By Hannah McVay — Business and support management is a two-year career path that is available to sophomores when they choose their junior year schedule. Students in this program learn basic office skills and support skills as well as human relations, business management and customer service. This program is well suited for organized students who are looking into owning their own business and pursuing higher education in a business or other field.

In class, junior year, the students learn basic office skills such as data processing, records management and other managing tasks.

“Good keyboard skills, organization, time management and being able to prioritize are key to being successful in this class.” Business teacher Julia Strancar said.

Senior year the students learn advanced software applications that are helpful for organizing data and documents. Seniors also participate in specialized office procedure, human relations and management procedures, professional development, career advancement and leadership development. Senior year will also offer a real-world job through local businesses. This job will also earn credits and pay for their skills.

“Senior year you will get a job as well as school credits which is helpful to getting the real-world application to what we do in the classroom.” Strancar said.

The class is involved in events such as Business Professionals of America, conferences in Columbus, Columbus Blue Jackets Hockey and the local Exceptional Olympics. In the program students are part of a co-curricular student program called Business Professionals or America.

“It is a good experience and you get a lot of experience working with people and being able to work in the field you want,” senior Emily Dean says.

In this, students have to opportunity to develop skills through regional, state and national competitions.
“All the kids in the class are members of Business Professionals of America which means that they can all compete. We recently went to nationals for advanced interviewing and administrative support team.,” Strancar said.

The students are then moving onto Nationals, which is held in Orlando, Florida this year. In Florida they are competing in advanced interviewing and administrative support. Students that are involved in this national competition team are seniors Emily Dean, Sami Dunkle and Maddy Palmery.

“Competing this a good way to learn more about the field and what it takes to be successful, it is what I look forward to at the end of my senior year,” Dean said.

[Updated Aug. 7, 2017: This article has been reformatted for consistency.]