A student who participated in the MADE Work Experience Program shares about his internship with community members at the Columbia Memorial Space Center. Image credit: Matthew ‘Nacho’ Ward.

Interactive seminars will teach students in Downey Unified School District to discover their strengths and build their futures.

By Carmen Tovar

When you think about our country’s future leaders, you envision strength, resilience, intelligence, determination, and the desire to make a difference. Here at Bayha Group, we’re very fortunate to be part of a movement encouraging high school students to have those skills and qualities.

Made for the Future.

The MADE Work Experience Program is a collaborative partnership between Bayha Group, Southeast Los Angeles County Workforce Development Board (SELACO WDB), and Downey Unified School District (DUSD). It’s an educational program designed to provide students with academic, technical, and employability skills to pursue higher education or ongoing learning and enter their chosen career fields with confidence. The MADE Work Experience Program is possible through California Career Pathways Trust grant funding from the California Department of Education, now in its third year at the District.

Working with both high schools in the District, Bayha Group will help deliver a number of “career readiness” seminars throughout the school year.

Learn by Doing: Objectives of the Program.

Being career ready is the name of the game. The MADE program gives students the opportunity to gain work experience placement, meet and interview with business leaders, and receive mentoring from industry professionals.

Personal development is also incredibly important for students when navigating their futures. As part of the program, students will gain a deeper understanding of their own strengths and values, build confidence, make new connections, and collaborate with peers.

Ready, Set, Go: Seminar 1, Lost and Found.

Mid-December and January marked the launch of the MADE Work Experience Program at Warren and Downey High Schools, both public comprehensive secondary schools in Downey, California. More than 500 high school juniors eager to take charge of their futures participated in the one-hour, kick-off seminars at both schools.

The first seminar, aptly titled “Lost and Found,” was all about students discovering their strengths and developing a roadmap to future success.

For many students, school isn’t always a positive experience–it can be a struggle both mentally and emotionally. About 3.6 million students are expected to graduate from high school in the U.S. in 2018. A large share of these students will leave school worried about what their future holds. Some will feel the odds are against them, or they may be conflicted about which direction to go in.

The MADE Program is designed to support students by giving them the tools to recognize and nurture their own strengths and values.

Future Thoughts: Challenging Students to Think About the Journey.

For many students, their sometimes skewed perception of success stops them from asking for help when they need it most. To overcome this hurdle, we started our first seminar by asking students to write down their long-term and short-term goals. This encouraged students to think about their immediate and future wants and needs. Many, for example, cited passing their end-of-year exams (short-term goal) or being accepted into college (long-term goal).

Next, we asked students to find quotes they found inspiring and put them in places where they could see them throughout the day: on a wall, as a screensaver, on their desk or in their locker. The purpose of this is to remind students there is no right or wrong way when it comes to their future. The goal is for students to believe in themselves, become more self aware of their strengths and skills, and gain strategies for better supporting themselves and others along their journey.

We wrapped up the session with some practical advice on subjects, such as how to identify their top skills, how to research careers, how to search for schools and colleges, ways to find job openings, and how to be successful in the job search. As part of this, we provided each student with access to Eureka–a career assessment website. The platform allows students to take quizzes and find out what careers may best match their interests. It also helps them to identify colleges and training programs as well as provides information about financial aid opportunities.

Just the Beginning.

We interviewed some past MADE Work Experience participants and they shared their experiences with us.  

“I’m not afraid to get out of my comfort zone after the program. I’m open to joining other workshops and doing things that I’m not completely sure about. The unknown isn’t as scary.”

“I was really shy before this program, and now I feel more friendly and that I can do whatever I want.”

“I would definitely recommend this program to other underclassmen. It really helped me and was really beneficial.”

This month, we’ll host the second seminar –“Must Be at Least this Tall to Ride: A Guide to Fitting In, in the Workplace.”

If you’re interested in learning more about the MADE Work Experience Program at Downey Unified School District, visit the Downey MADE website or follow us on Facebook for photos and updates.

By June Bayha

I’ve been involved in grant writing for many years now, and while I’ve certainly honed my craft and garnered millions of dollars of grant funding for my clients along the way, it wasn’t always easy – especially in the beginning.

There are a lot of nuances to writing a persuasive and well-received grant proposal, and some of those nuances take a while to pick up. In my early days, I would have loved to have an experienced pro guiding me along the way, keeping me from making common mistakes and pointing me toward the most effective (and successful) proposal prose possible.

Are you new to grant writing and want to be as effective as possible? Let me be that guide. Here are the 10 things I wish someone had told me at the outset:

1. Read every word of the Request for Proposal (RFP) or Request for Application (RFA) over and over again

In the grant writing world, one quick read through of the guidelines won’t cut it. Take time to reread and highlight the requirements and points needed in each section of the proposal, as well as any other details regarding the funder’s preferences. Failing to meet the basic requirements of the RFP or RFA will likely count your application out from the start.

