A summer internship can be a transformative experience for a student. But before they can get a foot in the door, they need to know how to make a good first impression.

On Saturday, February 27, members of San Francisco’s business community interviewed hundreds of public high school students. During these mock interviews, professionals grilled students about their experience and skills and offered constructive criticism.

Want to help a student prepare for a summer internship interview? Learn how you can volunteer for a second round of mock interviews on March 6.

Curious about the experience? Below, volunteers and students share their thoughts about the event.

Suzanne Goodman, Moscone Center

If you don’t have kids, the only experience you may have with students is with young people being rowdy on MUNI. This opportunity gave me a great impression of high school students. I found them to be well-spoken and well-prepared. The afternoon went by quickly.

In the business world, we all complain that there aren’t good entry-level employees in the workforce. Coming out to help students prepare for an internship is a great way to stop talking about this issue and do something about it.

John Paul Keenan, L2Wireless

This is fun. Why wouldn’t you do it? There are great students. Plus, you get to meet some other cool professionals.

These students are doing things that blew me away. When I was in high school I think I had one fast food job on my resume. Today I met one student who’s interested in technology and getting her Cisco certification at City College. I know a buddy of mine who’s trying to do that now, and I know that is not easy to get.

Michael Theriault

Secretary Treasurer, San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council

This experience is painless. I found students to be motivated and articulate. At the end of the day you feel good that you’ve helped them.

This year the Building and Construction Trades Council is placing 40 high school interns. We’re also trying to start a new Construction Pathway at John O’Connell High School. Years ago, the school used to feed our trade. We’d like to start that relationship up again.

Diana Ambrocio, 11^th Grade

Dream Job: Nurse

I was so nervous today because I’ve never done an interview, but over the course of my session, I opened up and enjoyed my experience. Next time around, I’m going to use more professional language in my cover letter. My first letter was too informal in the introduction.

I’m also going to be more specific with the details on my resume. I don’t have a lot of professional experience, but I can use my extra curricular activities to demonstrate examples of taking on leadership roles and responsibility.

Jessical Terrell, 11^th Grade

Dream Job: Pediatrician

I got some great feedback from my interviewer. Next time I’m applying for an internship, I’m going to prepare questions for my interviewer, so I can learn more about the company I’m applying for; I’m going to use a thesaurus to vary the words I use for my cover letter and resume; and I’m walking in with a confident, positive attitude.

Why I love McKinley

Author: Patricia McFadden, parent of a 2nd grader and kindergartener

I love McKinley Elementary because it is a great community! It’s on the small side for the public elementary schools and while far from perfect, there is a wonderful combination of teachers, parents, school staff, and community members that support EVERY child.

Parents are involved in the school through class projects, tutoring, and other volunteer opportunities. The teachers are experienced, patient, and compassionate and, most importantly, love their work. My sons see a broad section of cultures, economic income levels, and learning levels, and learn everyday about the value of each person, without a specific lesson on the subject.

My sons are challenged to learn new things and I am pleased and amazed to see their growth. They learn the subjects and they learn respect for others and common values.

Most importantly, my kids love their school too. McKinley rocks!

Why I love Fairmount

Author: Lauretta Komlos, parent of a 2nd grader and incoming kindergartner

First and foremost, it is a place where my child is getting an excellent education, AND is learning a second language. I am amazed at the level of instruction she has received. The teachers are smart, loving, devoted, and motivated. My kid is a science and spelling nut and she has gotten her fill of these. She may know animals and their genus in Spanish, but she knows them. Yes, I never really thought about what makes a mammal a mammal, but you will get an earful of these and many other wonderful facts if your child gets lucky enough to enroll at Fairmount.

Secondly, the school has an amazing shadow support team. I was approached by teachers and the school social worker to enroll my daughter in several programs that I didn’t even know existed and that have assisted her greatly in her parallel social development.

