LISTEN: Seattle high school cures Your browser does not support the audio element.

As the school year winds down and high school seniors get ready for graduation, many of them actually checked out weeks ago.

But rather than fight “senioritis,” one progressive Seattle high school is taking a different approach to simply riding out the rest of the year. They’re sending them out into the work world instead.

The mission statement at Seattle Academy on Capitol Hill is “preparing students for college and life.”

That’s why all seniors have the chance to participate in a full-time, professional internship during their last three months.

“The life piece is critical,” said Rick DuPree, director of community partnership for Seattle Academy, or SAAS as it’s commonly known. “And you just don’t get that in the classroom. You have to experience it. You have to live it. And that’s why we make this experience available to our students.”

DuPree works with the students to reach out to companies and organizations ranging from Microsoft and Amazon to the Seattle Aquarium – convincing them to take a high school senior under their wing.

“Our students now have something that’s motivating them, because it’s in an area that they’re interested in,” DuPree said. “And they’re going out in the real world. And they’re having to go out and see ‘OK, can I make it here?'”

DuPree works with each “mentor” and student to develop a strict agreement laying out the duties and expectations for their specific projects. The students then work there four days a week, returning to campus on Fridays for academic assignments and updating DuPree on their projects.

“I think every senior is finished at a certain time in their senior year,” said senior Kat Stokes, an aspiring singer, actress, and dancer.

“And rather than just sitting around and waiting out the time, to be put in another chapter of your life, it’s still exciting. It still stimulates,” Stokes said.

Who wouldn’t be stimulated with an internship like the one Kat landed.

“I worked with Macklemore and Ryan Lewis. A large spectrum from working on their latest music video to answering fan mail, selling merch at their Portland concert,” she said.

Senior Abbey Spangler took on a much more heady subject (pun intended).

“I worked with a psychiatry research team out of the UW Medical Center. And they’re working on spreading awareness of this new type of care,” Spangler said.

It was her job to interview and then write comprehensive biographies of a number of psychiatric practitioners, getting an up close look at what might be her chosen profession.

That’s what makes these internships so valuable. Students get to practically apply what they’ve learned in school.

“The hardest thing I think about young students wanting to work is that the jobs they’re trying to get, you need experience for. But you can’t get experience because you’re in school and learning,” Stokes said.

“You’re getting this experience. It’s incredibly valuable.”

As we hear more often that young people aren’t prepared for the working world even out of college, DuPree says it only makes sense to give students earlier preparation for their futures.

He says even the most prestigious universities like MIT are revisiting their curricula and adding things like improvisational comedy because too many students can’t function outside of school.

“You have students graduating that weren’t able to navigate through the business world. They weren’t able to work as a team. They weren’t able to get up and make a presentation. [They’re] missing these people skills that are needed that are as valuable as any technical skills you can get,” DuPree said.

After more than a decade, it’s clear the approach is working. Last year SAAS placed 107 of 111 students in internships. Forty of those students were offered either paid jobs or extensions of their projects at the end of their senior year, according to DuPree.

“This has helped me feel like I’m not going to just be jobless and done with college with debt,” Spangler said. “As well as feeling like I can advocate for myself as a valuable person to have on a team, as someone who’s worth getting a job and deserves to have a job.”

“I’m not completely, 100 percent sure I’m going to have a job after college. But I’m not afraid of going out into a workplace,” Stokes added.

And lest you think it all works out great, it doesn’t.

Some students who don’t do the work necessary to land an internship, such as preparing a proper resume or following up after an initial inquiry, don’t get one.

And those that screw off, show up late, or don’t honor their commitments, get fired.

But DuPree says even that teaches a great life lesson. Everything you do has consequences.

“Unfortunately, we had two kids that got fired this year. And what made it an even better life experience is those mentors, those site supervisors, they said ‘Rick, let’s meet with the students so we can explain what they did and why this wasn’t working out.’ To be able to walk away with that at 17 or 18 years old is a valuable experience,” DuPree said.

And even though Seattle Academy is an expensive private school, DuPree says the only cost to the school is time overseeing the projects. Several teachers used to supervise them as part of their duties, but the school assigned Dupree to head it full time when administrators saw its successes.

And he says it would behoove all high schools and districts to look at programs like their senior internships if they truly want to improve students’ chances for a successful future.

“You have kids that have talent all over the city, whether they’re in public or private schools, I don’t think that matters. Give them the opportunity. What we’ve been doing for 50, 100 years isn’t working. So let’s try something new,” DuPree said.

Note: Reporter Josh Kerns’ daughter is a freshman at Seattle Academy, from whom he first learned of the senior internship program