GROUNDS FOR SUCCESS
Coffee shop, other business ventures prepare students for workplace
Just a few months ago, a trophy case stood near the Seneca Valley High School entrance, but today that space holds so much more.
The case of trophies and the wall behind it were removed to make way for Grounds for Thought, a coffee shop run by special needs students in the learning transition program.
“One of our main goals is to increase vocational and social skills so they can gain skills for the workplace,” said Jessica Pyle, transition coordinator for the district.
Such opportunities for special needs students are also being provided in other local school districts. Gateway School District has operated Gator Cafe since 2014 and is preparing to expand the shop. Mars Area School District recently opened a student store that sells school supplies and spirit wear through its life skills class. A similar shop operates in the Upper St. Clair School District.
Grounds for Thought
Seneca Valley’s Grounds for Thought opened in February and operates during the first three class periods at the senior high.
The 28 students who work in the coffee shop are responsible for everything, including ordering supplies, making coffee, running the cash register and cleanup, Ms. Pyle said.
Just as they would for a job outside of school, students applied and went through an interview process to work in the shop.
“One of our goals is independence,” said Gerald Miller, director of special education in the district. “For special needs students, independence is a great priority.”
The district has had work programs in the high school cafeteria and community-based training at participating businesses, but students were not using cash registers or learning to order supplies in those programs, Ms. Pyle said.
“The goal is to get a learning
“One of our goals is independence. For special needs students, independence is a great priority.” Gerald Miller Seneca Valley director of special education
experience so they can build a resume and can gain competitive employment when they graduate,” she said.
The program started with a coffee club last year in which students delivered coffee to staff throughout the day, said E.G. Sipp, career development teacher.
The shop uses a system involving order forms, machinery and color codes for the cash register, Ms. Pyle said.
Hannah Knapp and Anthony Oh, both 17-year-old juniors in the program, said the work is fun.
“I love it,” said Hannah, who said her favorite job is working as a barista.
In their first few days in the shop, the students got some help from members of the district’s Best Buddies Club, which matches special needs students with other students to promote friendship and social opportunities for both groups. Since then, the life skills students have been on their own with some teacher supervision.
The project has been a collaborative effort: Tshirts and aprons bearing the shop logo were designed by the graphic arts classes; engineering and applied science classes made holders for the order forms; the life skills classes launder the shop uniforms; and a contest was held to come up with the name of the shop.
Gator Cafe
At Gateway High School, Gator Cafe in the school library is getting ready to relocate and expand.
“We want to make it be more like a sit-in cafe,” teacher Andrew Estok said of the shop, which sells coffee, cappuccino and hot chocolate to students and staff and is run by special needs students in the life skills class.
If the school board approves, the cafe will move into a classroom space next year, which would provide a larger area so that more students could work at one time and allow the shop to also offer cookies and other snacks.
Currently, two or three students work in the cafe each period for five periods of the day.
“[The expanded cafe] will allow us to provide more opportunities for students,” such as sorting cookies and making coffee, said Mr. Estok, a special education teacher at the high school and one of four teachers who oversee the cafe. “We might also do things like iced tea, slushies and bottled drinks like Gatorade.”
The cafe is fully self-sustaining, meaning that the money brought in pays to buy supplies and equipment for the shop.
The school’s parentteacher organization donated the funds to start the cafe. “We started off with a mere $500 and a location,” Mr. Estok said.
The plan is to start converting the classroom into a coffee shop over the summer with hopes of having it open for the 2017-18 school year.
Mars Area movable store
At Mars Area High School, special education students in the life skills class are getting real-world experience because of help from the Mars Planet Foundation.
The foundation provided seed money to start a student store that sells Mars Area merchandise and school supplies, said William Pettigrew, the school board representative to the foundation board of directors.
The items are available in a spare classroom and from a cart that students wheel into study halls.
The students partner with other classes and clubs to make some of the items sold at the store, such as silk-screened T-shirts and bags. They also worked with the broadcast media class to make a commercial for the shop.
SHOP@USC
At Upper St. Clair High School, SHOP@USC is a student-run business that produces and sells greeting cards, signs, laser-engraved items and school spirit merchandise.
SHOP, which stands for Showing How Opportunity Pays, is a collaboration between students in the life skills support program and other students at the school. The project replaced a greeting card venture that involved middle schoolers working with local businesses because the district wanted to offer special needs students a chance to be part of the process, said Michelle Zirngibl, special education teacher.
The district obtained commercial equipment, and now “SHOP has the ability to create, design and fabricate everything from greeting cards to T-shirts and sweatshirts to magnets, stickers and water bottles,’’ Ms. Zirngibl said.
The program teaches occupational skills, but the most important skills students acquire are “patience, understanding, kindness, compassion, advocacy, honesty, commitment and integrity,” she said.
“Those qualities cannot be taught but only emerge when given experience,’’ Ms. Zirngibl said.
Laure Cioffi and Deana Carpenter, freelance writers: suburbanliving@post-gazette.
“[The expanded cafe] will allow us to provide more opportunities for students.” Andrew Estok, special education teacher at Gateway High School