I I take that back to the folding of the pizza boxes. And I mentioned how that's actually a good activity because it it teaches them to be focused and to be very precise on folding the box. Um express a desire and or demonstrate a willingness to work. Uh this is really on the student. They need to be able to have that willingness to want to go to work. 85% attendance at school in all classes. That's not negotiable. And maintain a minimum grade point of 2.0. 0 they have to have all employment forms completed and cleared before starting work. And there is um each package is about eight forms long. And these are forms that have been gathered through the workability program and they're everything from a uh parent guardian permission or health report and there's some information there that the student can fill out on their own.
We have two types of students that come to that are going to go to work. We have the returning students that have a package already on file with us that has been vetted through our HR department and therefore they've been approved to work. And then we have new students and new students have the same paperwork except something added to it and that is the Homeland Security I9 uh information meaning the right to work in the United States. Um, if you're still confused of what that is, that's, you know, you got to show uh one of either like a passport or a social security, California ID, something like that that shows that you have the right to to work here in the United States. Each year, whether they're returning or new, they have to fill out a new packet. We take the packet and like I said, I review it, give it back for any um any mistakes that might be there or revisions and then I'll make sure that it's approved and it goes to HR.
As soon as HR gets it and approves it, they're good to go. The one thing we like to remind the students and parents and guardians is that paid placement is not a guarantee. It is a privilege. We have some students working at a sports um goods in San Leandro called West Coast Sporting Goods. They're down off where are they? Williams and Elvarado. It's it's a warehouse. But if you have anyone that plays baseball or soccer here in in the Bay Area, they probably go there to get a lot of their their sporting goods. And here they do hanging clothes for displays. They sweep floors. Um they break down boxes. The owner of this company has a child who is special needs themselves. And so that owner is incredibly incredibly supportive and empathetic of our u coming there and working with him and his staff. He's just a gem to work with.
Um and so here's some of our students doing with the what he said they do. They're working in the sports store. uh they don't get pizza there, but he does award everybody with a a dip in the big candy bowl at the end of the workship. So they're if you ask them what they like, it's it's about the candy. So that's that's a good thing for them. Let's take a look for the criteria for subsidized placement. the students case manager, school staff, or any other member of the IEP team can make referrals to the workability specialist. That would be me to identify eligible students. And yes, there is a referral form that this uh the teachers get every year so they can fill that out and we'll sit down and talk about it. The workability specialist will evaluate the work readiness of the student and I will do this on with cooperation of the teacher.
It could be in cooperation with their OT as well and maybe cooperation with their speech therapist if it's if it's going to take that uh for the students what to include behavior history attendance and academic performance priority will be given to the students in the following order. The students in the adult transition program uh they're high school special needs and high school who are 18 to 22 years of age. Um I do want to make this uh disclaimer about why we focus right now so much on the adult transition students for placement. Obviously it's a little bit more difficult for students in the high school uh regular high school to do that because of the way the high schools are structured. Maybe they can partner with the RO. But there's also a state law that came into effect last year where if the student worker is under 18 years of age, then um several people at the work partnership location must agree to be fingerprinted and those fingerprints have to go on file with the state.
So because of that, our excuse me, adult transition students are over the age of 18. So, it's much easier for us now to go ahead and and get them into work uh that way. Uh it's unfortunate that that's how the the the new law reads, but um it's a little bit of a handicap for us because there are some students in the high schools, especially seniors, that are not 18 that possibly could work through workability, but it's just too difficult to get the businesses to agree to being fingerprinted. We have students at Shabbo College Cafe. Uh they wipe the tables, chairs, take care of things in the cold case, organize the chips. They will use the sanitary red liquid buckets. If anyone that's worked in food service before knows that's a mandatory thing. You have to use that uh red bucket that's got the sanitation liquid in it.
This is actually a very culturally social area for them to work because there's a lot of students in there and a lot of the students eating or studying or doing their homework will talk to our students. So, it's really good for that communication aspect of it. And here's some more of them working. That's one of the job coaches there. Um, this organization that runs the Shipo College Cafe, they specialize in running these types of cafeterias. They also run the run the one out of Aloney College, but Aloney College was just too far for us to try to get to otherwise that would have been another opportunity for us. So, what's in it for the businesses, you might ask? Well, this is what they get. They get student workers that are excited and ready to come to work. Uh they get our job coaches, our paras that we train as job coaches so they can be the go-between the student workers and the employers.
