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HomeMy WebLinkAbout4.1 School District 214 Micro-Internship Student Presentation5/30/2019 Agenda Item Details Meeting Category Subject Access Public Content BoardDocs® Pro LF• 1 1 ii 1 1111111 1� 11a Pon 1;Ail-Ire-l"01 1111111 014MA 1� Isle, � N �� N 11 �ii;l 4.1 School District 214 Micro -Internship Student Presentation Information On June 5. 2018the Village and District 214 partnered to promote a pilot project to support the College and Car-- • - e ges support of this partnership includes an annual allocation of $100,000 for three (3) consecutive years beginning in 2018. Funding includes reimbursements for expenses including student travel, wage off -set, training anlo' equipment. This innovative partnership directly supports the District"s Career Pathways Program, which helps Mount Prospect students gain valuable work experience and technical training while providing employers with experienced entry-level employees in multiple sectors (manufacturing., high-tech, service, public safety, finance, etc). LEAP's Local Government Initiative As part of the LEAP Program, the District and Mount Prospect also have a local government initiativewhich provides an inside look at how municipal government effectively serves the residents of Mount Prospect. Students spend four days each semester working within the various departments at Village Hall. Their experience will focus on a 30 -hour project that solves a local community, business or government need, and students will present their findings at the end of the semester. The first group of students recently completed this "micro -internship" program, and will present their experiences to the Village Board at the May 14 Committee of the Whole meeting. Partnership Participants For the Spring of 2019., the Village hosted the following students, who were paired on the projects as noted below. Sylvia Barszczewski and Kisa Jafri: Human Services Department,, Food Pantry Organization Project. Supervisory staff included Julie Kane, Director of Human Services, and Carol Baldini, Office Manager. J Tim Choma and Joshua Westgor: Information Technology. Supervisory staff included Andrew Schaeffer, Chief Technology and Innovation Officer, and Debbi Kaczorowski, Information Systems Administrator. Lucy Hermann and Nilufer [Lily] Sena Keya: Village Administration, Village Sustainability Programs. Supervisory Staff included Nellie Beckner, Assistant Village Manager, and Alex Bertolucci, Management Analyst. Bennett Hitesman and Lia Scala: Village Administration, Village Utilization of Social Media. Supervisory Staff included Nellie Beckner Assistant Village Manager, with support from Howard Kleinstein, Director of Communications. Jack Kenny and Mason Willie: Village Administration., Union Negotiations. Supervisory Staff included Alex Bertolucci, Management Analyst. https://go.boarddocs.com/il/vomp/Board.nsf/Private?open&login# 1/2 5/30/2019 BoardDocs® Pro This program was also supported by key School District 214 staff including Janine Freedlund, MA, Career Advisor for Prospect High School, and Dawn Fletcher Collins, Executive Director, Mount Prospect Chamber of Commerce. The student's reports on their internship experience and findings are attached. The Village will continue this micro -internship program in the Fall of 2019 and is working with the district on more substantial internship and apprenticeship programs with area businesses. Alternatives 1. View presentations by select micro -internship students. 2. Action at discretion • Village Board. Staff Recommendation Informational only, no action required. Bennett Hitesman - Final Reflection Paper.pdf (33 KB) Lia Scala - Internship Reflection (1).pdf (36 KB) Bennett Hitesman - Summary of my Internship-pdf (51 KB) Lia Scala - Internship Social Media Project.pdf (34 KB) Lucy Hermann and it Kaya - Memo on Sustainability.pdf (65 KB) Administrative Content Executive Content https://go.boarddocs.com/il/vomp/Board.nsf/Private?open&login# 2/2 Bennett Hitesman April 25, 2019 Final Reflection Paper Throughout my time interning at the Village of Mount Prospect, I have learned plenty of skills and information that will suit me well for the future. Even if I am not working in communications or working on advertising social media, I have learned many skills that can transfer over into future professions. One main skill that I learned is the importance of good marketing and clear communication. Clear communications is important both in person and in social media. I learned that a social media post should be easy to understand for all audiences. Also, in person clear communications is essential in the workplace. When everyone is on the same page, work can get done way more efficiently. Learning the best ways to communicate with others made me a much better intern and will serve me well in future jobs and professions. Throughout my time as an intern, I learned more about myself and my future career goals. I have learned how important social media is to modern businesses and villages. It allows the conveying of information and the advertising of specific events. do not think I would necessarily want a future career where I am the director of communications for a village or business, but whatever my profession is, I have learned that I will likely still need to use social media to communicate and promote my brand, and also I will benefit from the knowledge I have gained about communication. At my internship, I was given the task to weigh the effects of an Instagram account for the village and even make a sample to give ideas of what it could be like. This was really exciting. I met with the director of communications and gave him all of my ideas and the information that I researched, and during my time here, the village actually launched an Instagram account using some of the ideas that I came up with. It was really cool to see that my work and thoughts payed off and that I was a part, though a small part, of something that would represent the village. do not feel like I am ready to decide that this is or is not the career path I want to work in. There was nothing wrong with the people I worked with or the job that I did, but I would rather explore other options before I make up my mind and decide that this is what I want to