Hands-on is the mantra at Southeastern

CHILLICOTHE - Visit the Southeastern Local Schools campus and mention you recently sampled the fare of the Bake House Panthers, the odds are pretty good the person you're talking about has shared in the experience.

The name has become synonymous with what is essentially a student catering operation that has sprung out of Carol Eplin's life skills classes, one of several hands-on, real life opportunities the district has been trying to provide more of in meeting the needs of today's students.

"Tuesday, we walked out in the hallway about 2:30 and you could smell the apple pie and the muffins," said laughing high school guidance counselor John Evans. "It's good to have those opportunities for kids."

The life skills class was started several years ago and, over time, has grown considerably in popularity among the student body.

"When we first started this, we were looking for a class that we thought would be for lower-functioning students who needed an extra elective — my specialty over the years has been working with students with behavior problems and academic disabilities," Eplin said. "It has turned out; I have everyone. I have National Honor Society students, I have football players, I have students with disabilities, and they're all mixed together in all the classes. What's really the best thing that we like about the class is that often, the students who don't do so well academically have stronger skills in the kitchen because they typically do more at home. Some of the students that may do well academically may not do as well in the kitchen, and it gives those students who typically don't find that place the shine (the chance to say) 'I'm here with a National Honor Society student and I'm showing them how to do something in the kitchen.'  It is just an amazing thing."

The class deals with a broad range of life skills, ranging from kitchen and food safety to cleaning to a lesson on tying a necktie. It's the kitchen work that has garnered the most attention, however, as the students who make up the Bake House Panthers handle food preparation and serving for the district's senior tea, its hospitality room when the school hosts events such as basketball tournaments, the FFA breakfast, prom and after-prom and an annual visit by veterans on a motorcycle trek to Washington, D.C.

"A few years ago, (Superintendent Brian Justice) made us come up with a name," Eplin said about the origin of the name. "He said, 'I'm always talking about your classes at board meetings and different things, and I can't keep calling them Carol's kids.' I let the kids vote, and we called ourselves the Bake House Panthers."

Justice and Evans said the life skills offering is not the only hands-on approach in the district. Band Director Jeff Donahue has begun a lights and sound program that teaches students how to operate lights and sound systems and put that knowledge to use in school productions, and he has also started a music technologies class to expose students to different genres of music. New ag education teacher Scott Patrick, who came over from Pickaway-Ross Career and Technology Center, will be incorporating basic equipment repairs and some carpentry skills into his ag classes.

"What we're doing is we're gearing our ag program to small motors repair, so every student who is going to be taking our ag program starting next year is going to know how to fix weed eaters and small lawn mowers and different motors that are out there, so you get to save a little money over your lifetime because you actually know how to do more than change a spark plug," Justice said.

Patrick said his hope goes a little further than that.

"If I can at least give as many of them as I can some employability skills, I don't care what job you're going into," he said. "Communication, patience, dealing with adversity. Watching them succeed is a lot of fun. It's also satisfying that when they do fail, they can deal with it."

As the present school year begins the turn into the homestretch, there is several other initiatives school staff say are progressing well, including:

• A recent investment in K through 5 language arts curriculum and plans next year for grade 3 through 5 math curriculum to better line up with the latest state testing.
• Expanding the availability of Chromebooks throughout the district and a replacement program with next-generation technology to replace smartboards as they begin to break down.
• Inaugural year implementation of a dual credit program involving high school calculus students and Shawnee State University. While only two students have been involved this year in the offering that allows them to complete coursework for credit at Southeastern that also will count as credit at Shawnee State, an expansion is in the works for next year.
• A work-study program that provides some life and financial experiences to students with special needs.
• Growth in a second-year offering of a special junior seminar designed to explore careers and skill sets needed to pursue those careers. The program operates in conjunction with the longer-running senior seminar, which teaches seniors about applying for college financial aid, requires every student to make two college visits and visit two college fairs and perform 20 hours of community service.
• Continued development of the video journalism program, which produces several public service ads each year, some of which have garnered attention outside the school walls.