By Meg Peters
Review Staff Writer
Skills are easy to come by if you are a student in the Lake Orion P.H.A.S.E.S. class.
From financial to fitness, house maintenance to business, students aged 18 to 26 will learn how to prepare their own meals, fold and put away their clothes, hold a steady job and have a good time.
Post High School Adults Seeking Everyday Skills are students who graduate from Lake Orion High School’s Special Education Program and want to continue their learning, in the class and in the community.
The program’s mission is to provide all students regardless of their disability a life full of the same experiences and responsibilities as the people in their community. Students aged 18 to 26 can enter the program with the overall goal of attaining personal growth and essential life skills.
Teachers like to keep it fresh for their two small classrooms of students.
They can learn such things as school work, physical education, recycling, even folding pizza boxes assembly-line style.
They can plan and implement projects to bank a little cash. Learn important social etiquette or analyze job situations.
Students leave P.H.A.S.E.S. a little more independent, if not on the verge of moving out on their own.
Numerous job coaches take students to local area businesses to get a feel for retail, custodial, clerical and service positions. Maybe one day a group head off to the Palace of Auburn Hills and clean counters and dust. On another day a group could go to TJ Maxx, fold clothing and learn sizing.
Some go to farms, like Bald Mountain Mushrooms, or nursing homes, Lake Orion Buffalo Wild Wings, Orion Township Library, or Goodwill.
‘It’s a wonderful opportunity for all the kids to be out in the community, and the businesses that help us’it’s just a wonderful handshake,? Sherry London, a paraprofessional instructor, said.
‘It’s how to work but it’s social too. They learn how to greet the people, how to help the people, how to show the people where to find products.?
They all learn responsibility. Not only are they learning vocational and daily living skills, application/interviewing and job skills, have career exploration, students also learn counting, budgeting, personal goal setting and participate in P.A.E.S.
P.A.E.S. is a research-based program that measures performance in a broad range of career pathways designed to catalyze the transition for students from school life to the real world.
One student Julie goes to the Palace, Goodwill and TJ Max and has a riot doing so.
‘Sometimes we do sizing. They teach you how to lay out the clothes, not put them all in a big ball,? she said.
Students also make crafts to sell to the community in a program called Enterprise. They get together as groups and brainstorm marketing ideas, purchase the items at the Goodwill where many of them perform jobsite duties, and create the stylish, one of a kind crafts in the C.E.R.C. building.
There are now two tables of holiday themed gifts on the first floor of the C.E.R.C. and community members are encouraged to check them out for last minute gifts.
All funds raised go back to the program for new projects and crafts that keep the kids thinking in the future.
If you have any questions about any of the programs, or how to purchase a craft from Enterprise, contact the Special Education office at?248-693-5430.