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Debate kit Grade 6 Careers & CTE

Selwick's New Meters: A Debate on Retraining Workers

A grade 6 debate kit on whether a water department should retrain its meter readers as leak technicians, with two-sided evidence and a town meeting format.

Objectives

  1. Students will state a claim about a retraining policy and support it with named evidence.
  2. Students will describe what a leak detection technician does and how a person qualifies.
  3. Students will explain who gains and who pays under each option the department has.

Vocabulary

Meter reader
A worker who records how much water each home and business used so the utility can send correct bills. Today many meters send their readings by radio.

Also: leak detection technician, retraining, certification, evidence

Teacher overview

This debate runs as a town meeting across two class sessions, with one session to prepare and one to hold the meeting and take a vote. Students argue over what a water department owes the workers whose job a new technology has changed. One misconception is worth correcting before students prepare. Many students assume that automatic meters mean nobody from the utility ever visits a meter again, when in fact technicians still open meter pits, check readings that look wrong, and walk the streets at night listening for leaks.

Selwick's New Meters: A Debate on Retraining Workers — Grade 6 Careers & CTE
Name: ____________________________ Date: ______________

Resolution & Background

Resolution: The fictional Selwick Water Department should pay to retrain its six meter readers as leak detection technicians rather than end those six jobs.

Background. Selwick is a fictional town of about 9,000 people. Its water department is putting a radio meter on every house. A radio meter sends its reading to the office by itself, so nobody has to walk the route and write the number down. The change will save the department time and money.

Six people now read meters in Selwick. Each of them walks a route, lifts meter pit lids, reads the dials, and reports meters that look broken. After the new meters are installed, none of that walking is needed.

The department has studied a second job it could fill. A leak detection technician uses listening sticks and other gear to find water leaking from buried pipes. The work often happens at night, when traffic is quiet enough to hear a leak. These workers train on the job. They can also earn a state distribution license by passing an exam.

The department must now choose. It can pay the six meter readers while they train for the new work, or it can end those jobs and hire technicians who are already trained.

Roles. Two teams of four argue the resolution. A third group of four plays witnesses the teams may question: a meter reader with eleven years of service, the department's finance officer, a customer on a fixed income, and the operations supervisor. One student chairs the meeting and keeps time. Everyone else votes at the end and writes one sentence explaining the vote. Each opening runs three minutes. Witness questioning runs six minutes for each team. Each closing runs two minutes.

Evidence File

Case for retraining the meter readers

  1. Roughly one-third of the water workforce will be old enough to retire within the next ten years. In 2016 only about 10 percent of water workers were 24 or younger, compared with 12.5 percent of all U.S. workers. Keeping six trained workers matters when so many are leaving. (Source: EPA Water Infrastructure Sector Workforce page and Brookings, Renewing the Water Workforce.)
  2. About 10,000 water and wastewater operator jobs are expected to open each year from 2025 to 2035. All of them come from replacing people who retire or change work. That count is for operators alone, yet it shows how many water workers must be replaced each year. (Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook.)
  3. The six meter readers already know every street, meter pit, and curb stop in the fictional town of Selwick. A new technician would need months to learn the same ground.
  4. Most water jobs are learned this way. A worker finishes high school, trains on the job, and earns a state license by exam. The department can build the skills it needs from the staff it has. (Source: BLS Occupational Outlook Handbook and state training programs.)

Case against retraining, and for hiring trained technicians

  1. Retraining is not free. Under the fictional Selwick plan, each worker would spend nine months in paid training before finding leaks without help.
  2. Combined US water and sewer bills rose about 24 percent from 2019 to 2024 and about 5.1 percent in 2025. Customers already pay more each year, and training costs would land in the rates. (Source: Bluefield Research and industry rate surveys.)
  3. Leak detection is a different kind of work. It runs at night, uses listening gear, and asks a worker to read patterns on a screen. Not everyone who reads meters wants that job.
  4. Workers who already hold the license can be hired and can start at once. The fictional department would find leaks sooner that way.

From Water for Schools (waterforschools.org). This material is in the public domain (CC0) and may be copied, edited, and shared freely.

Rubric
Criterion Emerging Developing Proficient Advanced
Claim Gives no clear position on the resolution Gives a position but wanders from it Gives a clear position and holds to it throughout Gives a clear position, holds to it, and sharpens it in the closing
Evidence use Speaks from opinion with no card named Names one card without explaining it Names at least two cards and explains how each supports the claim Names at least two cards, explains each, and shows why they outweigh the other side's best card
Use of witnesses Asks no question of any witness Asks a question but does not use the answer Asks a question and quotes the answer in a later speech Asks a question, quotes the answer, and connects it to a named evidence card
Careers knowledge Cannot describe either job Describes one of the two jobs Describes both jobs and the training route into leak detection Describes both jobs, the training route, and why the route affects how fast the work gets done

Differentiation

Support

Give these students a card holding the two strongest points for their side of the fictional Selwick question, each written in one sentence. Provide the sentence starter "Selwick should ____ because ____." Allow them to read their opening from notes and to ask a witness question written in advance.

Extension

Ask students to write the retraining schedule the fictional Selwick department would need, month by month, for one meter reader. The schedule must name what the worker learns each month and when the worker sits the state exam.

ELL supports

Pre-teach "meter," "retraining," "certification," and "leak detection" with a photograph or drawing and a one-sentence meaning. Give a two-column listening sheet so students can sort each side's points as they hear them. Allow witness answers to be prepared in writing beforehand.

Extensions

Have students survey what jobs have changed in their own community because of new equipment, then compare those changes with the fictional Selwick decision in a short paragraph. Students can also write the job posting the department would publish if it decided to hire outside technicians instead, listing duties, hours, and the license required.