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Claire Nailler, 16, right, hands change to fellow student Victoria Whaley in the Rocket Fuel Cafe at Mars Middle School on Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019, in Mars. The cafe is part of the life skills program at the school. At center is Linda Friedline, a paraprofessional with the district.
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Mars Area turns a classroom into a lab for learning life skills

Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette

Mars Area turns a classroom into a lab for learning life skills

In a former classroom in Mars Area High School, junior Hunter Lawther sweeps the floor and talks about cooking.

“I have to read instructions on how to make a meal,” he said, adding that his favorites are grilled cheese and pepperoni rolls.

Eight special education students at the high school on Route 228 in the 1,050 -student Mars School District are learning how to “adult” in a furnished apartment in what was a sprawling, double classroom.

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In the Life Skills Vocational Program, students learn how to cook, clean and do laundry. They also earn “paychecks” by working in a coffee shop adjacent to the academic classroom for special education, and use their earnings to pay “bills” they accrue in the apartment.

The apartment and the coffee shop are real while the pay and bills are not, but are structured to look like the real thing, said teacher Samantha Flanhofer.

Ms. Flanhofer conceived the idea for the Life Skills program and secured a $21,554 grant from the Jack Buncher Foundation to purchase materials such as kitchen equipment, washer and dryer and building materials.

Contractors with Lowe's constructed the apartment. The school district's maintenance department did the electrical and plumbing work. School board member Bonnie Weaver provided furniture.

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Life Skills students “painted, puttied, fixed a wall; they did it all,’’ Ms. Flanhofer noted.

The school board and administration approved the program and the state Department of Education had to approve the location of the rooms. Ms. Flanhofer said additional support came from her counterparts at Seneca Valley, which has a similar program.

The apartment contains a combination kitchen/family room, bathroom and bedroom. There is a washer and dryer in the kitchen area and students launder uniforms for the district’s maintenance department.

The family room contains a bean bag chair and couch as well as a tank for a hermit crab and fish, so the students can also learn to be responsible for pets. The bedroom has a bed, dresser, wardrobe and hamper.

Hunter says he is “taking what I’ve learned and asking my mom, 'Do you need any help?’”

On Tuesdays, students plan a special meal. Ms. Flanhofer demonstrates meal prep in a “cook to learn” class on Thursdays and then selected students prep and cook on Fridays, then serve the food and eat in the apartment. "Occasionally during holidays, we do fun events, such as Pie Contest, Christmas brunch (and) St. Patty’s Dessert Bar," she said.

The students also pick a cleaning chore. These jobs are divided into those cleaned daily, weekly or monthly.

The chores are “everything I see at my house,” Ms. Flanhofer said.

Senior Jenna Harrison, a student helper in the class, said she is learning along with the special education students about what it takes to run a household.

“I see my parents doing this all the time. 'Oh, this is how you clean a baseboard. This is how you fix your bed,’” she said. “Coming in here kind of opened my eyes: 'Oh, when I go to college next year, this is what I will have to do.’”

In another part of the high school building, the special needs students are running a coffee shop, called The Rocket Fuel Café, where students make and sell coffee, tea, water and snacks.

Customers are typically students and teachers, although parents and others can patronize after they pass through school security. A customer fills out an order form and hands it to a cashier. One day earlier this month, the cashier was senior Jake Bishop, who relayed the coffee order to barista Dorothy Mae Thornton, another senior, while he counted money and made change.

The special needs students also work in a student-run printing service.

“They’re doing everything we all do,” Ms. Flanhofer said. “They keep track of days off. They get paid for sick days and vacation. They have to be proactive and ask for time off.”

Each life skills student deposits their “pay” into the “Bank of Flanhofer” and get a bank statement each month. They also write “checks” to pay their utility bills – to Drippy Water, Horizon or Grasshopper Wireless and a cable company. The students choose from two packages for cable and cell service, Ms. Flanhofer said.

They buy stamps, which are stickers, from banker Cheri Pistner, a paraprofessional who works in the special education department.

Ms. Pistner said staff likes to “throw wrenches” at the students to teach them how to advocate for themselves when a problem erupts, such as a late credit card bill.

“We walked them through how to ask someone about the late fee,” she said.

She said she will also return checks for “insufficient funds” or send bills to the wrong address. Utility bills rise and fall with the seasons. “They have to realize that November and December are busy.

“Being busy and having people over costs money,” she said.

After three months of subscribing to cable, they will get a letter about a rate increase and will have to decide if they want to pay the higher fee or cut their service.

“Everything that we see every day, we are trying to do,” Ms. Flanhofer said.

She added that she wishes that she could have taken a similar class in high school or college.

“Really, the idea is a little community,” Ms. Flanhofer said. “Students ‘live’ in an apartment. They work. They have jobs. They get paid and they pay their bills. When they graduate, they are capable of knowing the foundations of how to live.”

Details: www.marsk12.org.

Sandy Trozzo, freelance writer: suburbanliving@post-gazette.com.

First Published: February 21, 2019, 3:53 p.m.

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Claire Nailler, 16, right, hands change to fellow student Victoria Whaley in the Rocket Fuel Cafe at Mars Middle School on Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019, in Mars. The cafe is part of the life skills program at the school. At center is Linda Friedline, a paraprofessional with the district.  (Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette)
Paraprofessional Luigi Lista-Brinza talks with student Dorothy Mae Thornton, 19, as she records her daily housekeeping tasks in a renovated classroom at Mars Middle School that has been turned into an apartment including a kitchen, bedroom, living room and laundry room on Tuesday, Feb. 12, 2019.  (Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette)
Andrew Rush/Post-Gazette
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