{"id":49993,"date":"2020-12-06T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-12-06T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-school-district-wants-to-give-students-real-world-experience\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:49:53","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:49:53","slug":"durango-school-district-wants-to-give-students-real-world-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/durango-school-district-wants-to-give-students-real-world-experience\/","title":{"rendered":"Durango School District wants to give students real-world experience"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Nick
Nick Huber, a junior at Durango High School, turns wood in his workshop. In addition to participating in SkillsUSA competitions, he is working with DHS staff members to build the school\u2019s Homegrown Talent Initiative.<\/span>Courtesy of Nick Huber<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Businesses in Southwest Colorado might be getting more inquiries from Durango High School in the next few months.<\/p>\n

The school is looking to bolster the number of internships in everything from computer science to woodworking and the culinary arts.<\/p>\n

The internships are part of a program called the Homegrown Talent Initiative, or HTI, which has been in the works for 1\u00bd years and will become more apparent to the community as the district builds a $10 million career and technical education center to be called the Innovation Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis strengthens the bonds students have with the community, and it really helps the students. It helps to have real-world experience,\u201d said DHS Principal Jon Hoerl.<\/p>\n

Internships are particularly helpful, Hoerl said, in building a student\u2019s \u201csoft skills.\u201d It\u2019s real-world experiences outside the classroom, he said, that helps students realize the importance of working collaboratively, the value of respect, the value of being adaptable and accountable. In the workplace, when students face new problems they come to appreciate how important it is to develop critical thinking skills.<\/p>\n

DHS plans to begin offering 30 internships in January through the HTI program. The internships will be integrated into a class with a 12-week period when students work in the field sandwiched between two sections of classroom work.<\/p>\n

The initial four-week period before the internship will allow students to build a r\u00e9sum\u00e9, take skills surveys and interest surveys and to learn information about internships available to them. After the internships, students will spend two weeks back in class recapping what they learned during their internship.<\/p>\n

Robert Aspen, an academic counselor at DHS, said the plan is to build the internships so that they might come at the end of a concentration of academic work, such as math, computer science, the culinary arts or woodworking, that might began as early as middle school.<\/p>\n

The internship, during the student\u2019s junior or senior year in high school, would serve as a culmination or capstone of their tailored studies.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally, students would have exhausted the class opportunities we have for them in a field, and then we can pair them up with a community partner in the business world for internships that allow them to get real-world experience to help take them to the next level,\u201d Hoerl said.<\/p>\n

Janae Hunderman, work-based learning coordinator coordinating internships at all three Durango high schools, said she would like to offer 30 internships for DHS students when spring semester classes begin in January, with internships starting in late January or early February.<\/p>\n

Any business interested in offering an internship can learn more about internships at the Business Education Connection website<\/a> she\u2019s set up to provide information to Durango businesses about providing internships at DHS as well as at Animas and Big Picture high schools.<\/p>\n

Any business interested in offering an internship can also call her at 828-2701.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s especially important for businesses that would like to host an internship to join now because some positions have disappeared as COVID-19 restrictions have closed or limited workplace opportunities, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had a lot of success, depending on the industry, with remote internships,\u201d she said. \u201cBut not every industry works well with a remote internship, graphic design and marketing will work. They can go all day long with remote internships. But something a little more hands on, like working with an architect, you really want them in there having the in-person meeting, getting their hands on models, that kind of work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hunderman said the best internships will require some sort of project that will need to be completed by the student.<\/p>\n

\u201cIdeally, they get that hands-on experience, and they\u2019re getting some type of work that would prepare them for the field,\u201d she said. \u201cIf it\u2019s a medical internship, we\u2019re not going to have them do surgery, but maybe they can research a different health conditions,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The goal, Hunderman said, is to provide jobs to students that give them some responsibilities and integration into a team rather than an internship in which the student simply shadows workers.<\/p>\n

\"Huber\"
Huber<\/span>du1-i-syn<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Nick Huber, a DHS junior, said he\u2019s taken a lot of work-based learning classes, especially in woodworking, a craft that he developed a passion for working in his grandfather\u2019s workshop.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s participated in SkillsUSA<\/a> competitions in woodworking and currently serves as vice president of Colorado SkillsUSA student officers. He\u2019s also participated in a conference looking to develop work-based learning programs in rural school districts.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s also working with DHS staff members as they build the HTI program to enhance resources and programs for work-based learning.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re looking to make education relevant to students\u2019 interest,\u201d Huber said. \u201cIt\u2019s really how we find the best educational experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n

Huber believes that work-based curricula combined with a strong internship program is the best way to prepare students for success after high school, whether they go to college, find a job or enter the military.<\/p>\n

\"Nick
Nick Huber designed and created these two honey dippers and an alder bowl.<\/span>Courtesy of Nick Huber<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Not only do internships help with job-specific skills, Huber believes they help students develop their math, language art and communication skills, and everything is enhanced by the real-world lessons in those soft skills of responsibility, team work and adaptability.<\/p>\n

Internships allow students to get an idea about the everyday requirements, the skill sets and the dynamics of a profession they are interested in pursuing.<\/p>\n

Huber has not yet selected his internship for January, but he\u2019s interested in pursuing mechanical engineering in college. And before he begins his own internship, he wants to help DHS offer as broad an array of positions for students as possible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re still developing the program. It\u2019s a work in progress,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re getting community support and that will really move the program forward.\u201d<\/p>\n

parmijo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

looking to expand internship opportunities<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49994,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[4342,592,155,13,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-49993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-curriculum","tag-durango-high-school","tag-education","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49993"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49993\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87673,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49993\/revisions\/87673"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49994"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49993"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=49993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}