Students take LEAP through District 214 partnership with Mount Prospect
Students in District 214 who received a close-up look at the inner workings of Mount Prospect village government through an experimental internship program presented their findings this week before the village board.
Last June, the village and the school district partnered on a pilot project called LEAP (Learning Experience Apprenticeships Pathways) to provide the students with hands-on experiences to help them explore possible careers. For three years, the village is committed to spending $100,000 annually.
On Tuesday, 10 students in five teams described their experiences working with village staff.
Jack Kenny and Mason Wille, juniors at Prospect High School, worked with Alex Bertolucci, management analyst, on the topic of negotiations with the police union on a new contract. Among their suggestions were new benefits, including a student loan repayment program for new hires and specialty pay for officers who work with police dogs.
"Alex actually provided us with different contracts for the surrounding departments, so that helped us gauge how we wanted to calculate our new wage increase," Wille said.
"Those are going to be the real world issues that we are talking with the police union (about), when we are across the table from them in a few months," Village Manager Michael Cassady said. "So I'm very impressed that you were able to distill down a list that is really reality based and actually helps us with our goals of not only attracting good police officers but retaining them."
Sylvia Barszczewski and Kisa Jafri, seniors at Prospect, worked with Julie Kane and her staff at the Human Services Department on the Food Pantry Organization Project. They worked on creating posters for National Nutrition Month and updating department's Facebook page to illustrate examples of how to build healthy diets. They also developed fact sheets to assist food pantry users with such medical conditions as diabetes. Their recommendations included a community garden and partnering with local fast food establishments.
Lucy Hermann and Lily Keya, juniors at Prospect, discussed their work on sustainability programs. They noted that 47% of all sewer blockages are caused by cooking oils. The duo looked at the activities of 14 downtown restaurants, finding that a majority of them are recycling cooking oil. They recommended quarterly events sponsored by the village where residents could bring collected oil. A company they contacted called Green Grease is willing to work with the village cost free.
Village President Arlene Juracek commended their efforts. "I don't know how many times we find out we have got a clogged source somewhere, and it turns out it's grease. And it's not necessarily restaurant grease. It's just residents cooking their favorite foods and, unfortunately, dumping the grease down the drain."
Other students in the LEAP program included Bennett Hitesman and Lia Scala, Prospect High School juniors who spent time researching the benefits of the village's Instagram page, and Hersey junior Tim Choma and Prospect junior Joshua Westgor, who looked at the village's information technology resources.