Schools

Roosevelt Students Get Leg Up in Work-Study Program

50 students from Theodore Roosevelt High School placed in jobs this year

Dave Wilson doesn't like to take the credit for helping special-needs students at find real-world work experience.

Instead, the instructor in the work-study program likes to pass on the credit to people like LaTavia Crawford, the people manager at Kent's , and her boss, Ricky Wine.

At the high school, Wilson teaches an employability class. It's his job to help students age 16 and older who qualify for an individualized education program and who may not excell at typical school studies to enter the work world after graduation.

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To do that, he relies on managers at businesses around Kent like Crawford and Wine who are willing to take a chance by giving young men and women a first job.

"Tay and Ricky have been most gracious in accepting pretty much everybody I’ve asked," Wilson said. "These two managers have just been great with us. They’ve just been super in placing kids and helping me assist with kids in entry-level positions."

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About 50 high school students have been placed at about a dozen businesses around Kent. Other local businesses and organizations taking part in the program include ; ; ; ; Goodwill; ; ; ; and Center of Hope.

Between eight and 10 of those 50 students placed have earned a permanent job at McDonald's.

Crawford said she knows getting your first job at an early age can be tough, so she convinced Wilson to come to her with his top recommendations.

"Most of them work out," she said. "I think it's really hard to find your first job. Nobody wants to give you a chance for your first one."

Don't think the job is merely handed to them.

The students face a number of requirements, Wilson said. They must get an application on their own, obtain a doctor's physical, get a minor work permit if under age 18, submit their own application and go through a solo job interview.

If the student is hired her or she then must go through training before learning one of several skills that range from food preparation to cooking and custodial work.

Crawford set a test for one student who later became one of her favorite employees hired through the work study program. She scheduled his interview for 6:30 a.m. on a Saturday. Her thinking was that he would demonstrate a strong determination to get the job if he showed up at the early-hour meeting.

Sure enough, the student was there for his interview.

Crawford said the student volunteers building houses for Habitat for Humanity. He told her during the interview that he knows he's a slow learner but doesn't "sit around the house blaming God" for his problems. He added he didn't want to spend his life working for the fast-food chain but wanted the experience.

"And with that story how could you not hire him?" Crawford said. "I love him to death."

Crawford said most of the high school students hired through the program work on nights and weekends. That gives the restaurant flexibility to hire many of the program students and to give their regular workers nights and weekends off.

All but one of the hires worked out, she said.

"I enjoy every single one of them," Crawford said. "And they want to work. That's the good thing about it. They all want to work."

Wine said that from his standpoint as general manager, the partnership with the high school has benefited both so far and they plan to continue it for the foreseeable future.

"It's working really well," he said.


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