do. I have been interested in mechanical and other types of engineering, so I might want to pursue that industry next. No matter what I end up doing, I learned a lot from this internship and I will use the skills I gained in my future. Bennett Hitesman April 25, 2019 Mount Prospect Village Currently, social media is a necessity for so many people. It has grown to become one of, if not the best way to reach a large range of individuals. As a teenager growing up in this era, I use social media on a daily basis. This immediately made this project jump out at me. I was interested to learn more about the current status of the social media accounts of the village and also what the village could potentially do in the future to better and improve their social media accounts. I am also interested in the marketing aspect of social media. A main aspect of the social media accounts is marketing and advertising. Good marketing can spread social media accounts out to a large range of audiences and make the information spread to the most people as possible. Our project required us to explore how communities are engaging their residents and promoting their social media. The village of Mount Prospect currently has Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and now Instagram accounts to engage their residents. These provide important information to the residents, and as a result, the residents are happier and more engaged with the community. The newsletter is another way that information is spread to the community, and similarly to the social media accounts, the newsletter engages residents in what is going on in the community. Currently these are all effective methods to engage and inform the residents of Mount Prospect. Through the program HootSuite, Mr. Howard Kleinstein, the director of communications, can manage all of these accounts at once. In addition, the program allows him, to reply to questions asked on these accounts. Before interning at the village, I was unaware of this program and how it worked, but I have realized how much simpler it makes managing all of these accounts. An important aspect of social media is making the posts very clear and easy to understand. This will be the best way to raise community engagement. If possible, the managers of the accounts want to avoid having to clarify all of the information. The majority of residents of the village are happier when they are aware of what is happening. I was able to learn how to formulate posts that are quick and to the point. Also, how to create posts that displayed necessary information. Clear and easy to understand posts help engage the residents of the village. Community engagement is incredibly important to have a successful village. The Village of Mount Prospect currently does a very good job on keeping residents engaged by posting often on various accounts and answering questions when the information may not be very clear. began my internship by researching a wide variety of social media accounts in neighboring villages. Many of these accounts were very successful and well designed and some others were poorly put together. I found that Mount Prospect's social media accounts to be on the higher end of the spectrum. I was really impressed with how clearly the information was conveyed and how easy it was to access other accounts and the village's website. One thing that could be improved in the social media account for the Village of Mount Prospect was the use of clip art. Clip art takes away from the originality of the posts and can make them look less official. Mount Prospect has so many wonderful images on their website, but they do not get used on the actual social media accounts. I think that this would be a nice addition because it would show the residents of Mount Prospect getting involved in the village's activities. learned the importance of social media and communication and how it can benefit the village and those that live within it. Social media is a quick and easy way to spread information to a wide range of audiences. As a result both the government and the residents of the village are better off because everyone is aware of each others plans and can freely communicate. One of my main takeaways was that I learned the importance of communication. Both through social media and technology and in person, communication is extremely important. In social media, good and clear communication is necessary to inform the public. In the workplace, clear communication is essential to getting work done efficiently. In the future, I do not know what I will do. I think it is too early for me to decide a future profession. That being said, if I wind up working in communications and media or not, I have learned a tremendous amount from this internship. There is so much that learned that will transfer over to many different career paths. I am very thankful for Nellie, Alex, Howard, and the Village of Mount Prospect for giving me this opportunity. Lia Scala Micro Internship Reflection Throughout my time interning at the Mount Prospect Village Hall I have been researching local governments on social media. The majority of my research went toward finding out what strategies are used to promote the town, along with how to keep residents engaged with the content being posted. Another task that I worked on while interning at the village hall was creating a presentation on why an Instagram for Mount Prospect would benefit the town. Within our presentation, we explain how including Instagram to the handful of Mount Prospect social media accounts would be a good idea due to the fact that it shares information about Mount Prospect with a younger demographic, in addition to being a more positive social media presence. I believe the most influential part of my internship was when my partner and I had a meeting with the director of communications. During our time with him, he explained to us all that goes into the social media pages at Mount Prospect Village Hall and how he deals with conflict on any of the social media pages. This gave me a better understanding of all that goes into the job and the how government social media pages are ran similar to a companies. While researching, I have realized that many aspects of social media are similar to marketing. A crucial part of local government