With over thirty local businesses working with the Windsor High
School Workability program, the program has been helping WHS
seniors develop important employment skills for several years.
Thanks to the participation of two new business partners, the
program has developed a new Community Based Instruction program
that allows students to work at the businesses during the school
day with supervision from the program coordinator.
The Workability program coordinator Sandy Betschart, English
teacher Vickie Nordeen and School to Career class instructor Robin
John collaborated their efforts and class periods to create
Community Based Instruction (CBI). The new program takes students
that would benefit from extra support on the job and gives them two
and a half hours of paid supervised work time during the school
week.
Betschart said there were eight students in the program when it
first launched last semester and now there are nine. Long’s Drugs
in Windsor and the Airport Health Club are working with the
educators to help the students.
“This is the first year we’ve done this type of program,”
Betschart said. “We’ve had after school and job shadows before but
as far as having students. on the job during the daytime in a group
setting this is the first and it has been really good for
them.”
The students meet Betschart once a week dressed for work to join
the regular staff at one of the two aforementioned businesses.
Betschart said the program stresses the importance of
responsibility.
“First, each of them is required to wear a work uniform (black
pants & polo shirt). If they come to school without it on their
scheduled day to work, they have to stay at school while to rest of
their group goes. Second, they need to show up to school on time.
We leave at 8:05 a.m. with or without them. And third, they need to
demonstrate appropriate language and behavior at all times. If not,
it would jeopardize their ability to continue in the program,” she
said.
The Airport Health Club Facilities Director Shirley Baillet
students learn a variety of tasks while working at the club.
“For one thing they get day to day job instruction, it gives
them the feeling of what it would take to go to a job. They work in
the towel room, the membership office to learn what it is to put a
packet together and they take care of members’ children for the
time they were in there,” she said.
Baillet said the club has two childcare departments and the last
Windsor High School student that watched over the children really
liked it.
Mayra Mateos, 18, is that student and she said she wants to
continue working in the childcare department.
“I love kids and l like to be around them,” she said. “I had to
make sure the kids were ok, not fighting and I cleaned up the toys
and read and colored with them.”
Senior Stephen Sierra and junior Laura Alcazar also worked at
the health club last semester. Alcazar said she liked the towel
room and maintenance jobs best while Sierra said he enjoyed taking
care of the pool.
“I learned how to clean the pool, clean the filters and keep the
temperature of the pool. They put a machine in the pool to clean it
and I often need to wash the bag in the machine,” he said.
Sierra also has prior experience working at the Windsor Long’s
Drugs where he, Mateos and Alcazar will work next in the
program.
“I faced the products (on the shelves) and carried stuff from
the back,” he said.
John said working at Long’s Drugs will give students cashier
experience but that the biggest benefit students gain is a boost in
their self-confidence.
“There is a huge increase in their self-confidence in some of
them. Dealing with the public, not being afraid. We practice
handshaking and how to introduce yourself, general communication
skills,” she said.
Long’s Drugs employee and former manager Donn Walker said he has
worked with the students in the program for a couple years and he
is appreciative of their work ethic,
“We turn them loose and they do an amazing job, I wish our other
students we hire would do as well,” he said. “They follow the
instructions to the letter and they are very astute at basic
chores, like facing and they don’t seem to get bored with it. They
don’t goof around they don’t play and I’m always just very
impressed by them.”
He said the company is so grateful to the students for their
work that they threw the kids a party at the end of last
semester.
“In December when the other group was here we had a little party
here and gave them a box of chocolates each and thanked them for
coming in and helping us out,” he said.
The Long’s Drugs store manager William Patterson III has worked
with the high schools Workability program for several years.
Betschart said this new program for the students has proved
successful.
“We just finished our first semester and it went better than I
could have ever expected! The students are very proud of the work
they do,” she said.
