St. Charles students describe paid internships as district eyes broader CTE placements

St. Charles Community Unit School District 303 recognized four high school students on Feb. 9 for competitive, paid internships that district and regional partners say are expanding career and technical education opportunities.

Superintendent Dr. Gordon introduced the presentations and Dr. Monica Bailey, associate director of high school curriculum, who noted the internships connect classroom learning to workplace experience. Terry Stroh, director of the regional vocational consortium, said the program placed 243 students last year across manufacturing, healthcare and other fields and that regional partners supplied more than 13,000 volunteer hours. "We were able to increase those grant funds by over $1,000,000 for our region," Stroh said.

Students described hands-on rotations and career clarity. Reese, a student from St. Charles East, said his internship at Hopper Plastics included work on the plant floor, engineering and automation tasks. "I was able to actually physically program and kind of map out" automated guided-robot behavior, he said, adding the experience reinforced his plan to study mechanical engineering (he said he is accepted at Purdue). Leo Peters, who interned at Westside Tractors (a John Deere dealer), said rotations through shop, finance and the tool room confirmed his interest in diesel technology and opened apprenticeship pathways.

Zainab Gurniwala described a pharmacy technician placement at Advocate Sherman where she shadowed pharmacists and handled compounding tasks; she said the internship helped her decide to pursue biochemistry on a pre-med track. Noor, who interned with Hampton Lunzini & Renwick and took architecture coursework through Judson University, described field visits and multidisciplinary engineering exposure and said she plans to major in biomedical engineering on a pre-med track.

Todd Stern, the region's work-based learning specialist, told the board the program covers 10 career pathways and called the students "phenomenal representatives" of the district's workforce pipeline. Regional partners asked the board and community to help recruit host employers: "Our goal for this summer coming up is 300 placements," Stroh said, noting expansion will rely on company engagement and ongoing grant funding.

The superintendent praised the program and reminded the public of a district community facility meeting the following night. The board did not take action on internships at the meeting; administrators said applications for the next competitive round open in March and staff will continue pursuing grants and business partnerships to sustain stipends and placements.