Monday, August 20, 2007

Redwood High School Internship Supervisors (or potential supervisors):

Thank you for your willingness to participate in our Service Learning program. This letter is intended to give you information about the Redwood High School Service Learning course and your role in training and grading a student intern.

Service Learning meets every Wednesday evening at Redwood from 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm. During the hour and a half of class time, students will learn and practice skills that will help them secure and maintain their internship with you: resume writing, interview skills, presentation skills, etc. Students will also discuss their successes and failures and consider the meaning and purpose of service work. In addition, students will be working to design and implement a Student Action Project (SAP) to be completed in conjunction with their internship. The SAP will allow students to take leadership in bringing the work of your organization and their own interests into the school and larger community. This might be an event, a fundraising activity, an educational program, or some other project.

Students who are new to the program are asked to focus their first semester on securing the internship and familiarizing themselves with the internship organization. While continuing their internship, second-semester students are expected to complete their SAP. Students can repeat the course a second year (and work with the same organization).

Course credit and grades in the class are awarded based on participation, homework completion, and oral presentation of work. Important to their participation grade and course credit, students will be asked to submit internship and project work hours each week. In addition to the 1.5 hours of class time, a goal is set for students to complete an average of 2.5 hours of supervised internship/project time each week. It should be noted that the 2.5 hours is merely a guide. Some weeks will require more time and some--especially early in the semester and for first semester students--will allow for less (or even no time). Students will not necessarily be penalized for doing fewer hours, they simply will not earn as much credit for completion of the course.

Students have an Internship and Project Log form that should be signed each week by an adult supervisor (or the teacher). It is essential that work hours be recorded correctly and fairly on a weekly basis on this form. Students are not to be given credit for homework time nor for time that is not supervised in some way. "Supervised" time includes any work done with or for the internship organization under direct supervision or guidance of an adult affiliated with the organization. If the adult is not physically present for all of that time, a reasonable and fair amount of time can be signed off as "supervised". The expectation is that adult supervision and guidance responsibilities will require fewer than thirty minutes each week.

In summary, your primary role is providing regular guidance and signing off on weekly student Internship and Project Logs. In addition, Internship Supervisors will kindly be asked to read and sign student Internship and Service Action Project Proposal forms early in the semester and to complete a brief Internship Supervisor Evaluation form at semester's end.

Hopefully this letter gives enough detail about Service Learning to allow you to be comfortable with your role and responsibilities. Our goal is for this course to be mutually beneficial for the student, organization, and the larger community.

Please feel free to contact me with questions or comments at any time.
Sincerely,

Joe Stewart
stewart@redwood.org
415 945 3600 x6211
http://www.redwood.org/stewart