The MetWest High School Story (Part 5)
Internships
Forty percent of the school week is devoted to Learning Through Internships (LTI). Every teacher/advisor meets with their students in and out of school to discuss the work done at the intern site, the on-site mentor, and any issues that have arisen.
As in all Big Picture schools, MetWest has structured the academic year to have students search for and enter into two-day a week unpaid internships during school hours. Called Learning Through Internship (LTI), there is a coordinator that oversees the entire program. A former Advisor/Teacher Michael Cellemme heads this part of MetWest’s program. He is the only staff member who has also worked as a Teacher/Advisor at the first Big Picture school (The Met) in Providence (RI). He is responsible for finding sites for internships, interviewing potential work-site mentors, making matches between individual students and mentors, and monitoring what goes on in the internship.
Local mentors take on the responsibility of helping a student acquire the work and social skills necessary to succeed in a business, government agency, educational and health organization, and similar Oakland groups. Since 2002 when MetWest opened, the school had placed students with more than 400 organizations (2010), including local hospitals, radio stations and restaurants to provide learning opportunities.[i]
Advisor/Teacher Shannon Carey sees how the internship experience has made a huge difference for one of her 20 students, Kris McCoy. McCoy had struggled in school and had been in Oakland’s juvenile hall for being involved in an armed robbery while in the eighth grade. When he arrived at MetWest, he got into several fights in the ninth grade.
Carey said that “he came with an ankle bracelet, and with visits from his parole officer.” She continued: “And needing to be the alpha male and needing to show MetWest who he was and that he shouldn’t be messed with. He was way more CONTINUE READING: The MetWest High School Story (Part 5) | Larry Cuban on School Reform and Classroom Practice
