Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, May 31, 1990                   TAG: 9006010313
SECTION: NEIGHBORS                    PAGE: S-5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BETSY BIESENBACH
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

OCCUPATIONAL SCHOOL GRADS EAGERLY ENTER WORLD OF WORK

"I'm going to save it up to go shopping for a big stereo," he said.

Edwards is one of 15 students who will be graduating from the Roanoke County Occupational School this year.

Principal Larry Shouse said that this year, every member of the class has plans for after graduation.

Fourteen of them will be going on to sheltered workshops, either directly into the workshop itself, where they will be paid for what they do; into a work adjustment program, which will prepare them for the workshop; or into an adult developmental program, which will help them learn new skills and maintain the ones they have.

The 15th student has made other arrangements, Shouse said.

Although many other graduates feel they have limited opportunities for finding jobs in the Roanoke Valley, Shouse said the outlook for his students is no worse than for similar groups in other areas.

"Most bigger locations will have a sheltered workshop of some sort," he said. "We're lucky to have two." Both the Tinker Mountain Workshop and CHD Industries, the valley's two workshops, have "quality programs," he said.

The only difference between them, he said, is that CHD Industries has room for more severely handicapped people.

Local businesses also have been helpful in placing Occupational School graduates in their work forces. Most businesses that hire students, Shouse said, approach the school administrators themselves. "They are willing to work with us," he said. About one-third to one-fifth of the students might eventually leave the workshop for jobs in the regular work force, Shouse said.

They need to start out in a shelter, he said, but "We want to take them as far as they can go."

The students, Shouse said, "want to work." An added incentive, besides the paychecks some of them will be bringing home for the first time, is that "they look at work as an extension of their social time, too." They often meet old friends from school at the workshops, he said. Edwards is looking forward to starting his job at Tinker Mountain in June. His job will involve counting, sorting and packaging items for local firms.

"I like it there," he said. "It's more fun there."

All of the students have been spending two days a week at the workshop already. He's a little nervous about the job, he said, because "you've got to do it fast."

John Stone seems to have his job down pat. He can repeat all of the steps in the packaging process from memory. He, too, will go to Tinker Mountain, where he will do "all kinds of things."

Lisa Pritchett is headed for CHD Industries, and said that so far, the job "is really fun."

She is looking forward to buying her own clothes for the first time with her own money. "It's going to feel different now," she said.

Erika Stevenson will also go to CHD Industries. She hopes to help her family pay its bills, and to buy clothes for herself. Some of her cousins from Washington, D.C., are coming for her graduation, she said. "They are really happy for me."

"Some of these kids I have high hopes for," Shouse said. With time and the training they will receive at the workshops, they may someday find outside jobs, he said.

Students Curtis Woods, Laurel Beaver, Laurie Glass and Lori Brammer will be joining Pritchett and Stevenson at CHD. Pam Carpenter will go to Tinker Mountain. Of the five other graduates going to workshops, three will go to Tinker Mountain and two to CHD.