continuous learning and community engagement, and is designed to show students that college isn’t the only path to a successful career.

• “I’m absolutely all for everybody being in college,” Nuss said. “But we also know that not everybody may fall on that track. So we have to make sure that they know the other options that are out there.”

Nuss pointed to the national four-year college completion rate as a driver behind the event’s emphasis on trades and alternative paths.

“One of the premises behind me coming up with this kind of idea was the fact that the national average is 41% of kids who finish college in four years,” Nuss said. “Which means not everybody may be made for college. We need to make sure that our kids are prepared now to know that there’s other options out there and that they can be successful no matter what they do.”

Superintendent talks baseball dreams, backup plans

Okaloosa County Superintendent Marcus Chambers addressed a fifth-grade class, walking students through his own path from aspiring baseball player to district leader and emphasizing the role teachers played in pushing him to succeed academically.

Many of the fifth graders had heard Chambers speak the year before as fourth graders, and remembered details from his last visit. Their teacher told Chambers the students had done their own research ahead of his arrival and came prepared with questions.

• “Oh, you guys are good,” Chambers said after one student accurately described the superintendent’s role. “You guys are smart.”

“I wanted to be a baseball player,” Chambers told the students, recalling his high school years. “But one thing my parents always said, they said, ‘That’s fine. You can want to be a baseball player, but you have to do well academically, so you have to do well in school.'”

Chambers said a tough English teacher graded him harder than his classmates, something that frustrated him at the time but shaped his work ethic.

“As I’ve gotten older, I realized she was trying to push me to be better,” Chambers said. “When you have teachers who push you, when you have teachers who challenge you, and when you have teachers who get on you sometimes … you really want to thank them. Because if I didn’t have that teacher, I probably wouldn’t be standing here today as superintendent.”

Chambers played baseball his freshman year at the University of South Florida before realizing he wasn’t as strong as some of his teammates. He was later offered a full scholarship to become a teacher, a path that eventually led him through principal roles at Longwood Elementary, Pryor Middle School and Niceville High School before he joined the district office.

Three post-graduation paths

Chambers told students he wants every Okaloosa County graduate prepared for one of three paths after high school.

• “I want you to be able to go to college or go straight and get a job or go into the military,” Chambers said. “If we can prepare you to do those three things, and do those three things well, then I feel like we’ve prepared you to go out and be successful.”

He encouraged students to thank their teachers, noting that a senior’s success depends on every teacher they’ve had along the way, from kindergarten through twelfth grade.

Community partnerships make it possible

Nuss credited the Okaloosa Public Schools Foundation, Okaloosa Technical College and the district’s Career and Technical Education program with making the fair possible.

“This career day could not be done without the support of the partnership with the Foundation,” Nuss said. “Elliott Point, the Foundation, and with the support from OTC and CTE, these things cannot happen. So that’s part of the teamwork of Okaloosa County working together to make sure our kids can be successful.”

Nuss said the returning presenters, many of whom have been part of the fair since year one, show the community’s investment in local students.

“When you’re talking about 40-plus presenters, and that’s just a snapshot of what we have, it says tremendous things about the support that our community does for our schools and our youth,” Nuss said. “Planting the seed.”