Having a student business has SO MANY benefits. Depending on what your product or service is, you have the opportunity to practice independence, money math, cooking, responsibility, and so much more! In this series, various guest bloggers (teachers & special educators) will share their tried and true experience of starting and running a student business for special education students. Hopefully these posts will give you some great ideas or inspire you to start a classroom business of your own to teach students valuable vocational & life skills! Up next is a classroom bakery business that sells homemade bread!
About The Guest Blogger:
Hi there! My name is Abby Smith and I am currently a teacher for high school students grades 9th-12th+ with mild/moderate intellectual disabilities, high-functioning autism, and behavior disorders.
How The Business Started:
When I began this business, I was a teacher for middle school students grades 6th-8th with mild and moderate intellectual disabilities. Being able to transition this business to the high school level has been one of the greatest joys of my life! The Exceptional Kneads Bakery, or EKB, is a bakery specializing in flavor of the month breads (quick breads, as some call it). The students sell to staff only. At the middle school level, EKB ran once a month but at the high school level, the goal is to increase to consistently running throughout the year.
Back in college, I student-taught at the high school level where the teacher had the students baking once a month. The classroom was a room for students with severe and profound intellectual disabilities. What I consistently noticed was the joy the students had during the time they were baking. Now, I love baking. It is my happy place. I spend most weekends baking and listening to music. It is a passion of mine. In that moment, I knew I wanted to share my passion with my students in hopes they would share it as well.
When I began my job at the middle school level, a lot of my students were working on functional reading and math skills, as well as following written directions. Instead of doing worksheets and all that jazz, I decided to make their academics more meaningful. We could hit a ton of IEP goals with this business!
Administration:
The toughest part was getting my administration’s consent to begin. I created a slideshow presentation that highlighted safety protocols, our target consumers, our financial plan, and the academic standards that this business would use. Once administration signed off, I turned to receive permission from the parents. I did give parents the option to have their students opt-out. Once I received permission from the parents, the class dove into created our business. I encouraged the students to give their input including the name of the business, the types of bread we wanted to make, how we were going to advertise and sell, and much more. We also made a list of the various jobs we would need throughout the process. And thus, Exceptional Kneads Bakery was born!
Supplies:
Obviously, the supplies needed are based on what type of bread the students would be baking that month. However, at the beginning of the year, we took a community-based instruction trip to Costco where we bought the main supplies- flour, sugar, brown sugar, butter, milk, eggs. Since the middle school level only allowed for students to have two community-based instruction trips, my students would create a more specific list for me to use in the store. However, we also created both dairy and gluten-free breads for staff members needing an allergy-friendly option. That meant gluten-free flour, alternate forms of dairy. We live in a world with many resources so that worked to our advantage! Monthly cost would be around $80-$125 depending on the type of bread. All monthly bread was sold at $5 a loaf for staff members. We normally would have around 65-70 orders a month so our profit was pretty great.
Student Tasks:
Running a business in a school is no joke. It takes A LOT of work and planning! What I found important was to keep the students in the conversations. Our job is student-focused and I never want to turn away from that. The list of jobs include:
- Design Team– this team consists of all students. They vote on the bread they wanted to make and sell each month. They had three choices to choose from and would take a vote. The students research the best recipe for the specific bread they choose. This team also creates a list of supplies they will need for each specific bread from the recipe they find.
- Marketing Team– students work with the marketing/foundations of business teacher to create order forms (online), advertisement flyers, email creation for all staff, and setting up spreadsheets for the data.
- Data & Analytics Team– students work with a teacher or paraprofessional to gather all order submissions and organize them into type of bread and any allergies. They are in charge of making sure labels are organized by position or grade (front office, grade level hallway, room number).
- Production Team– this team consists of students who are involved in the production of the bread. Before we begin the actual baking process, students create an assembly line to create the dry-ingredient bags. This allows for ease of use when mixing and following the recipe. This pushes for knowledge of measuring cups and spoons. We allow two students to be in charge of baking (with teacher/paraprofessional assistance when needed) due to space. We also have students in charge of packaging and placing labels. Packaging is plastic wrap with a handwritten thank you label. The production team also sorts the breads based on the data and analytics team. To be a part of the production team. Students must engage in a lesson on kitchen safety and pass a health and safety test. All students on the production team would wear hair nets, gloves, masks (during COVID-19), and aprons.
- Delivery Team– this team consists of all students. Students are paired and are given a delivery list from the Data & Analytics Team. Students are in charge of finding the room, delivering to the staff member, and letting the staff member know what the total amount was for their order.
- We work with our speech-language pathologist (SLP) to create a script students can use when delivering. The SLP often supports students when they deliver.
- Money is collected and brought to the business owner (the teacher or paraprofessional) who makes sure the amount was correct and change is given correctly. Once collected, the business owner turns in the money to the school bookkeeper.
IEP Goals:
When creating Exceptional Kneads Bakery, it was important for me to align the students IEP goals and academic standards to create the best academic and functional experience as possible. Quite often, students would have IEP goals such as “(Student Name) will follow written 3-step directions independently”, “(Student Name) will refer back to the text to identify unknown answers to questions” or “(Student Name) will count change back/money”. Academic standards were addressed through utilizing various recipes to work on comprehension, math like measurement, and economics. Peer buddies/helpers/facilitators were engaged in helping and assisting with the EKB process.
Staff & Student Time Commitment:
Beginning a business in the school is a labor of love. I have never seen my students more excited and more engaged than the week we spend on the bread. When it comes to the schedule, we spend a week making and preparing the bread for delivery. It may seem like a lot of time but the students are constantly moving and learning. Mondays are for dry ingredient bag preparation. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are for baking and packaging. Thursdays are for sorting. Fridays are for delivering. The deliveries have ended up being the students favorite part. They engage with all staff members, even the ones they may never see. They are immersed in the school, the neurotypical peers are jealous, and it gives my students confidence.
Additional Advice:
My tips are these:
- Start simple- don’t go for the difficult bread recipes or baked goods recipes. I started with Apple Fritter Bread and spent DAYS chopping 50 apples. The bread was delicious BUT I was more frustrated and couldn’t spend the time preparing for my students. Also, start simple so you can figure out a baseline for your students. What are their strengths? What are their needs? How much support is needed for each task?
- Rotate the students on the teams each month. Don’t let them settle into one role they may be really good at. Students need exposure to all roles in a business! That will make them the most successful post-graduation.
- Involve various related services and general education teachers- speech, OT, PT! WE LOVE THEM! It’s a new way to get service segments without having to sit one-on-one. I also paired up with elective teachers like marketing, photography, and even some of our economics teachers. They involved their students and it showed how exciting this business was.
- Be present in the process. PRAISE PRAISE PRAISE! Students need to see you involved as well. You’ll probably be running around like crazy trying to make sure everything is a-okay in all of the teams. Take time to praise your students. They will become more invested.
And…
- Give yourself grace. It takes time to start up a business. It took us several months before we got the system down! My paraprofessionals and I would often collaborate to see what we could do better the next month.
Giving my students the opportunity to do something different but still including the IEP goals and academics standards was a game-changer in my classroom. They loved learning. They wished for it to be bread week all month long. The confidence they built, the collaboration they learned, and the skills they grew made everything worth it!
Thanks for reading!
Abby Smith
You might enjoy reading:
