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Everyone needs a cup of coffee to start their morning. This is what the exceptional students at Bainbridge High School concluded when they planned a program called Bearcat Brew To-Go last Wednesday. Bearcat Brew To-Go involved students taking orders, brewing the coffee, and delivering the coffee to staff members. The program is an excellent way for students to build life skills to take with them after they graduate. Mel Siebels, Special Education Teacher at Bainbridge High School, stated that the program has different life skills that students work on, 

“They have a couple of different life skills that they work on. So, teachers fill out a spreadsheet, and they look and read the menu in the spreadsheet to see. Okay, this is their order. How many creamers do they get? How many sugars? And things like that. So, they look at the order and they determine how to make the coffee, and then they look at fulfilling that order accurately.” Siebels continued. “They follow those step-by-step directions of how to make coffee. So, it builds independence and confidence within them. Afterwards, they build their social skills by delivering the coffee, greeting teachers, saying ‘thank you and enjoy’ and using that customer service interaction that they could use outside of school. 

Siebels students participate in a variety of activities that incorporate life skills. For instance, students showcase their customer service skills by selling ice cream in the cafeteria on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Students have to greet customers, take their orders, locate the customer’s ice cream within the ice cream drawer, hand the ice cream to the customer, and thank them for their business. 

Students also stock the snack cart by properly filling and placing the items in the precise location. Additionally, the students have classroom jobs that pertain to secretary duties.

Siebels stated, It was a great way to truly practice and learn, build and work on those skills that we talk about. We read in our chapter book about how to greet somebody, how to count money, how to interact and order. It really gave us that opportunity to take what we do on paper and put it into real life.” Siebels also spoke on the personal benefits, outside of life skills, the program offers. “It’s been great to expose our students to all of the things happening around our school. They don’t really get to see everything that goes on in this school or see the different teachers. So, it’s a great way to build that relationship between those teachers that may not ever have a student with cognitive disabilities in their class. It’s great to build that relationship and form that bond and truly be our bearcat family that we talk about and preach about.”