Lastly, I love the potential of Fairmount. Fairmount has not yet “arrived” on the public school scene. There is a lot of work to be done, and I see that as an opportunity to shape my Children’s education and to be involved in the community. All hands are invited to participate, and no ideas will be turned away.

Why I love Alice Fong Yu

Author: Tom McVey, parent of a kindergartener

TD McVey and his kindergarten teacher May Ng at Alice Fong Yu’s Halloween parade.

I love this school. The academics are stellar, and the opportunity to learn two dialects of Chinese is exciting.

I was surprised how rapidly my kid started to absorb the language – singing songs, counting numbers, and pointing out the characters he knows when we pass by a sign using Chinese pictographs. I think learning a new language has added to his confidence and pride. We feel fortunate to be in a district and school that has taken a real lead in immersion education.

The school is *very* well organized. The teachers are hardworking and highly trained. I’ve been impressed with the simple, elegant, understated way discipline is handled in the kinder classes, and have learned a lot on how to work with my own kid. The principal, Liana Szeto runs a tight ship, and had the vision to create the nation’s first school that was wholly Chinese Immersion.

Expectations are high not only for the kids but also for parents. Homework starts early: there’s a fair amount given to the kindergarteners, and this ramps up substantially in the higher grades. So expect a lot of wrangling as you get your kid to knuckle down. I love that there’s a workshop for parents who aren’t familiar with Chinese to help them help their kids with their homework!

Do you love your public school? Share your story with us, and learn how you can take action to support SF public schools in the face of state budget cuts.

Author: Marcia Jarmel

Marcia and her husband Ken Schneider directed Speaking in Tongues, the award-winning PBS documentary telling the stories of four diverse kids becoming bilingual in San Francisco’s public schools.

Speaking in Tongues was inspired by our experiences with the parents and students at our sons’ Chinese immersion school here in San Francisco. When we first decided to enroll our older son, friends and family thought we were crazy, especially since neither of us knew Chinese. They thought we were putting our sons’ English-language development at risk – one of the most common misconceptions about immersion programs. We felt reassured by the 40-odd years of research suggesting that, quite the contrary, kids – whether native English speakers or not – will do better academically when they’re learning bilingually. That’s certainly been our experience. You can check out key studies by following the links on the film’s website.

Academic achievement is not the only reason for kids to become bilingual. As the students in Speaking in Tongues demonstrate, knowing more than one language opens all kinds of doors: to jobs, to an understanding of people from different cultures – be they around the corner or across the globe – and to a greater understanding of ourselves and our own families.

In the film, we follow four very different kids: a Mexican-American boy whose immigrant parents see language as the key to his full participation in the land of opportunity; an African-American kindergartner whose mom hopes that Mandarin will be his ticket out of the projects; a Chinese-American girl recapturing the Cantonese her parents sacrificed to become American; and a Caucasian eighth-grader eager to expand his horizons. All four kids have performed very well academically. Jason, the Mexican-American student, is maintaining a 4.0 average and is testing above grade level in both English and Spanish, despite the fact that his parents never went to school at all.

Through the good graces of the San Francisco Foundation, there will be many opportunities to see Speaking in Tongues in the next year. Each school in the district will receive its own copy and the district will be using the film in professional development for educators, parent education, and teacher recruitment. The film will be on KQED next fall, too.

Want to find out where you can see the movie and learn more about the benefits of multilingualism? Join the film’s Facebook group, or check out the film’s website.

Interested in learning more about immersion programs in San Francisco public schools? Check out the district’s Multilingual Education Department.

A Spark Student Apprentice from Presidio Middle School works in the medical field with an Apprentice Teacher.

By The Spark Team

When education budget cuts threaten to decrease funding and other resources for already struggling public schools throughout the Bay Area, it’s important to develop creative problem-solving strategies and explore untapped resources. Spark does this by leveraging what was before a largely underutilized supply of individuals who can volunteer at their own workplaces. In the Bay Area, and in cities throughout the country, there are thousands of people who can fill in the gaps left by a struggling economy.  These people are me, you, and everyone we know—working individuals who have followed a career path, and can share that experience with a young person struggling in school. Spark recruits and trains these willing community members, connects them with students, and, in the process, draws new volunteers into the education system. Our volunteer Apprentice Teachers play an important role in motivating at-risk students in our community to see school as a vehicle for setting and achieving positive goals.

