Slidell Junior High School teacher Tammy Cornish reviews snack options with Logan Upston, left, and Adara Ledet at the newly opened home lab in Slidell. The lab is one of two model homes that St. Tammany students can use to hone life skills that are crucial for gaining independence after high school.
Slidell Junior High student Megan Weibelt investigates a kitchen cabinet in the newly opened home lab for students with exceptionalities.
Teacher Tammy Cornish gives student Thaike McGee a tour of the appliances in the home lab kitchen.
Teacher Amanda Spilling and students Adara Ledet, left, and Logan Upston enjoy leisure time with a board game in the home lab's living room.
Logan Upston checks out the drawers in the home lab bedroom under the watchful eye of teacher Amanda Spilling.
Slidell Junior High School teacher Tammy Cornish reviews snack options with Logan Upston, left, and Adara Ledet at the newly opened home lab in Slidell. The lab is one of two model homes that St. Tammany students can use to hone life skills that are crucial for gaining independence after high school.
Slidell Junior High student Megan Weibelt investigates a kitchen cabinet in the newly opened home lab for students with exceptionalities.
Teacher Tammy Cornish gives student Thaike McGee a tour of the appliances in the home lab kitchen.
Teacher Amanda Spilling and students Adara Ledet, left, and Logan Upston enjoy leisure time with a board game in the home lab's living room.
Logan Upston checks out the drawers in the home lab bedroom under the watchful eye of teacher Amanda Spilling.
St. Tammany Parish public school students with special needs now have a place to call home where they can practice skills that most would call chores, but to them are keys to independent living.
Two new home lab centers located in Slidell and Mandeville, open to every school in the system, serve students with exceptionalities, the term that replaced the previous 'special education' designation. They officially opened their doors March 14 and already have served nearly 150 students, said Kerri Soo, director of Students with Exceptionalities.
Located on the campus of Mandeville High School and in Slidell at the former site of the school system’s Early Childhood Development Center, the home centers allow high school and junior high students to take learning life skills to a new level.
“We want to do anything and everything to promote independence, and we think these centers push us to a new realm for our kids,” said Susan Munster, assistant director of Students with Exceptionalities.
The home labs include everything that a modern home or apartment needs: living rooms stocked with board games, bedrooms with beds to make and closets for hanging clothes, laundry rooms with a washer and dryer; and kitchens with modern appliances and dozens of cooking and baking utensils. The students will use each room in the model home to practice life skills from cooking, cleaning, washing, using household tools and appliances and even spending leisure time.
The homes also include an activity center space where students can work on vocational kits that are designed to hone skills used in job settings. The students also use the kits in the classroom, but in the home lab, they can practice what they learn.
“For example, they can work on a kit tailored to (the kind of) sorting you might do in a warehouse or restaurant, then immediately try out what (is) learned on the silverware drawer or with laundry,” said Munster.
Classes rotate visits to the homes to get hands-on lessons on dozens of tasks, from household chores to vocational skills.
Depending on a class or even an individual student’s abilities, the lessons cover nutrition and grocery shopping; meal planning and setting a table; washing and folding clothes; using appliances and cleaning equipment, such as a vacuum; making a bed and hanging clothes in a closet; playing puzzles and board games; loading the dishwasher; cooking and reading a recipe; and other skills they may need practice doing in a real home setting, Munster said.
A group of Slidell Junior High students, who recently had their first visit to the home center, took in the space wide-eyed and excited.
They jockeyed for position in the kitchen to check out the utensil drawers and cabinets. They had fun playing games in the living room and especially deciding what they were going to fix for a snack.
Student Carly Collins opted for pizza. “Can I throw it up in the air and say 'Mamma mia?'” she asked with a smile.
Soo answered, “I love your ambition but for today we're just going to learn how to heat it.”
Part of the snack lesson included skills such as learning that a pizza needs a flat pan to prepare and matching the utensils for the other snacks. But Soo said the possibilities are endless with what the students can learn in the home lab setting.
“This is only the beginning,” she said.
The Northshore Mandeville Kiwanis Club already has partnered with the school system to build raised garden beds this summer so that students can learn the basics of growing vegetables and caring for a garden.
Slidell Junior High teacher Amanda Spilling said that the home center is the perfect way to bridge the lessons from the classroom to real life.
“We can do all of this in the classroom but until they truly apply it, they won't completely understand the life skill that they are learning,” she said. “Having these home centers are so important to their independence.”
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