2. Carefully review the eligibility requirements: does your organization qualify to apply?

While it may be tempting to let your enthusiasm for the grant funding opportunity take hold, make sure you are, in fact, eligible to apply for the grant in question. If there’s any doubt, check out if there is a bidder’s conference or webinar where you can ask questions of the funder. Write down and ask your question(s) during these opportunities to get clarity before investing too much time in writing a proposal.

3. Pay close attention to all the rules for the grant proposal.

Do you have a high attention to detail? Because, well, you’ll need it. Every grant program is different, so go through the rules with a fine-toothed comb. There are often small, seemingly insignificant details that may disqualify your proposal if you fail to comply. The examples that I’ve seen include exceeding the number of allowed pages, using the wrong font size, setting your margin size too-small or too-wide, using the wrong paragraph spacing, paginating incorrectly, and failing to include a table of contents.

4. Check if letters of support or reference letters are required.

Not all grant programs require supporting letters, but many do. If yours does, consider writing a sample or draft letter to your contacts, so they have a better idea of what to include in their support letters on your behalf. People are busy, so make sure you give your referees as much notice as possible, and set reminders to follow-up if you haven’t received what you need in a timely manner. The more you guide them now, the more likely they’ll deliver a product that really works in your favor.

5. If possible, complete the budget and work plan before writing the narrative.

It sounds backward, but this will help you be more clear about exactly what you’re proposing and how much it will cost the funder, and ultimately, it makes writing the narrative a lot easier. The narrative, work plan and budget all need to support and validate one another and the numbers need to match, so do all three in tandem and up front.

6. Use the text from the RFP to create a grant proposal outline.

When you’re ready to start writing, copy the actual text from the RFP including all of the required sections and point distribution. You want this information to be readily available as you write so that you may completely address what the funder is requesting or looking for. Use it as a sort of outline as you go about writing your proposal. Only delete a point or requirement after you know you have fully addressed it – in the right place, at the right time – in your proposal.

7. Remember, there are scoring rubrics and real people reading your funding proposal.

You can bet those people are going to read your application quickly and with that scoring rubric right alongside. Try to make their job as easy as possible by labeling sections that match the RFP and directly answering or addressing what’s requested. Don’t make the reader scour your document for information – at least not if you want your proposal to be seriously considered.

8. Ensure the people who need to sign off on the grant proposal are available well in advance of the deadline.

There’s nothing worse than scrambling for approvals and signatures on the day of the due date, so meet with your team early and often throughout the grant writing process. Always fill out all of the required forms and take note of the people who need to read, approve and sign off the proposal application. Set aside time in their calendar to meet, discuss the proposal and get approvals weeks in advance, if possible.

9. Assume all grant proposal deadlines are non-negotiable.

This one’s black and white. If the guidelines say the proposal is due at 5 p.m. EST on December 15, it is. If your proposal arrives at 5:01 p.m., it’s late and will not be reviewed. Assume there is no wiggle room and submit your grant application early.

10. Grants are a great way to get other people to pay for what you or your organization want to do.

But remember, they don’t have to fund your project. Be persuasive, tell them precisely how you’ll use their funds, and follow their instructions to the letter. Make them want to give you that grant – and be glad they did.

The best way to ensure your organization gets the funding it needs is to seek help from a professional grant writing team. Contact us today to learn more about our grant writing services and how we can help.

DIPTI – perhaps you’re familiar with this acronym.  Middle school students from all four of Downey’s campuses will become experts in DIPTI: Design, Ideation, Prototyping, Testing, and Implementation.  Whether you’re making a paper airplane or designing a creative solution to a problem with a deeper impact, the process is the same.

Approximately 5 students from each campus – Doty, Griffiths, Stauffer, and Sussman – gathered at the Columbia Memorial Space Center on Friday, September 8th to hold the inaugural meeting of this year’s innovation challenge.  From now, until the new year, these students will come together two Fridays each month to develop a challenge of their own.

Come February of 2018, just a few short months from now, these middle school students will have devised a worthy challenge for their peers.  This is an awesome opportunity for Downey’s students to gain insight into the design mindset and how it can be used to successfully overcome challenges, find creative solutions, and gain insight into the world we live in.

Stay tuned for more updates on this exciting project taking place at DUSD.

*Mission: IMPACT is an activity brought to DUSD by Carrot, a para-education organization that works with schools to grow student involvement and agency.

Guest speaker, Blanca Pacheco, a local Attorney and councilwoman, visited the MADE Work Experience students late last week to discuss the realities of being a professional and some of the expectations young people may have for certain fields of work and study.  Ms. Pacheco began by speaking about her personal story and why she became an attorney.  Using video clips and real-life examples Pacheco was able to lift the veil so-to-speak.