And like I said, we make sure that the job coaches are are well educated on what to do in cases of emergencies. Um, it's my job to always put the the uh local businesses at ease because then go over the insurance coverages that we have for them. The employee wages are paid by the workability grant from CDE. Uh, we always look for potential additional grants. So, if you know of anybody out there that's just dying to give up some money, let us know and we can build it into the workability grant. The employers consistently tell us that uh their employees and their customers really like seeing our workability students there. Um I think it's good uh publicity for the business and also we have flyers that go out when we attend events that shows their business prominently displayed. So in a way they're getting free work, we're paying for it, they're getting students that want to work and they're getting marketing.
I mean, it's a win-winwin all the way around. We have students in action at RTA's Food Center. We have two locations, one on A Street and one on Jackson. And they will do whatever it takes in that store. These are great stores. You know, if if you're looking for anything out of the way and you don't have time to go into a huge chain market, check these stores out. full meat departments, anything you want. And if they have a great takaria for food to go, if if you want to dive into that, but they really welcome our students. Um, this is the one on A Street and this is the one on Jackson. The one on Jackson, the store manager, her son is a special needs student, so she's very supportive of our um program as well. I I mentioned how it's it's pride and the the businesses can have their their armed workers there and it's good for the customers.
this location. I was able to get them to give our workers the RTA's official polo shirts for them to wear when they went to the location. And this really made you you could tell by the picture down in the the corner with the four of them. There there's a sense of pride with the but these folks there. But not only that, it helps separ know that they are there working. And um both stores are very uh heavy on Spanish speaking and fortunately a lot of these students are fluent in Spanish so they can have conversations with the customers and help them as well. Our local business partners here they are again Walgreens outlet Chapo College Cafe West Coast Sporting Goods RTS food centers. Each year I try to find three more. Um, if you know of any businesses you think that would be willing, just pop it in the chat or get back to me or Michelle or Yoko.
We'd appreciate that. Um, that would be huge for us because that means we now have more opportunity, more business partners where we can have our students work. And quite frankly, if we could get more businesses where they're able to work walk to, it helps speed up the amount of time where they can work. So instead of relying on public transportation, as great as a learning experience as that is, it takes away from its time away from the classroom that's not being spent at the work. Each business partner will receive something suitable for framing. Uh we started this last year. It's like a soccer little league sponsor trophy. Thank you. And uh we started to give these out last year and it was a big hit. They really appreciate receiving these. It was something that they didn't get before, but now they get that with a nice typed letter showing appreciation.
Um and how much uh we look forward to working with them next school year. So this is important. We're not just thanking them for now. as we hand them this with the letter, it's a thank you and planting this seed that yes, we want to come back next year and August 10th, I will be calling you or coming back in person. So, it serves two forms. Thank you and yes, we think that much of you. We want to continue the business. So, we've talked about uh how what workability does to support the students off-campus. Let's talk a little bit about what about those that don't leave the campus because not everybody is going to go to work off site. Okay, but workability still works with them. This is um I love this is a collaborative day for Valentine's is a Valentine's craft making day at San Lorenzo Royal Sunset.
Uh they spent the day making these crafts and they're going to sell them to other students at Royal Sunset and or the parents that come in to pick up their their students as well. It's quite successful every year that they do this. Um I do help them uh get some funds for the materials that they use and we make sure that um before this is done that they've practiced their soft skills in the classroom because everyone that approaches the pie is a customer. So we want to make sure they know how to greet the customer, thank the customer, and for those that can work through the money handling, they can do that as well. This is also at Royal Sunset. We have a coffee cart business first time. So, we help uh excuse me them purchase their coffee and some of the other supplies that are there.
