Collaboration and Coffee Show Success of Inclusive School Efforts

For a group of LaRue County students, every morning starts with a fresh cup of coffee and putting smiles on the faces of their peers and teachers.

Students in Heather Bewley's class at Larue County High School are working the school’s coffee cart each morning to develop collaborative communication. This project serves as a larger part of their Learner Profile, the district-wide initiative to prepare students for life beyond the classroom.

As LCHS teacher Bewley explained, this coffee cart project helps students beyond basic interaction skills.

“Every morning my class starts off with the coffee cart,” she said. “We take orders through a Google form, travel with our mobile coffee cart to the classroom corresponding to the order, and then make the coffee for the teacher who placed it. This helps my students in a lot of different areas: life skills, customer service, food service.”

School-based enterprises like the Coffee Cart aren’t just for show; they’re a need. According to the National Technical Assistance Center on Transition School-Based Enterprises can provide students with their first work experience, as well as, opportunities to learn key career and social skills. School-Based Enterprises can include career awareness, career exploration, and career preparation concepts. For LaRue County students, the Coffee Cart Initiative is one way to implement inclusive and equitable education methods and develop vital transition readiness skills.

LaRue County Schools Director of Special Education Savannah Boone noted that the coffee cart’s success is due to more than a good cup of joe.

“While I would say it has a little to do with the coffee, the bigger cause for its popularity is the joy through learning it brings to the start of every school day,” Boone said. “Our teachers are committed to ensuring our students have the opportunities they need to not only be successful now, but in life beyond the walls of LCHS.”

The LCHS community enjoys seeing the coffee cart coming down the hallway, noted LCHS Principal Justin Craft.

“This exhibition of learning is exactly what we want happening in the lives of our students,” Craft said. “Just the other day, I was walking past the coffee cart and the students and their teacher were calculating the profit margins of their individual coffee sales and comparing it to the margins of Starbucks. This level of learning is not only about developing collaborative communicators, but it also contributes greatly to building responsible individuals.”