on social media is knowing the demographics of your audience and how to catch their attention. Additionally, many local governments use their social media pages to advertise for events going on within the town. Next year I will be attending Bowling Green State University and I am planning to major in business administration and minor in marketing. Since marketing is already something I am excited and passionate about, seeing its connection to social media helped me become more invested in this project. It made it easier to throw myself into the work as well as helping me realize how much more productive one can be when truly interested in the topic. Over the course of the internship, I have seen myself change by becoming more aware of the complexity that goes into projects as simple as an Instagram account. Although I do not think communications is the right path for me, working on the social media project during my internship has helped show me how interested I truly am in marketing and gave me more confidence in what I have chosen to study in the upcoming years. Lia Scala How are communities engaging residents and promoting their own social media? The Village of Schaumburg has one of the most successful local government instagram accounts in our area with 741 followers. One of their best strategies is a program called Schaumburg Snapshot. This program allows residents to share their own pictures from around the neighborhood to the village so they can post them on the Instagram for all to see. A program like this would be a beneficial addition to Mount Prospect's social media because it encourages residents to explore the community and share the beauty of their town. Posting residents photos on social media can help engage users by increasing pride and morale of residents along with making them feel more connected to their town. Adding a program similar to Schaumburg Snapshot could also help the dispersal of information to users through social media. Although the snapshot program would be a secondary purpose of the Mount Prospect social media accounts, it is an easy way to accumulate followers who will then also be exposed to the primary information. Another tactic we found some towns doing during our research is reposting and keeping in contact with the town's High School and park district accounts. For example, Vernon Hills often reposts fundraiser links from Stevenson High School along with different activities going on at Vernon Hills Park District. Doing so closes the gap from government and community by making everything more connected and unified. By staying in better contact with other pages such as the local high school will also help the Village's social media to reach a wider audience. Currently, the majority of Mount Prospect Village followers tend to be middle aged adults. By adding more involvement with the High School the Village could potentially be reaching a whole other age group of followers. To: Village Board From: Lucy Hermann and Nilufer(Lily) Kaya, Village Interns Date: April 4, 2019 Subject: Intern Project on Sustainability Members of the Village Board, Throughout our time working at Mount Prospect Village Hall, we have been working on increasing not only the sustainability of the township, but also the awareness of residents concerning the great Green choices the village is already making. Both of us have an interest in careers involving law and government, but we also have a passion for the environment. Choosing to work on the sustainability project at Village Hall was an enlightening and fun combination of two passions that we share, and we are so excited to show you all the work that we have done. Our first proposal is an addition to the Village of Mount Prospect website. Through research about nearby villages, we found that the majority of them have pages dedicated to information on sustainability and green living. Mount Prospect's website does not necessarily lack this information, but it is scattered throughout the website and hard to find. We believe that having a page where information on green living, recycling in the village, the sustainable projects the village has completed, is working on, and anticipating is not only a great way to inform constituents on how to live sustainably, but also increases transparency with the consolidated access to information. Our site proposal (attached) contains all of this, with links to the EPA website as well. Our second focus involves an addition to the recycling program. While the program is already extensive, we believe that the township would benefit from recycling cooking oil. When speaking to local restaurants(interviews attached), we found that the majority of them do recycle their cooking oil through a company called Mahoney. We called Mahoney inquiring about whether they would be able to set up a cooking oil recycling bin in one or two central locations in Mount Prospect, so that residents would be able to recycle this greasy oil, which causes damage and blocks pipes if poured down the drain. Mahoney only serves restaurants, but recommended Green Grease, a company that collects cooking oil for free and recycles it into biodiesel. After communicating with Green Grease over email, they told us that they would be able to set up an oil collection bin at our desired location and collect the oil for free. Mount Prospect would also receive a quarterly report from Green Grease showing how much pollution they have offset by recycling their grease, which would be a great way to encourage residents to recycle. It would also be added to the new Sustainable Living page on the website. The logistics of a cooking oil collection bin location must be figured out, because we need a location that would agree to host the bin and be easily accessible to residents. We were considering having a location at the Village Hall or Public Works, and perhaps a park in the southern part of Mount Prospect, such as Kopp Park. To take this project further, we will need to speak with someone at Public Works, and we will update you all after that meeting. Best, Lucy Hermann and Nilufer(Lily) Kaya Village Interns Mount Prospect Village Hall Sustainable Living Addition to Website: RNo .............. 8FLTU-RL3r jT ffii&�O Interviews with Local Restaurants: IN............... ...............