For seniors at Staples High School, May 19 is the joyous day that marks the beginning of the internship program and the end of attending formal classes.
From May 19 to June 13, students participating in the program will be required to earn a minimum of 95 hours of work.
For students playing on spring sports teams, this may be a daunting task. However, “past seniors have worked it out fine and my internship is flexible like most,” Connor Mitnick ’14 said.
Mitnick is a member of the tennis team and he is positive his internship won’t intefere.
Chris Wilk ’14, a member of the Staples volleyball team, believes managing his time will not be challenging. “For my internship, I will be able to leave early in order to make sure I am not late for practice or a game,” Wilk said.
The Staples High School internship program is run by Lee Saveliff, who has been an active member of the program for three years, and has placed over 1300 students since 2012.
The program allows students to choose from over 300 jobs ,ranging from gardening to working in an elementary school.
Jason Chaskin ’14 is a member of the boys’ tennis team, however, he does not believe that interning will be a conflict. “I’m interning at Long Lots Elementary, so I will be done at 2 p.m. which leaves me 20 to 30 minutes to be ready for tennis,” said Chaskin.
According to Saveliff, on applications, all students must fill out what they enjoy doing and what activities they participate in after school that may conflict with their working hours.
However, all of the internships vary. “Some jobs work outside of school hours [later than 3 p.m.]. On the job description, it will note that. However, most students don’t read the description” Saveliff said.
“I discover that not all of the interns read the descriptions carefully. Some are choosing sites that they cannot intern at because they are on a sports team or have a commitment that starts as soon as the normal Staples day ends and the sites’ hours conflict with their own schedule,” Saveliff said.
To fix this, Saveliff has a plan. “I am going to ask the IT person who maintains the website to add a bold feature so I can have the hours information stand out next year” Saveliff said.
Peter Elkind ’14 runs for the boys’ track team, and while he doesn’t think managing track with working will be difficult, he is still nervous about it.
“It shouldn’t be too much trouble managing track and my internship because I’ve made sure that my internship bosses are aware of my practice hours. I might have to make up a few days for the internship when I have to take off for meets,” Elkind said.
The majority of the jobs are done during school hours. However, it is important for athletes to recognize that there are some internships that occur after the school day.
Fortunately, anybody in charge of a job that requires work outside of the school schedule will contact students and double check with them to make sure that they will be able to fulfill their commitments.
As difficult as it may be to balance working a job with playing a sport, the student-internship program provides a lot of leeway for students to easily manage sporting events with work.
