AGENDA #4d
BUDGET WORKING PAPER
TO: W. Calvin Horton, Town Manager
FROM: Patricia W. Thomas, Human Resources Director
SUBJECT: Employment and Volunteer Opportunities for High School Students
DATE: May 30, 2001
Council Members requested information on employment and volunteer opportunities for high school students. Members were interested in how high school students had been used in the past, and how the Town could work with students in the future.
We have identified several different kinds of opportunities including:
- formalized apprenticeship programs
- paid after-school employment and summer employment
- volunteer or internship opportunities
Each of these areas is discussed briefly, with more detail on an attachment.
1. Apprenticeship program:
Apprenticeship programs offer structured training and work experience through agreements among an employer, the apprentice, the NC Department of Labor, and the educational institution (in this case, an area high school). The apprentice learns a trade on the job and works toward becoming a skilled worker in the trade after a prescribed period of time.
The Town has employed 4 high school youth in apprenticeship programs in recent years. Two students worked several hours a week during one school year, working in the Transportation and in the Public Works Departments’ automotive and bus maintenance divisions. However, they were not interested in continued employment under the program. Another apprentice, however, worked for 1½ years during high school and later in community college to learn to be a building inspector, and is now employed with the Town as a certified Building Inspector. An earlier high school student had initially begun as our first apprentice, in the Inspections Department, but chose to leave the program after a few months.
We are currently working with the high schools to recruit another apprentice in the Inspections Department, and one school has identified a student considered to have potential for this youth apprenticeship placement with the Town; other schools may have additional candidates. The Inspections Director will be interviewing potential youth apprentices in the Inspections Department.
The Council could fund one or more apprenticeships in the upcoming fiscal year from the Council contingency allocation. We estimate that the cost of each apprenticeship is approximately $10,000 -$12,000 in salary and required FICA (Social Security) and Workers’ Compensation contributions. This includes funding for full-time work during the summer and school breaks, and part-time hours during other parts of the school year.
2. Employment of youth: current recruitments and past employment of high school students or young people:
The Town has several kinds of existing positions where interested high school students may be employed in temporary positions. Where these positions represent on-going needs, funds are already included in departmental budgets for these potential youth employment situations.
In the summer of 2001 the department will be looking for student(s) to assist with continuing field and office work on the drainage system inventory, routine stream water sampling, and both office and field traffic engineering work.
In past years the department has used students to collect and computer-inventory stream water samples, to collect field location data for drainage infrastructure (using GPS and GIS equipment), and on an as-needed basis for special projects involving traffic counting and assisting land surveying crew. The department has recruited for an employee to do some of these kinds of projects this summer.
The department is currently recruiting for employees in a number of areas and has sometimes hired high school students in these capacities:
- camp counselors (Chapel Hill Community Center).
- lifeguards, day camp counselors, program assistants (Hargraves Community Center).
- scorer/timer for athletic events
- cashier for pools
Library:
The Library recruits for Library Pages both for summer and after school work, and uses Pages to shelve books, retrieve books from the book drop, and read shelves for correct shelving.
Public Works:
The department has hired students in two divisions in the past and could likely place students in the same kinds of positions if money were available:
- Internal Services Division, Buildings Program Maintenance Aid for about one year -- 10 hours per week during the school year, 20 hours per weekduring breaks and in the summer
- Landscape Division as a Groundskeeper Assistant.
Other departments:
Several other departments – Clerk’s Office, Human Resources, Library, Parks and Recreation, Police, and Public Works – have identified potential work assignments for high school youth if funding were available for such positions. (See Attachment A for a listing of the variety of potential work assignments.)
If Council wishes, funding could be added to the Manager’s Recommended Budget so that one or more of these assignments to be funded:
- For each summer position, 10 weeks at $7 an hour would cost approximately $2800
- For each after school position, 2 hours a day at $7 an hour would cost approximately $600.
