Brewing up skills: Baker students raise money for trips, deliver coffee to school staff
Published 9:58 am Tuesday, October 1, 2019
Early Friday morning, students in Baker Intermediate School’s special education program went room to room, roaming the halls to deliver iced coffee, pumpkin spice-flavored cappuccinos, sweet rolls and more.
The students form Baker Brewhouse, an in-school coffee and goodies delivery service. Jordan Miller, a special education teacher at Baker, said the program is in its infancy, only starting nearly a month ago.
With the help of their teachers in the special education program and Family Resource Center Coordinator Rick Mitchell, the students load up the coffee cart every Friday morning and head out into the halls to raise money for their program.
Miller said the brewhouse started as a way for the students in the special education program to build functional skills while also strengthening symbiotic relationships between the students and other Baker staff.
“With the kids, they’re able to understand how a business works,” Miller said. “They can take people’s money, count money, count change. It also helps them with fine motor skills. A lot of things that people can really take for granted, our kids struggle with. Like fine motor skills, such as actually holding the cup, holding the soft drink, doing things like that, and just building conversation skills with the staff … Our kids are in our room a lot of the times throughout the day, so they don’t get to see a lot of staff members. This actually gives them an opportunity to meet some teachers we may not see a lot and kind of just build that relationship between the staff and the students.”
Miller said the students rotate every week, with a pair taking on the bottom floor and then switching out for another set of students to deliver on the top floor.
“We try and give each kid an opportunity,” Miller said.
Baker Brewhouse has been wildly successful so far, Miller said.
“We’ve kind of gotten to the point where the businesses is actually … self sufficient,” he said.
First, the brewhouse uses its proceeds to buy more supplies and the remaining money goes toward CBI (Community Based Instruction) trips.
“The kids go out into the community, to a store, or some place they don’t often get the opportunity to go,” Miller said. “They get to build different community skills, functional skills, academic skills as well. The money goes back to taking them on that because a lot of times we have to ask parents for money, so this way, ideally, we wouldn’t have to ask them for money.”
Following Friday’s deliveries, the students headed to the Kentucky Horse Park.
“I want them to be able to realize that, hey, the trip we’re going on is because you all have made this money doing the coffee,” Miller said. “They’re working hard. It’s just like a little business.”
Creative Coffees Roastery donated coffee for the program and Ale-8-One donated Ale-8s to add to the delivery service.
Miller said they settled on a coffee cart, taking the idea from seeing other places be successful with a similar service. But as the weeks have gone on, the brewhouse has expanded its offerings from solely hot coffee to iced coffee, soft drinks and baked goods.
And even in the short time span, Miller said he’s already seeing improvement in the students’ conversation skills.
“Their conversational skills are getting really good,” Miller said. “Just basic stuff, getting them to say hello, telling them how much the prices are, saying thank you, making eye contact is a really big thing we’re trying to teach our kids. And also just counting money, being able to count $3, being able to recognize change from dollar bills and things like that. But they’re doing really good. I’m just happy that it’s going really well so far.”
Baker’s special education classroom is for students with moderate to severe disabilities, Miller said, so the brewhouse helps other Baker staff and students get acquainted with students with all ranges of abilities.
“A lot of times, people don’t have a lot of experience with people with disabilities,” Miller said. “They may not necessarily know they’re being rude, but when they see them, they just don’t know how to interact with them. Should I talked directly to them? Should I talk to the person they’re with? I want our kids and adults with a disabilities to be treated just like anybody else.
“Don’t talk to me. Talk to them. Look at them. Say hi … We have students who are nonverbal, talk to them the same way you talk to me. You don’t have to baby talk them, just treat them like another person.”
Miller said he looks forward to seeing the Baker Brewhouse grow as the school year goes on and seeing its impact on his students and the rest of the school.
“I think it’s just a really good opportunity to build money for the school and build money for our kids and teach them the skills that we talked about in the classroom,” he said. “It’s putting what we learned in the classroom to work.”
About Lashana Harney
Lashana Harney is a reporter for The Winchester Sun. Her beats include schools and education, business and commerce, Winchester Municipal Utilities and other news. To contact her, email lashana.harney@winchestersun.com or call 859-759-0015.
More by Lashana
