Within the past month, several of Jeffco’s high school juniors got an email about qualifying for the Executive High School Internship program. The EHSI program is offered to high-achieving Jeffco juniors.

       Sharon Usher runs the program with Jennifer Herbaugh, the program coordinator. The program is designed to give high school seniors accepted into the program the opportunity to have real world experience with the career they are interested in.

       “Students in the Executive High School Internship program will complete a hundred hour internship in the field that they choose,” Usher said, “The biggest benefit for our interns is that they are networking with professionals in the industry they hope to pursue.”

       The program offers additional benefits such as taking an online workplace readiness course and 1 high school elective credit. Acceptance into the program is based off of a variety of factors such as academics, industry, and the application itself.

       “This program is very competitive and offered to about 200 students throughout Jeffco. That includes all 18 high schools,” Herbaugh said.

       The program, although only offered to seniors, can be taken during the summer between a student’s junior and senior year. However, some elements of the program do change for the summer option.

       “It’s done a little quicker, hours are a little longer, but it certainly has all of the other college credit, resume building, and everything involved in it,” Usher said, “We allow the students to go longer days, which gives them an opportunity to do more projects.”

       Students get to decide the career field they want to intern in and if students know someone within that field they are able to work with them. There are an additional 130 businesses that the EHSI program has worked with in the past that students can intern at.

       “Prior to the pandemic, we placed students who were interested in healthcare in five area hospitals,” Usher said, “We also have a great relationship with Lockheed Martin to place 20 students each year.”

       Students applying for the ESHI had to make an Adobe Spark video, get a recommendation from a teacher and a counselor, have their parents fill out the parent form, and fill out the online application form. The online application was due on January 31st and in February emails will be sent to applicants to invite them to an interview.

       “We usually conduct about 400 interviews, taking all of February and all of March. So after spring break we come back and review all the students that have been interviewed, we talk to our businesses looking for placements, and at the end of April we will be sending an additional email out letting every applicant know whether they have or have not made the program,” Usher said.