The vision of the Circle School-to-Work program is to introduce students to the world of work by allowing them to experience the operation of real businesses as well as emphasizing work ethics and job skills.
In 1998, we felt that the school had a very negative atmosphere and the students didn’t feel that they had any ownership in the school. We decided that we wanted to give the school back to the students.
We wrote two grants – one was a full-inclusion special education grant and the other was the School-to-Work grant. These 2 grants gave us money to purchase materials to start the first semester Careers class in 1998-1999 and to start the Entrepreneurship class in 1999-2000 Our goal for the School-to-Work program was to develop school-based businesses that would not compete with other businesses in town and to be self- sustaining.
We wrote two grants – one was a full-
One thing that people tend to forget when ordering is that the Entrepreneurship class is only a 53 minute class and that every semester over half of the students are new. Our class is not like a business where you have the same employees, year after year. Our class is constantly changing. We have been very fortunate to have some students return, year after year, and feel they have an ownership in the class. These students are very loyal and will work on projects after school and when they have time during school. It is difficult to see these students graduate. We have had many students comment that our class has given them background for other jobs.
