East Side high schoolers shine in tech internships

At the East Side Union High School District we are lucky to benefit from Cisco, AT&T, Google, Applied Materials, Adobe, and NVDIA, to name a few, who have helped our students access a high quality computer science curriculum, learn to use cutting edge technologies, and gain exposure to vibrant company cultures.

In fact, we now offer Computer Science at every one of our comprehensive schools and provide 19 Career Technical Education pathways, including Business and Finance, Automotive, Health Science and Medical Technology. Our graduation and A-G completion rates continue to rise.

And yet, most of our students are still living in the shadows of these companies and their successes.

East Side consists of 24,000 talented and motivated students who aspire to professional careers with the Ciscos, Adobes, Googles, and Apples that neighbor them. Which companies are directly building workforce pipelines or recruiting talent from East San Jose schools? The answer is not enough. As we shift the way teachers deliver instruction and push students to change the way that they demonstrate their learning, Silicon Valley Tech companies need to shift how they develop their pipeline. We don’t want students to just drive through Silicon Valley, we want them to eventually drive Silicon Valley.

Companies spend millions recruiting college students from elite institutions, talent from overseas and, to an extent, high school students from private schools. It is part of their strategy to bridge the talent gap. However, they are missing a great opportunity on the East Side, where more than 90 percent of students are students of color and very capable of filling entry-level positions.

One organization bridging that workforce gap is Genesys Works. It is the only non-profit partnering with more than 190 companies nationwide to integrate technical skills training, paid corporate internships during the student’s senior year and college support. The program is “disrupting” the system by matching the needs of underserved students with those of businesses struggling to engage employees and build a diverse pipeline.

Genesys Works has seen immense benefits for students —100 percent graduate high school and 47 percent pursue STEM degrees — and incredible benefits for companies. Innovators like Service Now, Sumo Logic, AT&T and Salesforce have embraced year-long high school interns and experienced increased employee engagement, professional development opportunities, costsavings, and diversity of age, gender, race and ideas.

Our district hosted a Genesys Works intern, Sofia, this past year. She blew us away with her professionalism and openness to learn, and provided value to our marketing department.

John, an East Side student and Help Desk Intern at Salesforce, has developed strong coding skills and impressed his supervisors with his discipline. Now he aspires to be a Networking Technician and the first in his family to graduate college.

Danny at Sumo Logic helped generate $500,000 in sales opportunities through one of the 30 e-mail marketing campaigns he worked on. Others have worked as R&D Program Analysts, Jr. Salesforce Specialists and Records Department Interns. One supervisor said his intern was on track to becoming a “unicorn developer hire.” These students are shattering the stereotype of what a young person from the East Side is capable of!

Connecting students to our industry partners creates authentic engagement in the workforce and provides opportunities otherwise not available to high schoolers. We need more partners to step up to the plate. I urge you to partner with ESUHSD and Genesys Works. http://www.genesysworks.org/

East Side consists of 24,000 talented and motivated students who aspire to professional careers with the Ciscos, Adobes, Googles, and Apples that neighbor them.

Genesys Works has seen immense benefits for students —100 percent graduate high school and 47 percent pursue STEM degrees — and incredible benefits for companies.