REEDLEY – Although a rainy morning proved that the Valley heat is still a ways away, diligent members of the community are working to offer even more summer job experiences to local students.
On Feb. 19, local business owners and interested community members gathered at the Greater Reedley Chamber of Commerce office to learn about Kings Canyon Unified School District’s Summer Work Experience Program. Veleda Oltjenbruns, the district’s parent education and community schools coordinator, led a presentation to show attendees the value SWEP brings to both students and businesses.
“There is a problem in that kids don’t have real summer jobs, part-time jobs and things like that, yet we expect them to excel in the workforce,” Oltjenbruns said to attendees. “What can we do about that?”
SWEP has been around for 10 years, and gives students 100 hours of work experience with partnering business during summer break. The program started as a way to give more trade-oriented students experience in automotive work, but has since expanded into retail, public service, child development and more.
Some examples highlighted in the presentation included: office and custodial positions at local schools, the Reedley Boys and Girls club, Ace Hardware, Martens Chevrolet and police and fire departments in Reedley and Orange Cove.
Oltjenbruns, accompanied by Valley ROP Instructional Coordinator Dawn Pearson and CTE counselors Denise Bernal and Jacqueline Schlingloff, gave a breakdown of the program’s timeline and the kinds of experiences offered to students.
From June 8 to June 30, students will work toward achieving 100 hours at their work site and get experience accurately tracking those hours with a time sheet. On July 10, students take a survey about their time with the program, turn in their timesheets to get their check.
Throughout their time with the program, students must also attend mandatory workshops focused on developing essential skills for the workforce. Bernal noted that these workshops can be flexible, and based on feedback from the partnering businesses, workshops can be better tailored to help students in their ongoing roles.
While students are getting their hours at their respective job sites, counselors like Bernal and Schlingloff also visit students to check in and get feedback from both the students and the owners.
“We don’t just throw them out there into the wild, but we go and we visit them … we’ll be constantly coming around and checking in, especially with employers,” Schlingloff said.
Reflecting on the program’s effectiveness so far, Oltjenbruns, Bernal and Schlingloff all took pride in the success stories they’ve seen over the years. For some students, the program has brought employment offers, and for others, the experience gained was so good that they requested to go through the program a second time.
Out of the 109 results from a previous student survey, 100% of students rated their experience as a four or five out of five.
Jose Plascencia, owner and agent of Reedley Allstate Insurance, told the Mid Valley Times that the presentation was informative for him, and that he sees an opportunity to bring another option to the program while helping his business.
“It’s a huge opportunity to have an extra pair of hands to do the work that, maybe for a professional that I’m paying, isn’t worth doing because I’m paying them really high,” Plascencia said. “But if I can get a student to do the filing, the paperwork or occasionally pick up the phone for a simple question, I think that’s a huge benefit for a small business like mine.”
A point brought up in the Q&A portion was that it’s noticeably harder for high school students to get a job now than in the past, primarily due to liability concerns now that labor laws are more robust. Plascencia acknowledged this, and agreed that finding work when he was in high school was much easier than it seems to be now.
Through a program like SWEP, however, which walks students through the process and aids in the logistics, Plascencia said he thinks that these kinds of barriers can be broken down, and he is excited to see something like this being offered to local students.
“You don’t find it very often in other cities where the school district is working with businesses and chambers like this, all kind of making an ecosystem of community services and civic awareness, and that’s one thing I can say about Reedley over any other community,” Plascencia said.
After the presentation, Oltjenbruns told the Mid Valley Times that this was the first outreach event that’s been done for SWEP, but after seeing the initial feedback from the people of Reedley, she hopes to hold more presentations in other KCUSD communities.
The interest in SWEP is very competitive, with only up to 120 students across all schools being admitted at a time, but seeing the value it has brought to those selected has made the program Oltjenbruns’ favorite by far.
“What I love about it so much is I feel like it actually creates like hope, wonder and more clear goals for kids, because they see the impact of it, and I truly know that what they learn is going to affect them for the rest of their lives,” Oltjenbruns said.
Those interested in potentially partnering their business with the program can reach out with questions to oltjenbruns-v@kcusd.com.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story was updated on Feb. 20, 2026 at 10:55 a.m. pst to correct that students will take a survey about their time with the Kings Canyon Unified School District’s Summer Work Experience Program on July 10.