Limitations and concerns with hiring teen workers: The Town has a number of vacancies for temporary positions, but teenagers may not be able to be hired into some of them. In general, when departments consider teenaged candidates, departments must consider several factors including child labor laws, potential school schedule difficulties with teenaged employees, Town liabilities and the potential need for special supervision of the teenagers.
In the past several departments have used high school students in various unpaid capacities, or with salaries paid by other sources:
Manager’s office: For 3 months a volunteer high school intern helped with various tasks, such as revising the Town Answer Book by verifying telephone numbers and email addresses; researching agenda processes of other municipalities; compiling data on Time Warner customer complaint calls into a spreadsheet; and other research duties often using the Internet. Another volunteer two years ago updated the community information resource brochure used by Town Receptionists.
Public Works: The Landscape Division has had one student working 10 hours per week since February paid by the Phoenix Academy (an alternative work study program sponsored by Chapel Hill-Carrboro Schools system), performing routine outdoor grounds maintenance work, including mowing, pruning, weeding, leaf collection, etc.
Parks and Recreation: Eagle Scouts have volunteered to work on trail construction in the past.
Future interns or volunteers:
Departments have expressed interest in working with other student volunteers or interns for similar projects as discussed above or as shown in Attachment A. Several had preference for assignments:
- Where students could work more than one hour per day or at a time, because of the difficulty of starting up and completing projects.
- Where space for the intern is available; providing an extra desk, telephone, and/or computer space may be difficult in some departments.
- For students who do not require extensive supervision, due to lack of time for close monitoring.
- For assignments that are structured and with agreed-upon completion dates.
Next steps: We will communicate the information on potential internships to the high school staffs and our departments will work with them on potential placements of students for these kinds of internships and volunteer assignments.
We would welcome further direction by the Council on these matters.
ATTACHMENT 1
DETAIL INFORMATION ON POTENTIAL ASSIGNMENTS IN DEPARTMENTS
The following information represents potential assignments identified by departments for paid and volunteer/internship opportunities with high school students.
Public Works: Internal Services Division, as a
- Building Maintenance Aid
- Parts Inventory/Supply Clerk, or
- Accounting Clerk Assistant
Parks and Recreation:
- Administration: Trail construction/renovation and small park renovation projects. The work would be done after school, on weekends and/or during the summer
- Programming and Marketing: Assisting at large events, i.e. Apple Chill, Festifall and July 4th, and with ongoing summer events, i.e. Movies on the Plaza or a concert series, for example.
- Assisting Programming & Marketing staff with faxing public service announcements, preparing mailings, organizing storage areas. This could be done after school during the week.
- Chapel Hill Community Center: Weeding and caring at Garden-In-the-Park. This would take 5-10 hours a week, with the most time needed when the weather warms up. After school or weekend hours.
- Swim aides for Saturday morning swimming lessons. Individual would need to know how to swim and enjoy working with children.
- Hargraves Community Center:
Junior Desk Clerk, 15–25 hours per week.
Program Assistant for athletic activities (skills development camp, swim team, officiating sports, etc.), 20–30 hours per week.
Junior Day Camp Counselors during the summer and for After School, 15–20 hours per week.
Teach computer programs to preteens in Hargraves Camp and After School, 15-20 hours per week.
Human Resources: Clerical position to assist with filing and other clerical work throughout the year
Police: Clerical assistance in several different areas, including assisting with record keeping, data entry, photocopying, typing, logging records, providing back-up desk help.
Clerk’s Office: Clerical assignments such as indexing minute books. This would include learning how to use the digital scanner, becoming familiar with the computer software, and learning how our records are kept.
- One time project of approximately 40 hours: Children’s Services Page position, to reorganize the Children’s picture book area
- On-going project: Children’s Services Page positions of 10 hours per week, flexible schedule, performing shelf reading, esp. the picture book area and assisting with program preparation.
- Reception Desk volunteers
FUNDING:
If Council wishes, funding could be added to the Manager’s Recommended Budget so that one or more of these assignments to be funded:
- For each summer position, 10 weeks at $7 an hour would cost approximately $2800
- For each after school position, 2 hours a day at $7 an hour would cost approximately $600.