We connect adults working in every imaginable field with at-risk students who are struggling to understand the relevance of their education. Meet Gloria and Erica, a Spark Apprentice and Apprentice Teacher pair who underscore Spark’s ability to engage and inspire young students while tapping into the vast resource of professional volunteer mentors in the Bay Area.

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The Apprentice
The most important thing I learned during Spark is that no one can ever tell you that you can never work at your dream job.  School has changed for me because now I work harder to get to my dream job as a person in the medical field.  The thing that surprised me the most about my apprenticeship was how much people welcome you and how much they care about what you want.

My mentor Erica talked to me about what she did in college and what I have to do if I wanted to specialize in the medical field. I think that if I try hard enough I will be able to achieve that dream.

Gloria – 7^th Grade Spark Apprentice, Presidio Middle School

The Apprentice Teacher

“I work as a nurse practitioner at San Francisco General Hospital in orthopedics.  I love my job, I love teaching, and I love being around youth.

I was personally drawn to Spark because, growing up, I had all kinds of ideas in my head as to what I wanted “to be.”  I was lucky to have opportunities to enroll in classes and camps to figure out who I was. Now that I am “grown up” I can look back and see how important all those experiences were in molding me into the individual that I am today, one who’s content and finds much passion in my work. I really wanted to contribute that same “spark” to a student, and help mold him/her into the person they will become.

I really had a very positive experience with my dear student, Gloria. The experience was manageable and rewarding.  A few hours a week is nothing in influencing our future generation to excel and set positive life goals. Gloria and I still keep in touch. Sometimes I think I learned more from her…

Erica Eshoo – Spark Apprentice Teacher, Fall 2009

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Are you interested in mentoring a student through a one-on-one apprenticeship? To learn more about opportunities to be an Apprentice Teacher, check out www.sparkprogram.org or email spark@sparkprogram.org.

Do you have experience mentoring a student in your professional field? Share your story with us.

Spark is a youth empowerment program that addresses the dropout crisis by re-engaging at-risk students in their education with hands-on, individualized apprenticeships in their “dream job.” In 2010, the organization will work with 300 students in the Bay Area and Los Angeles. Spark has received the prestigious Ashoka and Draper Richards Fellowships.

By Amy Graff, author of The Mommy Files blog on sfgate.com and parent at Jose Ortega Elementary School.

I love Jose Ortega because it sits on a hill that overlooks the Pacific Ocean. On a clear day you can see the Farallon Islands from the play ground, and when the sun sets in the evening the sky turns soft pinks and purples, and my daughter says, “Oh mom, I wish I could have a dress in those colors.”

I love the Friday morning sing-alongs when all the children and teachers and many parents gather in the auditorium. It’s loud and chaotic and the children are distracted as they sing through a medley of songs. And then Ms. Young starts pounding the school song on the piano and the children sit up straight and proudly sing: “It’s Jose Ortega on the hill we love…”

I love that my daughter is learning to write and speak in Mandarin.

I love that my daughter learned to read—and to love books—at Jose Ortega.

I love that the principal knows every child and parent by name.

I love the parents because they support one another. They’re the sort who invite you over for dinner when your spouse is out of town and who put hot casseroles on your doorstep after you have a baby.

I love Jose Ortega because it’s small. The school has 260 students so after awhile you really do recognize every face.

I love that our PTA raised money to pay for tutoring kids who were falling behind.

I love our greening committee that pulls weeds on weekends. Its members have big dreams of converting our blacktop area into a lush sea of green where children can climb trees and get their hands dirty pulling carrots from the earth. I love that ideas such as “We should get goats and chickens” are tossed out at our meetings.