This is really going gang busters for them because they can make their own coffee um in the cafeteria and then bring it out to the car and go around the different classrooms and so forth. And they are selling their coffee. So again, it's one of those things we get to work on ahead of time in classrooms the soft skills. They get to put those soft skills into practice while they're working with the coffee cart. And you can see in the middle picture, there's a little box there with money in it. So again, working on currency, how to work with the money, um how to handle things, and how to be thankful for the customer's business. This was the first year for this coffee uh cart and we look forward to expanding this to another location. Um not necessarily Hayward uh Sunset since they already have a Mocha Cafe, but we're thinking of probably San Leandro uh the new San Leandro adult school down there.
So that would work well there. This is at Cer Valley at Roy Johnson. They make gift parts, gift bags I should say, that they hand out their hand out. They they're for sale during uh holiday season. They also make these lacquer boxes that you see, which they will sell as well. Um we did get permission for one day during the week to actually sell up at uh Cafe 4 in Caster Valley, which is up at the top of the hill. Um if you know where the three crosses are, it's in there. So, we were able to get one day for them to go there and sell these things. It worked quite well. Um, they weren't willing to give us any more than one day, but we took one day and that was a fantastic experience for the classroom. They also sold some honey. So, Rory Johnson, uh, the teacher there, uh, Moi, she is a beekeeper, so she and she lives in Casterelli, so she has a label for Roy Johnson honey.
And so wherever they can, we'll go out and we'll sell the honey as well. So this these are things that are taking place on campus for those that can't get away or don't want to leave the classroom for workability. And then we have one last thing. Uh we just started this a couple months ago, so we're going to have our first batch of dog biscuits coming up in May. Uh this this is a packet that walks a class through if they have access to a kitchen. That's the key. So like Caster Valley, um there's a class that has access to a kitchen, right? Uh Hayward, they have access to a kitchen. Um it tells you how to make, mix, and bake dog biscuits. Then you bag them up and you sell them. So, there are other workability districts that are doing this with great success.
So, yes, I saw something I liked. I stole it. So, we're going to do this and I think it'll be really good. Um because I mean, come on, you got a dog who doesn't like dog biscuits. When you look at the recipes, they might be pretty tasty just on their own. So, we'll see how um this works. We should have one classroom ready to do this in May. So, let's talk a little bit about our success and what we've done. So, the workability program uh the CDE, California Department of Education, uh takes a look at all the IEPs that are in um the systems and they will make a determination that our Mid-Ame County SULPA needs to serve uh a set number of students. What that means to service su student is a partial list as you can see on here. That means we're walking them through the things that we said.
Career assessments, uh, work-based learning, internships, employment training, co collaboration, classroom community. This is what we work through um in order to consider that we have served the students that we're supposed to. And we do this with support of the teachers. And yes, there is a database um in workability through the CDE that we go through to justify this. The other assignment from the CDE is that they take a look at the total number that they want us to serve and they give us a percent of that that they want us to place in business work sites. We were to place 25. We placed 46 so far today. As far as students served, we were to serve 169. We served 194 where the extra and the served come from. These are from working with classrooms that weren't in the what the CDE um database that I want to say.
So the example of that would be um in at Hayward High I started working with uh the teacher Miriam Vin who's at Hayward High in her classroom. Her students were were not in the database. So they're now built into the database because they've been served but we have a good working relationship with them at this point. So those are our successes so far. Now, our strategic partners, we have quite a few of them. And if it wasn't for our strategic partners, it would be very difficult for us to do a lot of the things that we do, especially as we look to transition students from high school to the next step to adult transition andor the life after. So, the uh Department of Rehabilitation, we partner with uh Regional Center of the East Bay, we are just starting a partnership with them. We have the Eden area uh RO and the college disabled student services.
Now talking about the do we also work with Pacific Coast Community Services. Now, between these two organizations, it's like having a one-stop shop for myself or for the teachers because as we identify students that maybe they can actually work away from workability, they have skill sets, they have mindsets where they could actually work someplace else. These organizations can help us make that happen and they could work through the summer. They literally can work all year long. The advantage to it, it's better training for the students, better work um opportunities. It frees up some of us our budget so we can then bring in other students in order to take advantage of the workability um finances. So, it's really just yes, they're being supported from workability, but their pay is being subsidized by another organization. So, Pacific Coast Community Services, they work with uh the do.