Business offers students with disabilities work-related experience

By Staff Writer: Marissa VanDaelen

Howell High School has recently re-opened a café/bakery known as TEAM Time Café. Only students with disabilities work in the café and the goal of it is that the students are responsible for all the duties common in a restaurant so they gain some work-related experience. The café is open every Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday, during first and second hour. Anyone is welcome.

“The whole purpose of this job class is so that the kids build employability skills. They do cooking, serving, and cleaning. They also engage in all the experiences of managing a business. They do marketing, ordering supplies and materials, go through an inventory list, and complete the sales for the staff and students that come through the café,” Mrs. Carolyn Bishop, a special education teacher, says.

Likewise, students in the class learn about the application process, the interview process, and job training. Since this is the second year of TEAM Time Café, some students that took the class previously have gone out and gotten jobs in the community.

“The students like it. They know that there’s some rigger in it because there’s some days that it’s hard work and we’re really busy, but they know that their reward is that they learn from it. When we’re done working, they also get to participate in it as a customer so they like that portion of it too,” Mrs. Bishop says.

Food can be ordered from TEAM Time Café by anyone. If you wish to order anything, order from the “Highlander Pride” page on the Howell Public Schools website under “TEAM Time Café”. Orders can only be made through cash or check.

“As of right now, our customers are only staff and students within the program and a few students that come in here and there that have just heard about it. We’re trying to broaden it so it can be high school wide.  Ultimately, our goal would be to have a setup to where we could service the whole high school,” Mrs. Bishop says.