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TRANSITION TEAM RECEIVES STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION AWARD
Transition Team Receives State Board of Education Award
The Special Education Transition Team at West Chicago Community High School has earned the Illinois State Board of Education’s highest honor in the Those Who Excel Awards, Award of Excellence, for creating the WeGo Tees in-school business with their students last year.
The WCCHS Transition Team consists of teachers Katie Sullivan and Jen Walker; Speech/Language Pathologist Allie Torres; and Personal Care Assistants/Job Coaches Lucia Carlos, Laurie Majchrowski, and Isaac Spear. The team works with students age 18 to 21 who have intellectual or developmental disabilities.
The COVID-19 pandemic created a challenge with placing Transition students in local businesses to learn essential job and social skills. The T-shirt business idea was born from staff problem solving a way to keep the students in-house. A grant from the the Illinois Division of Rehabilitation Services helped to cover the cost of equipment and supplies to begin printing T-shirts at the school. Students learn important skills like customer service, stock tracking, and time management. Some students work on the design, some print the T-shirts, and others fold and package for delivery.
WeGo Tees first order was from the school: 600 Wildcat Pride T-shirts for freshman orientation for the fall of 2021. Since that time, the students have had many other orders from around the school, and may consider taking orders from the community in the future.
To learn more about the program, visit www.d94.org/wegotees.
Picture: WCCHS Transition team members (from l) Isaac Spear, Jen Walker, Katie Sullivan, Lucia Carlos and Laurie Majchrowski celebrate their nomination for the Illinois State Board of Education’s Those Who Excel program last spring. Not pictured is Allie Torres.
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About Community High School District 94
Community High School District 94 provides an outstanding educational experience for approximately 2100 students in grades nine through twelve at West Chicago Community High School. WCCHS serves the communities of Carol Stream, Warrenville, West Chicago, Wheaton and Winfield. For more information, or to be removed from press release distribution, contact Becky Koltz, coordinator of communications and community relations, at (630) 876-6215.