In her words, “people think that being a lawyer is always about having an exciting or high-profile case, and working in the courtroom.  But there are attorneys that never step foot inside the courthouse or speak in front of a judge.”  Not to say that this is a negative thing, but it’s one of the many misconceptions that many people have about her career.  Pacheco did a great job showing, not just telling.  For students to truly understand what a career is like, they must experience it.  In order to do so, Pacheco put the students through an exercise.

The biggest part of Pacheco’s practice isn’t always constructing an argument for her client in the courtroom.  Her student exercise was meant to put students through a realistic, everyday, type of scenario.  That being said, what’s more important than a living will and healthcare directive?  While it may be true that most kids don’t think about these kinds of things in their teens, the activity provided DUSD students with a look into what keeps an attorney, such as Pacheco, busy and allows her practice to keeps its doors open.

The MADE Work Experience program is giving incoming seniors a rare look into the lives of professionals in many different fields, not just the practice of law.  Recently, Alan Zack, the President of Carrot, paid a visit to the program.  Carrot is addressing the unprecedented challenges that our society and the world are facing.  The company is centered upon innovative problem solving and designing programs to incentivize young people to change the world for the better.  Mr. Zack is one of a few business people that were chosen to speak with the participants.

Later this week, the program will come to an end.  Most of the 35 students who have participated are finished clocking their hours and are now working on the culmination presentations.  On Thursday, July 27th, at Vazza Café in Downey, participants will show off everything they’ve learned and will celebrate their experience with local leaders, business owners and DUSD faculty.

Over the course of the 2016-17 school year, Downey Unified School District high school students have been ramping up for a once-in-a-lifetime experience through DUSD’s MADE program.  Students are connected to a worksite, where they are expected to perform and grow as young professionals.  Using grant funding, DUSD has created an environment where students spend the school year learning how to build a resume, perform in interviews, and use 21st century skills to succeed outside of school.  When all is said and done, these students are able to earn money and gain hands-on knowledge of what it’s like to have a real job.

This past week, the Bayha Group had the opportunity to visit a select group of students at their worksites.  In total, there are 19 workplaces and 35 students participating in this summer’s experience.  Worksites such as Friar Tux, Embassy Suites, and Gerinet have successfully created an environment where DUSD students are challenged, safe, and provided with unique opportunities that many students do not have before graduating high school.

Two students were placed at Gerinet, which is a local home hospice service, located in Downey, that serves Los Angeles and Orange County.  At Gerinet, two students are supervised by the Volunteer Manager, who walked us through the extensive training program used to teach their staff members.  These two students have also gained experience by partaking in this exercise and have seen what it is like to provide top quality care to patients.  This is not uncommon ­– worksites are expected to treat students as adults.  As a result, every student involved has an advantage in the workplace, relative to their peers.

The MADE Work Experience program will culminate at the end of this month.

Stay Tuned!

As it stands, a small percentage of students entering the engineering field are women – an average of 15%.  This number is a good sign, in the “1980s approximately 6% of engineers in the U.S. were women” (ASME.org).  Reasons for this have traditionally pointed to a lack of role models and various societal misconceptions of what it means to be an engineer.  Downey Unified School District is putting their finger to the pulse of this issue and has been doing so for two years in a row.

Sticking to their vision, Downey Unified School District has been a part of the growing Femineers movement and has developed a strong partnership with local university Cal Poly Pomona.  Cal Poly Pomona has been a valuable partner to the district, leading their students and cultivating interests.  In a statement, DUSD’s Director of CTE and STEM notes that, “We are very proud that Downey Unified is represented so thoroughly within the Femineers program” (thedowneypatriot.com).

We recently had the opportunity to touch base with the participants at from Doty, Stauffer, and Griffiths middle schools, and they shed light on their experience in the program over the last 1-2 years.  When asked to define this in one word, DUSD’s Femineers said: Inspirational, empowering, unforgettable, encouraging, challenging, awesome, adventurous, and unique.  These ladies made it very clear how special being a Femineer is for their future.

One student wrote, “The whole experience opened my eyes to multiple new possibilities.  I now know that I can do many things that I didn’t know I was capable of doing.” Overall, the response from DUSD’s Femineers illustrates that they are being challenged and presented with opportunities to pursue their dreams and are gaining a competitive advantage for their future in this field of study.

This year’s MADE Work Experience Program is off and running.  Today the Bayha Group visited the Southern California Gas Company’s facility in Downey, CA where the final set of student/employer interview sessions was being held.  It was quite a sight to see; students were dressed to impress and the location was absolutely amazing.

