Power Hour — Video Script + Slides

Hey team — I put together a walkthrough of where we've landed on the Power Hour redesign. This covers the full program architecture, so I want you to watch this, then review the documents I'll link at the end. We'll discuss live at our next meeting.

Here's the headline: Power Hour is no longer a single-cycle experience. It's a four-year, research-backed career readiness program — with a framework, a portfolio model, paid internships, and a plan to prepare girls for careers that don't exist yet.

Let's start with why. Miami-Dade is booming — over 100,000 professional and technical jobs are being added by 2034. Tech alone has senior roles paying 121 to 141 thousand. But women of color are being left behind. Hispanic women earn 55 cents on the dollar. Black women, 61 cents. Only 14 percent of girls are in traditionally male career pathways — and those are the high-wage ones.

And here's the stat that should stop us: only 2 percent of high school students in this country have ever completed an internship. Two percent. We're going to change that for our girls.

The backbone of the redesign is the 5 E's framework. E1, Employability — the 18 soft skills employers need — is in every session. E2 through E4 is a progression: Exposure first, then Exploration, then Experience. A girl doesn't choose a career path until she's actually seen the landscape. That's by design — it prevents what the research calls "identity foreclosure," where girls default to what's familiar instead of what's possible.

And then there's E5 — Evolution. This is the future-ready layer. AI fluency, adaptability, financial resilience, entrepreneurial thinking. These girls will be working until 2070. We're not just preparing them for today's jobs — we're building their capacity to remain relevant no matter what the economy looks like.

E1 and E5 are the two through-lines — they're in every session, every year. E2 through E4 is the progression a girl follows based on how long she's been in the program.

Here's how a session actually works. Every session follows the same format: SEL warm-up, career content, a differentiated activity that adjusts by year level, portfolio work, and an E5 thread. SEL and character development aren't a single month — they're in every session.

The year is organized in three phases. Foundation — that's November and December — is about belonging first. You can't build career skills if a girl doesn't feel safe. Development — January through March — is where the career content and skill-building intensify. And Launch — April and May — is portfolio completion, the public showcase, and transition planning.

The key insight: a Year 1 girl and a Year 3 girl are in the same room, same session, same theme. But the Year 1 girl is doing a guided activity with structured prompts, while the Year 3 girl is leading a mock panel and working on her capstone. Same space. Different depth.

The program runs on a 4-tier partner model. Tier 1 is collegiate role models from FIU and Barry — near-peer panelists. Tier 2 is industry professionals leading workshops and reviewing capstones. Tier 3 is mentors matched by career interest, meeting monthly. And Tier 4 — this is new — is internship providers. Paid placements.

Our target: 10 paid placements by summer 2027. That's 15 hours a week — 10 on-site with the employer, 5 with Girls Inc. for reflection and skill processing. We have two paths to fund this: partner with M-DCPS's Summer Youth Internship Program, which is grant-funded and costs us zero for wages, or build our own pipeline at about $1,500 per intern.

Virginia and Dyani — this is your workstream. We need to start identifying T4 partners now.

The portfolio is the spine of the whole program. Every session produces a deliverable. By the time a girl finishes, she doesn't just have a resume — she has a professional package that includes a growth narrative, a network map showing the social capital she's built, recorded evidence of her skills, and artifacts from the E5 work: an AI fluency project, a financial plan, an adaptability exercise.

This is what makes Power Hour different from career day or a one-time workshop. She leaves with proof — not just of what she can do, but of who she is and how she got here.

Here's what I need from each of you. Go to power-hour-dashboard.netlify.app. The password is powerhour2026. Everything is there — the full curriculum scope, the session model, the internship pipeline, the portfolio progression, all the research, team roles, and next steps.

Review the documents. Note your questions. Come to our next meeting ready to discuss. We've built the architecture. Now we build the program.

5 E's. All sectors. Every girl.