Schools Give Lessons in the Ability to Work

Esteban Lopez, 18, leans against the Pavilions checkout stand, his hands hard at work above a pile of groceries.

With the grace of a seasoned veteran, he tosses cans of sweet corn, containers of yogurt and boxes of cough syrup from his right to his left hand, and then gently drops them into paper bags. He smiles at customers, engaging them in small talk.

With his black, spiky hair, white collar, black tie and blue slacks, Lopez looks like any other teenager doing an after-school job. But as a special education student with attention deficit disorder, he landed this position with a little help from the state.

Debbie Sumrow, assistant manager at the Pavilions in South Pasadena, didn’t know the nature of his learning disability when she hired him. She just knew she was hiring a special education student whose salary would be paid by the state. The specifics didn’t matter to her.

“He came in with a white shirt and tie, his resume in hand,” Sumrow said. “He came with a purpose.”

The state paid for Lopez’s first 50 hours of employment, as it does for all participants in WorkAbility I. Pavilions has since hired him, on the store’s dime.

The program was established in 1981 by the state Department of Education. At the time, WorkAbility had a budget of $600,000, operated at 20 sites statewide and included 320 students from the Los Angeles Unified School District. This year, WorkAbility I uses $37 million to fund 304 sites and includes more than 23,000 students in the L.A. district. More than 125,000 others are involved statewide.

Through WorkAbility I, special education students learn to approach employers, compose resumes and prepare for interviews. For students older than 16, coordinators match their interests and skills with minimum-wage jobs.

The program, according to its coordinators, gives special education students the self-assurance and training they need to find--and keep--jobs.

“The one selling point of the program is that our kids stay employed once they leave the education system,” said Robert Snowden, who coordinates the state program.

Though most students start out at entry-level jobs, many advance once hired full-time, Snowden said. WorkAbility coordinators, he said, try not to funnel special education students into jobs that are beneath them.

“That’s one thing we try to avoid, especially when the kids are capable of doing more,” he said.

At South Pasadena High School, where Lopez is a senior, 95 students are eligible for WorkAbility. Last year, 11 of them got jobs through the program, ranging from working at pet and toy stores to an apprenticeship with an architect.

Michael Duran, who directs the school’s WorkAbility efforts, said the program builds confidence in students who sometimes struggle through school and, later, in the working world.

“The stigma of being in special ed keeps them from approaching employers on their own,” Duran said. “For some of these kids, getting a job is the best thing for their self-confidence and self-worth.”

After participating in WorkAbility, special ed students’ “attendance at school improves. The way they carry themselves improves. Their whole self-image improves,” said Russell Ung, administrator of the Career and Transition Services Department at the Los Angeles Unified School District.

WorkAbility teaches participants what employers are looking for, Lopez said.

“It’s like pushing someone in the right direction,” he said. “After working [at Pavilions], I’ll know how to apply myself.”

The program links students with jobs they might otherwise never dream of pursuing, said Terry Stehly, chairwoman of the special education department at South Pasadena High.

“What WorkAbility does is it builds a bridge for them. It breaks it down,” Stehly said. “These are the things you have to do. These are the people you need to talk to.”

Eighteen-year-old Crystal Kim, a freshman studying art at Pasadena City College, said finding a job through WorkAbility seemed like the right way to build her resume.

A happy and easy-going young woman, Kim has a brain injury she sustained after she nearly drowned as a child. The injury makes it difficult for her to focus in class.

While at South Pasadena High School, Kim heard about WorkAbility through a friend who had participated. She worked two summers as an office assistant at a credit union and gained a sense of belonging after completing tasks such as assembling credit union membership packets for businesses.

“It made me feel kind of like a businesswoman--making those business membership packets,” Kim said. “It made me feel like part of the credit union.”

Kim was the youngest person in her office, but co-workers “treated me with respect,” she said. And she learned, from watching her co-workers, what other jobs she could aspire to later on.

Lopez said his learning disability doesn’t affect him at work. It just means that, at school, he gets distracted by other students and must take tests one-on-one with his teachers. He is enrolled in a class that operates as a kind of study hall for special education kids.

“A lot of people see [attention deficit disorder] as a weakness, but it’s just a different way of learning,” he said.

WorkAbility coordinators helped, he said, because they understood his condition and the kind of jobs he could successfully do.

For a lot of kids, they also provided a gentle nudge into the world of work.

“A lot of people, they really need it,” Lopez said. “They don’t know what to do and how to apply.”