The investment in the Indian Prairie School District 204’s STEPS program can be seen in and around the Naperville and Aurora communities, Principal Kim Maloney said.
Students with special needs who participate in the adult training program are getting hired, employers are becoming loyal job creators and trainers, and some students are going onto college, Maloney said.
“We’re grateful of our journey to model behaviors and doing the unthinkable in getting young people to believe they can do what others don’t think is attainable,” Maloney said. “We dream big.”
Officials with Indian Prairie’s student services department at a recent school board meeting shared the successes STEPS and other services/programs for its students with special needs have generated, even as the pandemic posed challenges over the last two years.
More than 90 students are enrolled in STEPS, formally known as Supportive Training Experiences Post-Secondary, according to the district. Of those students, 19 have paying jobs.
The presentation from Maloney and Christina Sepiol, assistant superintendent for student services, listed cited At Home, Buffalo Wild Wings, MOD Pizza and Macy’s as first-time employers of STEPS students.
And several large and small businesses have consistently hired STEPS students, including Texas Roadhouse, Meijer, The Home Depot and Jewel-Osco. Some have even become job-training sites for students to learn and develop skills, Maloney and Sepiol said.
The STEPS program has its own Performance Assessment Exploration System lab, known as PAES, where students can learn and practice as many as 155 different skills.
“I would invite not only (the school board) to come over and check it out, I would invite the community to come over and check it out,” Maloney said. “I think it’s very important to understand what that practical assessment lab is.”
Board member Supna Jain said the skills lab was one of her favorite visits during her her year on the board.
“I will never forget what I saw occurring in those rooms. I can see why, what with the energy of your staff and students,” Jain said.
According to the district, 55 students were going out into the community for jobsite training in February, significantly higher than the 12 who did the same a year ago.
Sepiol and Maloney said the COVID-19 pandemic has played a role in the number of jobs and training opportunities available to STEPS students.
“With the pandemic and people not going back to work as quickly as they may have in a regular school year, there were more opportunities out there,” Maloney said. “I would like to say that the staff and I have taken advantage of those opportunities also.”
According to the presentation, several students are either enrolled or in the process of enrolling in colleges like the College of DuPage, University of Wisconsin-Whitewater and Aurora University.
Other highlights from the presentation include:
Four students are involved in the Project SEARCH hospital internship program;
Several students are participating in community service and community partnership opportunities;
In-house and in-district work training opportunities include making and delivering ice packs, putting together COVID surveillance kits and shredding documents.
“Don’t tell us we can’t because we will,” Maloney said.
The district’s student services department includes special education programming and services and the district’s preschool program. Indian Prairie has more than 3,000 special education students, about 11% of district enrollment, Sepiol said.
Sepiol noted test scores for students with Individualized Education Programs stayed level or grew during the pandemic-impacted school years. Staff made that possible, she said.
“As soon as the buildings were open, they came in. … (Staff) saw the students one-on-one because that was the safest way to do it. I think that’s why we have either the academic growth or treading water situation, which a lot of students didn’t even tread water during that time,” Sepiol said.
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