Downey Unified students participated in what will be the first steps towards an eye opening summer.  By now, they have completed mock interviews, group sessions at school, built resumes, and are now ready to begin the next two months in a professional setting.  We spoke with students who are matched with employers such as ASPIRE (a local after-school program for youth), the YMCA, law offices, and also a security firm that is operated nationwide, among others.

This program has opened up the door for students by giving them a look into the future and what it means to be a professional.  Needless to say, we are looking forward to hearing more about their upcoming experiences once the program culminates.

This summer, Downey Unified will send two students to UCLA’s Nanoscience Lab Summer Institute.  Through this one-of-a-kind program, these students are introduced to the rigors of college-level course work and are tasked with hands-on experiments.  Not only is this a fun and exciting 5-day program for DUSD’s students, it teaches them the key concepts of nanoscale phenomena that make nanoscience and nanotechnology one of the most exciting fields of research today.

A few days ago we caught up with last summer’s participants.  We were curious about their experience at UCLA and how it affected their senior year of high school.  One student from Warren High School voiced that, “It helped me figure out what I want from my college experience, even though I plan on studying something that’s not directly related to nanoscience.”  The 5-day program encourages students to work and collaborate on their projects and presentations, allowing them to share skills and build each other up.

Through seminars, experiments, data collection, and observations students learn the various approaches to nanoscience.  On top of this, UCLA’s staff teaches participants how the technology is already being applied across different scientific fields.  Another student from Downey shared her experience.  “I really liked working with people who are doing nanoscience and developing these new creations,” she expressed, “reaching into the mind of someone who is so much more experienced and educated than I am, and being able to see what they’ve figured out and how they’re changing the world.”  If you want to change the world, you have to change your ‘self.’

UCLA has worked hard to create an environment where students can do just that.  By working in teams, with college students and professors, content that is otherwise overwhelming is within grasp.  It is because of this kind of program that Downey students continue to have doors opened and are exposed to nurturing, challenging experiences.

For more information, visit the Nanoscience Lab Summer Institute website

WORDS: JOANNA BANKS

As the visiting team from Partnership for 21st Century Learning (P21) passed through the front office of Downey High, a tour guide pointed out two guitars on display. Both belonged to Downey graduates and icons of the music industry: Metallica front man James Hetfield and George Pajon Jr. of the Black Eyed Peas. “We may be in school, but we can still rock out,” quipped Phil Davis, Downey Unified’s director of CTE, STEM and Support Programs. Rock star status isn’t far fetched.

On June 1st, the P21 team toured two Downey high schools, two middle schools and an elementary campus to see if the district’s educational programs were really as good as they looked on paper. Downey Unified school District had applied for P21 “exemplar” status earlier this year in hopes of sharing successes with others and becoming a role model in education. Five administrators from the Los Angeles County Office of Education, National Council for the Social Studies, educational leader Goddard Systems, Inc., and Hanson Consulting Group got a firsthand look at the district’s college and career focus. The visit is part of a nationwide search to find the best — to crown those creating truly globally competitive 21st Century learners.

It’s hard not to be impressed by the mechanical engineering and physics pod at Downey High, where an $80,000 wind tunnel for aerodynamic testing sits next to a new HAAS Automation digital manufacturing machine. In the school’s re-envisioned “auto shop,” five donated Mitsubishi cars are aloft garage machinery for students to inspect. They key in notes about oil changes and systems inspections on giant touch screen pads nearby. An English teacher uses UC Curriculum Integration (UCCI) to blend students’ academic subject preparation with a practical career application of scriptwriting and video production.

Throughout the day, it was clear that classroom lectures were nearly obsolete, and hands on Project Lead the Way kits took over. Students coded, programmed, collaborated, drew, measured, built – even cooked – their way through the day. Chromebook lockers, HD projectors, robots, big, networked screens, moveable furniture and hi tech student conference rooms filled the campuses. “It’s kind of like being at summer camp and having a great time, but not knowing that you’re learning,” Davis said. Warren High’s culinary students made turkey and Brie sandwiches, cauliflower soup with mascarpone, fried taro root, and a nectarine and mixed green salad for the dozens of visitors and city officials who came to support Downey’s future.

At Sussman Middle School, 7th grade “femineers” talked about how a Cal Poly Pomona engineering program that aims to engage more girls in engineering programs had inspired their work in a 7/8 manufacturing class. At Stauffer Middle School, one teacher outlined robotics competition schedules on the wall, and had students making “balloon cars” out of straws, plastic water bottles and empty raisin boxes. Fourth graders at Old River Elementary spent the afternoon designing paper airplanes and launching them through targets hanging from doorways. The project exemplified exciting learning spurred by the leadership of 15 teachers promoting Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Mathematics (STEAM) in TK-5 classrooms.

These experiences embody what’s possible when we invest in creative approaches to education. Is learning fun? At the Bayha Group, we think yes. DUSD is dynamic proof that we’re not the only ones who think so.