For several years, the Cherokee County School District has supported a transition academy for young adults with intellectual disabilities. But a recent revamp of the academy’s physical space has enhanced the program’s direction.
“What we have now is a job site we’ve renamed as the Career Readiness Center,” said Charlette Green, the district’s executive director for special education. “We are always looking for ways to employ our young adults with intellectual disabilities and help them learn employable skills, and this space helps them learn new and varied things.”
The center was set up to assist students ages 18 through 22 who often have completed their schooling to continue learning real-life skills in an educational environment.
“It was developed to assist them in making a smooth transition into the community,” said Green. “And depending on the severity of the disability, we do have some young adults with us until they turn 22. Here, they can work on job readiness skills so they’re employable.”
The district’s new center took over a former teacher-support building with enough space to accommodate the 28 students in the program. It also houses equipment for making T-shirts, posters, stencils and other classroom materials, as well as space to work on projects from the program’s community partners.
“This is not busy work; it’s fulfilling a demand by doing jobs other people want done,” explained Green. “We have a menu of services these students provide. For instance, if you have a race coming up and need T-shirts, we can create the vinyl of the design and make them. They build pizza boxes and wrap silverware for our partners. They handle data entry, shredding documents and stuffing envelopes that utilize the skills they’ve learned.”
The program also sends students out into the community to work in school cafeterias, media centers and nearby businesses such as Chick-fil-A, Ingles grocery store, First Baptist Church in Woodstock and Must Ministries.
“Our students learn what it’s like to work in the real world,” said Green.
For 20-year-old Amanda Julian, the program has provided the chance to expand her education.
“It’s very different from high school,” said Julian, who is in her second year with the academy. “I’m learning different stuff like how to make posters for teachers. I’ve also worked at Freedom Middle School’s kitchen putting food in containers and prepping food for the next day. I’ve worked at an assisted living place and a pre-school where I play with little kids, help them write their names and teach them to brush their teeth. This program gives us more opportunities to learn different things that give us a shot at having a good life.”
That’s the ultimate goal of the program, said Transition Academy teacher Jeanne Rottner. “It not only helps students understand they’re no longer in high school; it’s a real transition.”
Information about the program is online at cherokeek12.net.
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Each week we look at programs, projects and successful endeavors at area schools, from pre-K to grad school. To suggest a story, contact H.M. Cauley at hm_cauley@yahoo.com or 770-744-3042.
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