Summer at City Hall Program Description

Vision: Communities and schools collaborate to prepare students for college, career and civic life

Mission: Create strong partnerships between school districts and local government entities to offer students’ opportunities to gain 21st century work skills, provide tools to become civically aware and engaged, and bring youth voice to authentic city issues

Background: In 2010, Sacramento created Summer At City Hall, where 30 high school students attended a six week summer program at city hall to learn about local government, careers in local government and how to advocate for community change. Students attended classes in the morning at city hall and had internships in the afternoons. The program ended with students presenting advocacy projects they had developed over the summer, to a panel of city council members and community leaders. The project was possible through a partnership with the City of Sacramento, Way Up Sacrameneto and SCUSD. In year 5 of the program, 120 students will attend an eight week summer experience at city hall including a leadership camp on advanced advocacy skills. In addition, 60 11th graders attended a field visit to city hall during the school year to spend a half day learning about local government and presenting advocacy projects developed during school to a panel of city council members.

SACH has been expanded to the City of Elk Grove and EGUSD, who are beginning summer of 2015 with a two week SACH program that includes job shadows and mock city council meeting where students will present ideas on how to solve real city issues studied over the course of the two week class. Their goal is to expand to a six week program in summer 2016. West Sacramento has adapted SACH and provides internships to both high school and college level students to expose them to careers in local government.

Program Outcomes – 90% of all students involved in the program will:

  • Demonstrate awareness and knowledge of how government works and its role in community
  • Make connections with adults in city governmentand with community stakeholders
  • Demonstrate development of 21st century skills that will help them in school, life and work
  • Identify ways they can impact their community and act on them
  • Become inspired to continue their involvement in their community

Examples of Possible Program Components:

Cities host, in partnership with school districts(or independently) classes at city hall in the summer, or after school at city hall during the school year, where students will learn about:

  • Public service as a career as well as what it means to be an active citizen: Vote, Volunteer, Advocate, Lead, and Philanthropy.
  • City government: structure, services, role, current city issues, politics
  • The steps of advocacy and how to advocate for issues youth care about
  • How to Volunteers in the community
  • Critical civic and 21st century skills
  • How to register to vote, where to find information related to candidates and issues as well as participate in a mock election

As part of the experience students will:

  • Meet local advocates and city leaders
  • Attend city council meetings and visit the State Capitol to see policy making in action
  • Participate in volunteer projects that positively impact their community.
  • Intern or Job Shadow in a CityDepartment or for a community partner
  • Earn school credit
  • Apply 21st century skills: research, interviewing, public speaking, work readiness/professionalism, listening, writing, team work, project development ,networking, problem solving, social media
  • Participate in field trips to city-wide places of interest such as museums and public venues
  • Participate in a mock city council meeting and advocate for issues

The timing, duration and intensity of the program depends on the Cities’ capacity, and what works best for the city, school district and students. SACH can be a one day site visit from a classroom to city hall to a seven week summer program or school year after school program format. Mostly SACH has been accomplished through partnerships with school districts and Cities, but it can also be accomplished independently by Cities. Other partners have included counties, community agencies, chambers of commerce, special districts.

If you are interested in learning more about bringing SACH to your City, please contact Bina Lefkovitz or 916 2139679

Support offered includes:

  • Help conceptualizing what a SACH program can look like in your community.
  • How to engage school district and communitypartners.
  • Templates and tips for: program budgets, student recruitment, internship, job shadow and mock city council meeting guidelines, program design, class curriculum, program evaluation, student recognition,
  • Technology based student recruitment and internship administration and management support.
  • Connections to other communities working on engaging youth as active citizens
  • Media and Marketing to gain support for SACH in the community and to promote student advocacy issues

Statewide Partners for SACH include: Linked Learning Alliance, Fight Crime Invest in Kids, Local Government Commission?, Partnership for Democracy?

Partners in the Statewide Summer At City Hall Expansion Effort:

To expand SACH beyond Sacramento, we have partnered with the following groups:

Linked Learning Alliance, supports SACH though its connections to Linked Learning/Career Pathway Trust Districts around the state who might be interested in partnering with Cities on SACH. Linked Learning Alliance, in partnership with the Foundation of California Community Colleges, offers LaunchPath, an on line matching system to link students and employers for work-based learning experiences with internships. LaunchPath can help cities administer student recruitment and selection, the matching process between students and City Departments/Community Partner offered internship and job shadow opportunities, and provides tools for assessing students experience and 21st century skills gained.

Fight Crime Invest in Kids supports SACH by providing connections to area Police Chiefs, Sheriffs and Military leaders who can speak on behalf of SACH, offer connections to internships and job shadows in these organizations. FCIK will also help with social media around SACH and student advocacy efforts

Local Government Commission[D1]

Partnership for Democracy???

SCOE???

[D1]Include how the work of these potential partners ties to SACH