Special School District – Goldstein

Julia Bailey

As close to 1,900 students head through the doors of KHS, five individuals are leaving.

Every day, Lee Goldstein takes four seniors to SSM St. Clare Health Center in Fenton, where they will learn job skills for the future through a program called the Community Based Vocational Instructional Program (CBVI).

In 2005 Goldstein moved from New Orleans and started teaching at Tillman Elementary School. This year will be Goldstein’s third year at KHS and first year taking part in the Special School District’s (SSD) partnership with St. Clare. Prior to working with St. Clare, she took students to Manor Groves Residential Facilities to teach job skills, which was opened to both seniors and juniors.

Goldstein acts as a job coach, guiding her students past likely barriers that would restrict them from being employed. The program is a volunteer position, and the goals are for students to reach employment down the road and learn on-the-job training. The first month of the program is spent in the classroom learning the policies of the hospital, social skills, writing a resume, and orientations of the hospital.

Students selected by Goldstein must fill out a volunteer application from St. Clare’s, shadow all the possible positions at the hospital and are then placed in roles that are best fit for them.

Presently, the students are working with hospital employee mentors in hopes of gaining the skills and knowledge that will help them prepare for jobs with benefits in the future. Goldstein said she sees the advantages of the program and strives for her students to recognize it as well.

“[My best memory] is when the kids recognize the value of the program on their life.” Goldstein said.

The program at St. Clare’s offers many practical and realistic jobs for the students. Goldstein has a student in the Anesthesia Tech Department, where she cleans the rooms after surgery in the procedural center and stocks the operating room with supplies.

Another student from Lindbergh is in pharmacy tech, having already obtained her pharmacy tech licenses, she places pills into bottles, under the supervision of St. Clare employees, and recently has begun delivering the medicine to the rooms.

Goldstein performs a task analysis, which is a step-by-step form of what the kids do each day. She, along with the mentor, identify and determine whether the student is doing the tasks independently, more dependently, or if it is something that he/she has not been exposed to yet. Once or twice a week she gathers the students back into a classroom to relearn the skills and provide additional tips.

After working with Special Education students, Goldstein experiences the firsthand accomplishments of the students and their growth as people, students and adult workers. She appreciates the efforts of her students and the values the students need to grow beyond their impairments.

“It takes patience and compassion and pushing people to do the best they can do,” Goldstein said. “[I recognize] that people are not their disability but to provide them with the abilities to be a contributing member [in society] and to be successful in life.”