Bring Your Child to Work Day has always been a favorite for students and staff across Riverside Brookfield High School. This student-built program has been canceled this year because of a lack of staff as the Child Development teacher resigned unexpectedly just prior to Winter Break.

“We were informed that she [Katherine Picht, the former Child Development teacher] would be resigning at the end of December,” said Kylie Lindquist, Assistant Principal for Curriculum and Instruction.

Child Development students have helped put events together in the past for Bring Your Child to Work Day. Marisa Dobbertin, a Mind and Body instructor, had her P.E. Leaders help organize events for the youngsters in the past. She knows the cancellation of the event will be upsetting to those students.

“They really like working with their peers to organize this event,” said Dobbertin.

After posting the open position on the district website, there were no applicants.

“We feel really confident that we tapped every resource we could find, and we never were able to get a qualified candidate,” said Lindquist.

The staff, including Dobbertin, really looked forward to this day throughout the school year.

“Over sixty of the staff’s children are at RB on this event,” said Dobbertin.

It was a very hard decision to cancel the event because of the lack of qualified applicants for the job.

“We had to make the tough decision to cancel it and that’s not something we ever want to do,” said Lindquist.

This program was a student-based initiative with almost all management of the day’s activities being handled by the students.

“The students plan all of the events, they get the t-shirts, they get the information out to the staff about bringing [their] kids, they watch all the kids, they supervise. They do everything for the whole entire day,” said Lindquist.

Administration is hoping to bring the program back for the next 2018-2019 school year.