Offspring Discover the Office

Founders of the national Take Your Daughters to Work Day credit the annual event with inspiring the nation’s girls to aim for careers in the sciences and the arts. But locally, some school officials say the day is not as popular as it once was.

“We get more absences from the flu than from the Take Your Daughters to Work Day,” said Jan Martin, secretary at John H. Eader Elementary School in Huntington Beach, where a preliminary count of six students missed school Thursday to explore the work world.

Officials at the Ms. Foundation, creators of the day, say their polls show that more than 15 million parents participated last year, or more than a third of the nation’s schoolchildren. That figure was estimated from 1,006 random telephone interviews conducted nationally.

“This has become a major institution,” said Marie Wilson, president of the Ms. Foundation. “Most educators support it. And people have to remember this is an educational day for students.”

Indeed, the state superintendent of public instruction, Delaine Eastin, supports the effort, saying Thursday, “I think it’s good for kids to see the real world,” even though public schools must mark the absence as unexcused. Schools receive state funding based on pupil attendance, and the only excused absences are for illness, doctor appointments and funeral services.

Still, while many youngsters accompanied their parents to work in Orange County on Thursday, evidence of a major impact was hard to find at some local schools.

Trabuco Mesa Elementary School, a Rancho Santa Margarita campus of 1,400 students, had about four absences Thursday for the workplace-visiting day. George S. Patton Elementary School in Garden Grove had five parents call ahead of time to say their children would be out for the day. Irvine’s Vista Verde, a K-8 school, had seven of its 630 students out. There were 20 absences at Yorba Linda Middle School, representing 3% of the student body.

Nationwide, a handful of private schools have come out formally against the day, saying it disrupts students’ education. For example, New York City’s Convent of the Sacred Heart, a private girls’ school, wrote to parents this year to discourage them from taking their daughters to work.

On the other hand, some Southern California private schools roundly support the occasion.

The Marlborough School, a private Los Angeles high school for girls, held no classes Thursday, freeing up its 500 students to visit 90 sites, including the Los Angeles Zoo and Christie’s West Coast auction house.

“It’s become a massive undertaking,” said Marlborough spokeswoman Deborah Tennison. “We strongly believe in it because it offers girls an opportunity to see what really goes on in the workplace.”

Wilson, the Ms. Foundation’s leader, said that participation in the day depends on the level of involvement by local businesses and offices. On Thursday, 800 girls went to the United Nations and 2,000 others visited Chase Manhattan Corp., the nation’s largest bank-holding company, she said.

In Orange County, a number of major employers organized tours and activities for children of workers, in a sign that what began as a feminist offensive to raise the aspirations and self-esteem of girls has become, in at least some circles, widely accepted and has come to include boys.

At Rockwell offices in Costa Mesa, about 40 girls and boys spent most of the afternoon painting maps of Rockwell job sites around the world. As they sat at work tables, instructed by an artist from the Orange County Museum of Art, several said they still weren’t sure what their parents actually did for a living.

“My mom works on a computer, that’s all I know,” said Brittan Plunkett, 10, an aspiring pediatrician from Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in Corona del Mar. (Her mother, Cheryl Plunkett, later clarified that she works in Rockwell’s intellectual property department.)

Danielle Anthony, 13, of Helen Stacey Intermediate School in Huntington Beach said that she would have preferred spending more time with her mother, a secretary. “This is boring,” she said of the art project. “Last year, I got to run errands for my mom.”

At the Boeing plant in Seal Beach, 140 girls and boys from 9 to 15 took tours of the plant, talked to a former cosmonaut, learned about plans for an international space station and dressed in white suits to enter a “clean room” where satellite systems are built.

“Most people who work here remember a science teacher who triggered something and got them interested in the sciences,” said spokesman Erik Somonsen. “We’re hoping to trigger something in these kids so that some of them think about paying more attention in science and math.”

Indeed, fifth-grader Lindsay Huston, 10, of Fullerton said that she wanted to follow in the footsteps of her father, an engineer. “I’ve never seen where he works before, except sitting in the lobby,” she said. “It’s pretty exciting.”

At Boeing, 60% of the children participating were boys.

But at the Toshiba offices in Irvine, the day was for girls alone. About 45 daughters, ages 6 to 15, spent the morning at work with a parent. In addition, the girls heard from several senior women at Toshiba, who spoke about the changing workplace and opportunities.

Account manager Julie Nelson brought her daughter, 7-year-old Michelle. “At the end, she said, ‘You know, Mom, maybe I would like to do what you do.’ It was really gratifying,” Nelson said, “because in the past she’s always said she wanted to be a teacher. That’s all she was exposed to. Now she’s seen everything from the mail room to the computer room. She knows there’s a lot more out there.”