Special education students learn job skills to launch a career in Colorado's outdoors industry
Cherry Creek School District is offering very Colorado-specific skills to help special education students at Smoky Hill High School succeed after graduation.
Teacher Brady Goode and his student Damari Ceoper spent some time on Friday making a pair of skis shine like new, even though they don't belong to either of them. In fact, Damari has never even been skiing.
Damari is a junior special education student at Smoky Hill, and this is part of his work-based learning class. He and his classmates learn skills they can take into the workforce after graduation. Sometimes they run a cafe, but recently they have been learning how to wax and make minor repairs to skis and snowboards.
"It's pretty fun to do," Damari shared.
A skier himself, Goode, says he got the idea when he was getting his own skis waxed. Since we live in Colorado, he recognized that repairing and refurbishing skis could be a job his students could take on after they leave Smoky Hill.
"The kids are great. We love what we do. We have fun," said Goode. "These students have the ability to critically think, to make decisions that could impact a good day or not a good day on the slopes."
The program has a partnership with the Colorado company Purl Wax to provide wax at a discount, and they primarily work on student and staff skis and boards for a $20 fee. Goode says they know how to do it all.
"These students will develop the skills to do edges, to do hot hand waxes, to fill in what they call course shots," explained Goode.
The class is also teaching them much more than job skills, like how to regulate emotions
"Incorporating critical thinking skills, problem solving, and these facing adversity," said Goode.
He says it has already improved the lives of alumni who have taken those skills into the real world.
"By doing things that give them an opportunity to feel success, they will show success later on down the road," said Goode.
The program has been teaching ski and snowboard refurbishing for two school years during the winter, and now they are adding bike repair for the fall and spring, so students have one more skill to bring to the outdoor job market.
