Over 250,000 Grade 9 students from across Canada took part in this year's Take Our Kids to Work Day on November 6. The day was sponsored by the Learning Partnership.

In the Vancouver School Board, dozens of students tagged along with their parents to learn more about what they did day-to-day and to consider whether they'd want to pursue a similar career path.

For VSB Rentals Supervisor Tara Hayley's son Coleman, it was a particularly busy day.

The Hayleys started off with a morning shift with the breakfast program at Strathcona Elementary, where they helped serve close to 175 breakfasts to vulnerable kids.

"He got a sense of how great the kids are and the issues that kids in the inner-city deal with," said Hayley. "He also toured the extensive childcare operations at the school/community centre."

After Strathcona the mother/son team headed to the workshop where Coleman got to meet some of the VSB's trades staff. Then it was off to the Van Tech market garden to participate in a school harvest.

Then in the afternoon, Coleman sat down with Superintendent Steve Cardwell to talk about what he'd observed during his morning tour. The Hayleys then hopped into the district's new electric MODO cars and zipped over to UBC for meetings with the University and University Neighbourhood Association who were gathering to talk about the joint use of the new artificial turf field at U-Hill Secondary.

All and all, Hayley says the day gave her son a diverse series of snap-shots of what work in the Vancouver School Board can be like.