Scaling Opportunity

photo caption: students from Kailua, Kalaheo and Kahuku High Schools celebrate completion of internships with Hawaii Herald, Kuilima Farms, Makai Pet Hospital, Ōlelo Media and Pixar Animation, and Tofu Creative.

My interest in education as a career was sparked while watching my grandmother teach French to seventh grade students in upper Manhattan. I was ten at the time. When young people experience the world of work through an internship or employer conversation their classroom learning comes alive. These so called “work-based learning” experiences teach important employability skills and clarify career interests while improving the relevance of school.

For these reasons – and more – we would love every public high school student to graduate with a powerful work-based learning experience. Unfortunately, these opportunities are historically more about who you know or what school you happen to attend.

Of late, though, Hawaiʻi has made real in-roads to scaling and spreading internships, career fairs, job shadows, and mock interviews. Inspired by the PENCIL Foundation in Nashville, the Harold K.L. Castle Foundation provided several nonprofit organizations with multi-year support to connect teachers and students with industry professionals in Hawaiʻi.

By navigating different organizational cultures and directly taking on the coordination, the Chamber of Commerce, Kauaʻi Economic Development Board, and Hawaiʻi Workforce Pipeline have dramatically expanded student opportunity.

Through this project we affirmed the value of a “regional intermediary” in expanding work-based learning. But these efforts were not spread evenly across the state nor were they sustainable once grant funds ended.

Thus, several philanthropies recently joined alongside Hawaiʻi P-20 to pool public DOE dollars with private philanthropic contributions. Through a competitive selection process, government – not philanthropy – authorized and funded one regional intermediary partner in each of five regions across the state.

We just saw the first data from the fall this week, organized around P-20’s career awareness, exploration, preparation and training categories. Results are encouraging, with 3,683 students experiencing work-based learning activities across the DOE’s Windward, Honolulu, Leeward, Central and Kauai Districts in the past few months alone. More than 573 industry partners stepped forward.

For example, a student at Kahuku High completed an internship at The ARTS at Marks Garage where she was asked to prepare an opening exhibit. Through this, she gained a new mentor while learning new skills tied to art curation. This is but one of many powerful stories about learning through work.

The core challenge is to scale these opportunities so they are equitably distributed. We are trying to build on this early success to identify and resource intermediary partners in other regions of the state. One day, we hope that completing an internship is as much as part of the high school experience as taking a college course or learning through volunteer service.