Kenlie Finn doesn't know exactly what she wants to do with her life, and that's becoming the interesting part. The Vandalia junior is currently taking a teaching class through Okaw and a CNA class on Monday and Wednesday evenings, neither of which represented the future she'd once imagined for herself. Growing up, she figured she might become a veterinary technician, or maybe go to cosmetology school. Now there's teaching, nursing, possibly special education. "I don't know," she said. At 16 or 17, that might be exactly the right answer.

Kenlie isn't waiting around for clarity to arrive on its own. She's trying things directly. Her school day starts at Vandalia, sends her over to Okaw for teaching coursework, and brings her back for math, science, and PE, with CNA classes on top of it in the evenings. That last one genuinely surprised her. "I never would have imagined," she said, but after watching a family member work in nursing and hearing more about it from friends, she got curious enough about what the job actually involves to find out whether she could do it herself. She can. "You're always helping other people," she said, and that idea seems to be pulling her toward teaching too, especially toward one particular classroom she can picture herself in someday: the TLC room.

Kenlie's older sister, Sophie, is 18 and part of Vandalia's TLC program, which serves students with additional needs through age 21. Kenlie sees her at school every day, and they even share a PE class. Sophie is funny, prone to blasting music and singing at six in the morning, and occasionally rediscovering her drums for an impromptu concert that lasts the rest of the day. People gravitate toward her, animals included; Kenlie's new cockapoo, Aspen, is nervous around almost everyone except Sophie. "Everyone makes her feel comfortable," Kenlie said. Kenlie has spent much of her life as Sophie's younger sister and, by her own account, her protector too, a role that seems to carry straight into how she wants to be seen more generally. Asked how her friends would describe her, she starts with "loud and funny," then lands on something that clearly matters more to her: she wants to stand up for people. Asked directly if that makes her an advocate, her answer comes without hesitation. "Yes."

That instinct explains her answer to a bigger question: if she knew she couldn't fail, what would she choose? Not nursing, not cosmetology, not veterinary work. "I want to say working at the TLC room." Why? "I think I could do so much."

There's a real strength in Vandalia hiding inside that answer. The district isn't asking Kenlie to settle on a future before she's actually experienced enough of the world to choose one. It's giving her live ways to test different paths: teaching she can explore firsthand, healthcare she can actually try, and because her sister remains part of the school community through TLC, a daily, real-world look at another kind of meaningful work. Career exploration lands very differently once it stops being theoretical, and a teenager gets to discover not just what sounds interesting on paper, but what actually feels worth doing.

Softball fits the same pattern. Kenlie's returning to the sport this year after a few years away, mostly because she missed being active, and even more because she missed being part of something bigger than herself. "Working as a team, having fun, winning or losing, whatever it is," she said. Even the bus ride home has its own value to her. "That's the best part."

Friends and family carry enormous weight for Kenlie, and it shows in who she names when asked which people belong in an imaginary room reserved for the ones who've mattered most. First up is her eighth-grade English teacher, Ms. Wells. "She was just like one person who was always there," Kenlie said, someone who'd help no matter the situation. Her parents belong in that room too: her mother pushes her to look honestly at her own part in a conflict rather than fixate on someone else's, and her father has always told her to chase her dreams, in a household built around not keeping secrets from each other. Sophie earns her spot simply by being herself, having taught Kenlie something real about advocacy, acceptance, and joy. There's a younger sister too, Amelia, who turned two on the very day of this conversation, rounding out a household of three sisters, each carrying their own piece of Kenlie's story.

Kenlie doesn't have a career plan yet. What she has instead might matter more right now: real experience, proof that she can do things she never expected of herself, and a growing sense that helping people is what actually pulls at her. Vandalia keeps giving her enough different doors to walk through before it asks her to pick one for good. Maybe she becomes a nurse. Maybe a teacher. Maybe, someday, she walks into a life-skills classroom of her own. There's time yet. For now, Kenlie Finn is simply trying things, paying close attention to what each one reveals, and discovering just how much more possibility exists than the futures she used to imagine for herself.

I think I could do so much.