I love Ms. Ginny who works in the office. I love that she puts band-aids on boo-boos that children are certain exist–but really aren’t there.

I love our art teacher, Aiko, who is teaching the kids to paint. The school hallways are full of vibrant artwork.

I love that when you walk into the teacher lounge at lunchtime, the teachers are talking and laughing. They all get along–setting a tone for the rest of the school.

I love that my daughter came home and said, “I need to tell you about Rosa Parks and how everyone is equal no matter their skin color.” She talked about race comfortably and openly.

I love the gorgeous Chinese characters that my daughter draws on everything–restaurant place mats, birthday cards, notepads.

I love that a group of schoolchildren lead their fellow classmates in the “Pledge of Allegiance” every day. And I’ll never forget the morning when our principal announced that the child leading the “Pledge” had just become a citizen.

Do you love your SF public school?  Post a comment and tell us why?

If you care about public schools in our city, come to a town hall meeting on February 25 to learn about the budget cuts facing our public education system and how you can help.  The discussion will be moderated by KQED’s Michael Krasny.  For more information, visit http://fundingourfuturesf.com/.

Author: Brian Fox

Director of Strategic Partnerships, San Francisco Education Fund

Achieving postsecondary success needs to be a viable goal for all our students.  From incarceration rates to life choices, college degrees are an increasingly critical indicator for students’ long-term success. On a national level, students who receive an associate degree earn 25 percent more than high school graduates, and those who earn a bachelor’s degree earn 40 percent more.

In many ways, San Francisco has the key components for promoting college access: community organizations provide wrap-around support for students whose life circumstances hinder their college dreams; schools are helping students and families complete financial aid forms; local colleges and universities are offering visits and fairs and dual enrollment programs; local companies are providing students with internships and partnering with schools.

Our challenge as a city is to better integrate those efforts so that all students not only have access to higher education opportunities, but are prepared to thrive during and after college. Through two initiatives, the Post-Secondary Success Program and Communities Learning in Partnership, the San Francisco Education Fund is engaged with city leaders from the public, private and nonprofit sectors in an ambitious system reform effort to improve students’ preparedness for college and career.  Our goal is to use information (data) to align our collective resources to meet the unique needs of our students.  For example, the City of San Francisco is aligning workforce development dollars with the Career Pathway programs in our schools so that students can get jobs in areas they are studying in high school.  City College is investing its resources so that those same students can complete college courses within their field of interest and graduate with a head start in college. SFUSD is developing easy access to information so that, for example, students know how far along they are in completing A-G requirements, counselors know who has been on a college campus or completed the necessary financial aid forms, principals know which of their graduates are persisting at San Francisco State, and parents and community organizations know how well their students are doing in core subject areas.

San Francisco is poised to be a leader in response to our nation’s challenge to graduate more students from college.  We have the political will and the resources as a city to accomplish this goal, but we need collaboration from everyone to ensure that college access turns into college and career success for all of our students.

There are lots of ways to be involved in this effort:

• Be a mentor.

• Volunteer  in a school.

• Be a corporate partner.

Together we can ensure that every child has the opportunity to graduate ready for college.

Communities Learning in Partnership is funded with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Post Secondary Success Program is funded with support from the Citi Foundation.

Author: Lisa Borah-Geller, parent and curriculum developer.

I am a San Francisco parent, a former teacher, and a curriculum developer. Like some of you, I have spent a lot of time touring elementary schools. I have noticed that many parents look at test scores, program offerings, and principal leadership to judge the quality of a school. I encourage parents to also consider the school environment and how it fosters children’s social and emotional development. This is equally as important.

Touring the schools has made me reflect upon what kind of school environment I want for my daughter and how that environment can help her develop into the kind of person I hope she will become. I would like my daughter to treat others in a respectful, fair, and caring way and take responsibility for herself.

