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Students and families at Metro School, a CMS school for children with special needs, opened a new café space, where students serve up coffee and baked goods — while gaining real-world job experience.
Members of the school community applauded as they cut the ribbon on the new Metro Café at the uptown school. Trays of cookies sat on tables, coffee dispensers waited on countertops and jazzy music played as the student-members of the “coffee crew” stood in their white chefs’ uniforms to welcome guests.
“Welcome to coffee crew,” said student Jaiden Anderson. “Welcome to home living!”
The Coffee Club at Metro School started out selling coffee out of a portable cart as part of the school’s Community-Based Instruction program. But school administrators wanted to create a more authentic work environment.
“We want to make it a real-life workspace and not just on a cart because you typically wouldn't buy coffee on a cart, right? You would come to a cafe,” said Metro School principal Fermandi Dyson. “So we want to make that replicable and just kind of be able to use it so that they can transfer those skills into a job setting.”
In the new café space, students will manage orders, prepare food and drinks, and interact with customers. Catina Jenkins is the PTO president at Metro School. Her son is joining the Coffee Club program next year.
“As a parent of a child with special needs, sometimes you don't know what your child will be able to do,” Jenkins said. “But once you see a blueprint, you can see your child possibly stepping into that blueprint or possibly doing something different. And it is a very rewarding feeling.”
The cafe came together with furniture provided by IKEA and help from local Girl Scouts.
