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Grand Island DECA advisor offers student-led project to build unified community calendar
Summary
Cheryl Chamberlain, a Grand Island High School DECA advisor, pitched a DECA/manual internship project to compile and publish a single community events calendar; the Economic Development Advisory Board discussed roles, timing and budget support ahead of the school district budget vote on May 20.
Cheryl Chamberlain, a DECA advisor at Grand Island High School, told the Economic Development Advisory Board Wednesday that students can build a single, aggregated community calendar as a DECA manual project and internship.
Chamberlain said the New York State Career Exploration Internship Program (CEIP) requires 54 hours of unpaid internship experience plus 27 hours of classroom instruction, and that some students also take part in a paid work-based learning option that requires about 120 hours in a semester. “We are an approved program at Grand Island High School for the CEIP, which is a career exploration internship program, which is 54 hours of an unpaid internship experience and 27 hours of classroom experience,” Chamberlain said.
The project Chamberlain described would gather calendars from town departments, the school district and business organizations and produce a single, public-facing calendar. Chamberlain suggested framing the work as a DECA manual (a project-based business plan used in DECA competitions) so a student or small team could take it from research through a December presentation: she said students could start in June, work through the summer and present results by winter.
Board members said they want a Grand Island–themed product that allows users to filter events by category (for example, school-only or business-only). Kristen (board member) said the calendar could attract off-island visitors if the format were easy to use and publicly visible. “We’ve talked about whether ultimately the format will be some type of layering where if you’re only interested in school events, you can click on the school tab, and it only highlights school things like that,” Kristen said.
Chamberlain warned that students’ use of social media is limited in school settings and that high school interns are better suited for project management, calendaring and in-person research than being placed in charge of official social media accounts. She offered to identify one or more students and email a project specification to the board following the school district’s budget vote, which she said is scheduled for the school board’s May 20 meeting.
Chamberlain named one student she planned to approach, Max Zentz (rising senior), and said she has other candidates; she and board members discussed mentorship arrangements and potential modest budget support for student activities. Chamberlain also noted the town would need to provide or accept work-site requirements such as workman’s compensation if a placement required on-site insurance coverage.
Board members asked Chamberlain to send a short project timeline and DECA manual/specifications to the board email so the board could present a scope to students at the May 28 intern orientation. Chamberlain said she would send that material to Sarah and to the board.