Research shows that creating a strong sense of community at school increases students’ academic performance and has a positive influence on students’ behavior. When students are in caring school communities, they are more likely to like school, enjoy challenging learning activities, and help others (http://devstu.org/page/p-r-scientific-basis). In addition, data from a study on adolescent health, found that students’ sense of connectedness to school (and family) were linked to a decrease in a range of problem behaviors, including: the use of alcohol, violent behavior, emotional distress, and early sexual activity (http://www.ed.gov/admins/lead/safety/training/connect/school_pg3.html).

Fortunately, many of the SFUSD schools implement either the Tribes Learning Community® (http://www.tribes.com) or Caring School Community® programs (http://devstu.org/page/caring-school-community). Both of these programs help create a positive classroom and school environment. My non-profit employer developed the Caring School Community program.

Recently, as part of my work, I had the opportunity to observe a class-meeting lesson in a kindergarten classroom at Sunnyside Elementary School in San Francisco. In class meetings, children get to know each other, discuss issues, identify and solve problems, and make decisions that affect classroom climate. The teacher engaged the children in authentic discussion with each other as they talked about how to act for substitute teachers. Talking about how to treat substitute teachers and committing to positive, helpful behaviors prevents problems and makes the classroom run more smoothly when the regular teacher is absent. Ultimately, a child who discusses and learns why she should treat everyone respectfully (including substitute teachers) is beginning to develop into the kind of person I hope my daughter will become—a good, caring, and responsible one.

Lisa Borah-Geller has been a curriculum developer for eleven years at the Developmental Studies Center, a non-profit educational organization in Oakland, CA. Prior to that she was an elementary school teacher in the San Rafael City Schools in San Rafael, CA. Lisa lives in San Francisco and has two children, Lila, age four, and Lucas, age two.

by Tristan Leder, SFUSD Student Leader

We live in an age of technological innovation. We’ve grown up with computers, video games, and the internet. Many of the people we interact with at schools, be it administrators or teachers, did not have this luxury during their youth. Being teens, we keep up to date with the newest internet trend or the hippest gadgets. Our teachers most of the time don’t. If we really want to forward ourselves an age of “21^st Century Learning,” we must embrace the technology that defines this generation.

At the forefront of the 21^st century push is the internet. The internet is not some big, ominous beast that people make it out to be. Rather, it’s a tool to be wielded as we choose. If you don’t know what you’re doing, sure, you may cause some harm, but with proper training and usage, the internet can perform a plethora feats that may be extremely useful. The most important tool the internet offers is “communication.”

With the rise of the internet, it’s ridiculously easy to get in contact with just about anybody. We’ve seen the district take a huge step forward with the installation of School Loop, but I want to see this go farther. I believe School Loop to be a good next step, but not an end product. We need to be reaching out to students where they already have a presence. For example, my English teacher has created a Facebook group for our class. Now, it may not tell me what the homework is everyday or what grade I’m receiving in the class, but I find it a lot more useful. Sure, he has all the big assignments, such as large essays and the like, posted on the page, but it’s the conversations that take place there that are the most meaningful. The page offers a space for students to post comments and have a discussion on whatever they choose. You can find anything from a continuation of an in-class discussion, to conversation clarifying an assignment or even students complaining about due dates, all posted in this one area. While School Loop has been awesome step forward, it lacks this sort of direct connection and communication tool that is so important to furthering our goal of 21^st Century learning.

We live in the city of San Francisco, one of the great hubs of the Web industry. There are companies all around that create and run a variety of websites. I don’t imagine being it that hard to have people from these companies, be it web designers, graphic artists, coders, and business people to come give seminars or run workshops with students. Not only would this be a fun enjoyable experience, but students get a glimpse at a variety of careers that all take place in this one industry. We would be increasing interest and hopefully encouraging San Franciscans to pursue careers in San Francisco.

21^st Century Learning can be interpreted a number of different ways. To me, it’s taking the internet and using it to its full potential to best serve students. This means having easy to access, open conversations via the internet and showing students the various careers available in the tech industry, and in some cases, right in our own backyard.

