Pumpkin bread a lesson at Stony Point

A sweet aroma fills the halls of Stony Point High School.

The irresistible scent leads to the school’s functional living skills classrooms taught by Meg Gangi, where students with special needs are hard at work baking pumpkin bread.

For 13 years, Stony Point students with special needs have baked pumpkin bread from October to December for school staff and the community. The students prepare the bread themselves with the help of Gangi and classroom assistants Alustree White and Brenda Medina.

The students, who have disabilities such as Down syndrome, autism and Angelman syndrome, also use special tools to help them bake.

“Some use devices to activate the blender; others who don’t have a voice use devices to help them speak,” Gangi said.

The bread is so sweet that the class is unable to sell it to other students at Stony Point, Gangi said, since the sugar content exceeds the amount permitted under the school’s “Smart Snack” guidelines.

The bread sales fund class field trips and needed classroom materials. In the past, students collected enough to go to Morgan’s Wonderland, a theme park in San Antonio for individuals with special needs.

“It’s just another way for us to raise money that special-needs classrooms are sometimes short on — and it helps the students develop skills,” White said, adding that smelling the baked goods is also a new experience for some of the students.

Functional living skills classrooms are designed to help students with special needs to develop life skills such as cooking and hiking.

There are 312 students with special needs at Stony Point High School, and 4,524 in the Round Rock school district.

Medina said she enjoys seeing the students involved in the fundraiser from start to finish and seeing the results of their hard work.

“The satisfaction of seeing the smiles on their faces and them having a great time on these trips is awesome,” Medina said. “They are part of the whole process — from measuring the ingredients, baking the bread — and they get to see what they make out of the funds they collected.”

Eulisis Abdullah, a ninth-grade student in Gangi’s class, said he enjoys baking the bread.

“My favorite part is when it’s done and I get to taste it,” he said. “Everyone likes it.”

Gangi, who has taught students with special needs in Texas for 17 years, said learning to bake helps the students gain valuable skills.

“It gives them a chance to do something a typical developing student would do,” she said. “It has a lot of meaning to me, and it’s a favorite activity by the kids because it allows them to be more involved. And I like that it fills the room and hallways with the smell of pumpkin.”

To purchase a loaf of pumpkin bread, email alustree_white@roundrockisd. org. A large loaf sells for $8; a mini loaf costs $4.