In the southeast wing of Bellingham High School, four young adults chop vegetables and beat eggs on low classroom tables. They combine the ingredients, pour the mixtures into square glass pans and wait for their quiches to bake in an oven that never gets quite hot enough.
These students are a part of the culinary class in Community Transitions, an extension for special education students 18 to 21 years old to learn life skills like cooking, driving a car, paying bills and exercising. The program also helps them get jobs and accomplish other goals, like going to college. Bellingham Public Schools aims to give students with mild to severe disabilities the tools to navigate the adult world after finishing high school.
Community Transitions students practice dribbling basketballs at the Boys and Girls Clubs of Whatcom County. The program regularly uses the gym at the club for recreation classes. (Hailey Hoffman)
At the start of Community Transitions, students, their families and the CT staff work together to figure out the students’ goals and create an individualized plan to achieve them over the course of three years, or through the age of 21.
“We want their last day of CT to be the first day of the rest of their life,” teacher Dominique Lantagne said.
CT has a staff of teachers, vocational coaches and paraeducators ready to help students navigate the transition into adulthood.
“They help you with whatever you need,” CT student Jordan Silas Ayotte, 19, said. “They can be there for you until you can do things on your own.”
Ayotte is learning to weld through Northwest Career and Technical Academy. He hopes to get a well-paying job, learn to drive and eventually live in his own apartment.
Student Jordan Silas Ayotte takes a quiche he made out of the oven. (Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News)
“One of the things I love is watching them transition into independent adults,” CT Administrator Analisa Ficklin said.
Community Transitions began 22 years ago with a grant, 20 students, three staff and a portable classroom at Options High School. After outgrowing that space, they moved to Bellingham High School, where they now have two classrooms, one kitchenette and one bathroom for 81 part-time students and 15 full-time staff. Once again, they’ve outgrown their space.
Charlene Kintzele began teaching at the start of the school year and has culinary, relationships, math and fitness classes. Each class has its own roadblock due to space limitations.
The culinary class operates out of one small kitchen, which isn’t sufficient for her typical class size of eight to 12 students. The stove doesn’t get hot enough; there is only one small countertop; they lack basic equipment and food storage. Kintzele said she often takes over a staff refrigerator with food from the class.
Charlene Kintzele goes through the steps to make a fruit smoothie in the split classroom and kitchen space in the Community Transitions wing of Bellingham High School. (Hailey Hoffman/Cascadia Daily News)
In the other half of the room is a small classroom where Kintzele also teaches a math class at another time. Other students and staff regularly come in and out of the room to use the kitchen or complete other tasks. For students who are easily distracted, extra movement and activity in the space breaks focus. Meanwhile, her relationships class doesn’t have a set space, so students have to move to different spots around the high school throughout the week, which is hard for everyone to keep track of.
“There’s not the routine or consistency that the students need and that we as teachers need,” Kintzele said. “For them to be able to keep track of a schedule where they’re constantly moving is difficult. It can lead to absences and a ton of tardies.”
If the district’s $122 million bond measure on the Feb. 8 ballot passes, $19 million would go toward funding the design and construction of a new space for CT.
Program faculty hope to have a larger space with easy access to transportation and proximity to a community hub, like a community college, and to student employment. They want the students to be surrounded by other adults, to have an active role in the community and to no longer be tucked away in a small wing of a high school.
The program is only anticipated to grow with the population of Bellingham. Faculty say that without a larger space, it will be a struggle to support more students. They hope to invest in the program now, so they can support more young adults later.
“Anything we do to invest in our students is an investment in the community,” Ficklin said.