What does 21^st Century Learning mean to you? How else can we take the internet and use it to its full potential to best serve students?

Author: Justin Van Zandt, PTA Member, father of 5 children, including students at Alamo Elementary and Presidio Middle School.

There has been a lot of focus on the achievement gap recently.  Why are we making so little progress on this?  What can we do as a community to really fix the problem?

We need to take advantage of being one of the richest, densest and most diverse cities in the nation. Parents of all races must talk and learn from one another.  Kids should learn from each other too, and parents must teach kids to admire those with good grades, not laugh at or ignore them.  Parents need to take the time to read books on child development and ask parents whose kids are excelling how they do it.

The answer on how to do better is right in front of us. We go to diverse schools, yet are socially segregated and often ignore excellent examples in overcoming hardship and achieving great results.  Asian Americans overcome poverty and language issues & have shown studying long hours and minimizing TV time lead to great results.  More are now admitted to UC Berkeley and UCLA than whites, with only a quarter as many students in California, an impressive achievement.  Parents must learn what works and sacrifice weekends and free time to help their kids achieve, and volunteers can help tutor kids from families where English isn’t a first language or which are not intact.  To break a cycle, families need to make wholesale, major changes, not piecemeal ones.  Any child who studies 20 hours a week and watches TV for 7 will do better than one who watches 20 and studies 7, and if we change this we can eliminate the achievement gap.

In our family, we keep TV to less than 7 hours a week.  We teach our children from a young age, alphabet, flash cards, phonics.  We spend Saturdays, summers and evenings reading books on science, history, geography, and other subjects together, doing math and other workbooks, learning foreign languages and teaching them it’s a competitive world and it is crucial to put serious time, focus and effort into your studies.  My wife is Nicaraguan, I’m white and our kids are biracial, with one African American daughter who is adopted.  All have known the alphabet by 2, over 100 words by flashcard by 3, and read a 100-page book by 4.  There is no achievement gap in our family.

How can you share your knowledge with other families to help support our city’s children?

When I finished business and law school last June, I didn’t think school would be on my mind for a long time. I don’t have kids, I’m not married, and I have had quite enough of the classroom for the imaginable future.  Like many of my friends, my daily priorities focus around my career, my hobbies, my girlfriend.

But even in this phase of my life, I’ve recently found myself thinking about schools again.  Having spent the last decade of my life moving for education and jobs, I have been hungrily anticipating settling down in San Francisco and making a life here. 

Maybe it’s just selfishness talking, but after building a strong group of friends and professional contacts in the city, I really don’t want to feel forced move to the ‘burbs when I have children. The city itself is such an educational place for kids, with its cultural, socio-economic, and ethnic diversity, its beauty, and its compactness. Still, without a safe and convenient school that would give a child the best opportunities, I can see even now that I might bite my lip and go lawn-mower shopping.

The other option for me is private schools. But even if I can afford private education, I would still choose public schools if they are a reasonable option. I’m sure many private schools have more resources than public schools, but I don’t see how they can offer the diversity that public schools do. Moreover, schools are fundamental parts of our community, and I don’t like the idea of taking my children out of the community to place them in a removed private academy. What message does that send to them about how they should treat their neighbors, or be involved with their own communities?

At the same time, I don’t want to deal with the uncertainty of where my child would go to school. But if all public schools were equally good, or even close to equal, a student assignment lottery focused on diversity probably wouldn’t be so scary to me.

Over the next two months, the school district is having town hall meetings to discuss their efforts to change their student assignment system. They say it’s not just about making schools more diverse, but ensuring a quality education for all kids in the city.

Now, a town hall meeting may not be what my friends and I think of as a good time, but maybe if we went it would be a good thing…

Jacob Kraft, a recent Stanford business and law school grad, lives in Portrero Hill and works for a Bay Area investment firm.

To learn more about town hall meetings on SFUSD’s student assignment redesign, visit www.sfusd.edu.