Hernando career coach helps match high school students with local businesses

Moffitt helps high school students navigate career opportunities in their communities 

Jamie Moffitt knows that all 1,400 of her students at Hernando High School have their own gifts and talents to discover. As the school district’s career coach since October 2022, she’s tasked with helping them realize those interests and explore career options.

But alongside her official duties to help students find their place is a more practical mission. “My motto from day one has been, ‘Mama's couch is not an option after high school,’” said Moffitt. “You’ve gotta go do something.”

Career coaching is relatively new to Mississippi schools. But thanks to an $8 million investment by the state legislature in 2022 and additional $12 million in 2023, students and parents will become more acquainted with folks like Moffitt as Accelerate Mississippi, the state’s workforce development agency, increases the number of career coaches in school districts statewide from 20 to 150.

Parents who attended public school in Mississippi are familiar with guidance counselors, who focus on making sure students are meeting requirements for high school graduation and college admission. Career coaches like Moffitt go deeper to help students discover their talents and passions, and then set them on a path to success. 

“I'm here to help students that get lost in the shuffle, who don't know what they wanna do,” Moffitt said. “All these kids have potential to go do something, and college might not be for everybody—which is totally fine. But they have gifts and talents they can use and serve their communities and make a great living doing so.”

Not long after her arrival at Hernando High School, a student referred to Moffitt shared her interest in pediatric therapy as a potential career. Moffitt, who worked as a nurse early in her career, connected her with a job-shadowing opportunity with Southern Pediatric Therapy, a physical, behavioral and speech therapy facility located in town.

Over three hour-plus sessions, the student observed while clinic owner and occupational therapist Jennifer Pacileo and her staff cared for patients. She was able to see what a pediatric occupational therapist does on the job, before spending additional years of education studying toward a degree.

“She was ecstatic—she couldn't wait to get started,” Pacileo says. “It's so fun to see people who are interested in becoming a therapist actually see what a therapist does, because their energy and their excitement multiply.”

Pacileo knows how important these job-shadowing opportunities can be having benefited from a similar opportunity. 

“I'm a therapist because of the opportunity I was given to work as a technician in college,” Pacileo says. “My duties were limited to filing papers and cleaning at a pediatric therapy clinic, but I saw what everybody did and the difference the therapist was making in the lives of the children and their families. I knew that it was what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.”

Moffitt aims to uncover more opportunities for students in Hernando to explore their interests with local businesses. 

“I wish that I’d had a career coach when I was growing up, because I was navigating this with my parents, neither of whom went to college,” Moffitt said. “I didn't have the background or the knowledge of what to do, how to get scholarships, what career options were out there, and if the career I was interested in even required college.”

Another benefit of career coaching is the potential it has to stymie brain drain, which results when young adults leave the state after graduation to pursue careers in other locations.

“Most kids right now are like, ‘I'm getting out of Mississippi; I don't want to live here anymore,’” Moffitt says. “But if we have these great things in our community that will draw them back to where they came from, I think that would be awesome.”

AccelerateMS serves the people and businesses of Mississippi by developing and deploying workforce strategies to connect individuals with transformative, high-paying careers. By leveraging resources and partnering with organizations that hold complementary missions, AccelerateMS effectuates positive change, creating sustained individual, community and statewide economic prosperity.