Mayor's Intern Fellows Program

• Participating students will gain experience performing specific job duties within the corporate office environment and have a chance to acquire unique leadership experience and exposure to executives in the company.
• Companies will provide an experience whereby students enhance their communication and business skills, and communication skills, receive useful information on the company and the industry, give students a sense of the types of jobs available in the industry and the skills necessary to perform them.
• Adding to the quality and uniqueness of the Mayor’s Intern Fellows, time will be spent with students to help them understand the type of coursework needed to obtain the identified skills, which schools provide these courses, and what life choices are needed in order to have a meaningful career.

• Fellows will be at least 16 years of age and a legal resident.
• Fellows must have at least a 3.0 GPA and a solid attendance record (in unique cases, an exception could be made with the recommendation of a principal).
• Fellows must be either sophomores becoming juniors, or juniors becoming seniors.
• Students must be enrolled in one of the following Dallas ISD High Schools: Adamson, Carter, Madison, or North Dallas.
• Students participating in the Mayor’s Chesapeake Energy Scholarship Program, Education is Freedom! and Senator Royce West’s It’s About Our Community are encouraged to apply.
• Principals are encouraged to help students focus on an area of interest (i.e. engineering, energy, communications, etc).
• Prior to beginning Fellows must participate in the It’s About Our Community Worksource Training program or an equivalent through Education is Freedom (EIF).
• The Fellows will outline their progress during their corporate time with a written or multi media project. This will include an analysis of the job, the company and industry, and how this has shaped their educational and career choices.

• Corporations will agree to provide qualified students with fellowships for 8 weeks during the summer. (The program is open to non-profits and governmental entities using the same template).
• Corporations will agree to pay at least $9.00 per hour for 40 hours a week (or the equivalent as a stipend). This totals $2,880 for the 8 week period.
• Corporations agree to provide a basic job for fellows for at least 4 of 5 days a week. This is important so that fellows understand the expectations and the basic skills and needed for a corporate job.
• Corporate mentors will constructively support students in learning basic office and business skills throughout the program and will create a means to measure progress.
• Corporate partners will assist students in transportation costs (parking fees, DART fare, etc).
• Corporate partners will assign someone to constructively assist fellows through any challenges along the way (i.e. office skills, appropriate dress, transportation needs). Someone in HR may be appropriate for this position.
• Corporations will create a unique program around the 5th day of the week, to include:
  • Significant time with top managers and executives – both shadowing and in one-on-one conversations.
  • Significant time learning about the company, the jobs within that company, the larger industry that the company is in.
  • Significant time outlining the education path, life choices and sacrifices needed to reach those jobs.
  • Significant time role-playing in those jobs.
  • Taking their fellows to at least one lunch or dinner at a fine restaurant.
• Corporate mentors will allow for the possibility of post-fellowship mentoring

• Recruit corporate partners to participate in the Mayor’s Fellows Program that will supply slots for fellows in the program.
• The Mayor will send a letter to each EIF student encouraging them to be a part of the Fellow Program.
• The Mayor will invite the Fellows to City Hall to kick off the summer program in Council Chambers, and then host them for a luncheon in the Flag Room.
• At the end of the first summer, the Mayor and AT&T will convene a meeting of the various corporate participants, to examine what worked, identify opportunities for improvement, and develop best practices and a new template for the following summer.

  Education is Freedom & The Dallas ISD:               

  • Education is Freedom will be the point of contact for businesses providing opportunities for interns, and will work with DISD to help make sure there is a good fit for the students and firms.
  • Will organize a special intern fair in the spring to allow the Corporate partners to interview and meet the Fellows.
  • Dallas ISD will help ensure that students meet the criteria, and will likewise actively facilitate communication between the students, principals and EIF.
  • Will reach out to principals of these schools to determine whether there are highly promising students that deserve consideration for the program.

  Alternatives for corporations that cannot sponsor fellows:

  • The corporation can fund a fellow for the 8 week period ($2,880) and EIF will help pair a fellow with a non-profit or government partner in the program.
  • The corporation can contribute to a fund to assist with buying clothes, transportation costs, etc.

  Contact Information:

  Students interested in being a Mayor’s Intern Fellow can contact Dallas ISD’s, Loraine Lee at (972) 925-3767.

   

  Companies, Non-Profits and Governmental Agencies interested in participating can contact Education is Freedom at 214-432-8566.

   

  For general questions on the Mayor’s Intern Fellows Program, contact the Mayor’s Chief of Staff, Chris Heinbaugh at 214-670-0773.