Selected students from the Beacon School are participating in a new kind of summer school.The Student Work and Training Program, also dubbed as the “SWAT Program”, consists of a small cadre of students who are helping to beautify the Beacon School’s campus through landscape work, painting, and general clean-up.
SWAT students are part of a vocational skills training program that focuses on teaching students the "soft" skills such as promptness, following directions, and teamwork, as well as common job courtesies that employers seek from employees.
Students are selected on the basis of need and on how successful they will be.Beginning at an entry level, students develop the skills that are transferable to other work environments.The goal of the SWAT program is to teach the basic supports that will help these young adults get and keep jobs throughout their lives.
The SWAT job supervisor provides students with guidance and also assists with the logistics of obtaining and maintaining a job such as securing social security cards, school/work papers, W-4 forms, physical examinations, and arranges transportation to and from work.
The Beacon School staff assists students and families in a variety of ways, even tracking down documents such as birth certificates, so that students can be in the work and training program.
Students are paid minimum wage for a four and a half hour workday.They also receive lots of added benefits such as a free lunch, beverages throughout the day, and transportation to and from work.Most importantly, the job supervisor gives individualized daily written feedback on work skills, praising jobs well done and continually guiding and directing students throughout the workday.The Beacon School’s SWAT program is a first step to student success in the working world.
