SHELBY, N.C. — A local teacher is working to make a difference in the lives of students at North Shelby School.
Tenise Bester, a teacher in the Exceptional Children program, found a unique way to engage her students by having them make dog biscuits.
"Our students are mostly nonverbal," Bester said. "Some students have sensory issues, but they don't mind, they'll touch the dough."
The busy mother of three young children explained how her students participate.
"Dealing with the dough, cutting out the dog biscuits, and then after some of the products are finished, placing those in the bags and packaging those items."
The school's principal, Paula Stevens, said the idea for the school-based enterprise was cooking for a couple of years and was finally made possible because of a grant.
"Dr. [Jennifer] Wall who is over our READY Grant and our transition coordinator -- she had the idea a couple of years ago that, for this classroom, we would put in place a school-based enterprise, which is something that students can do to see the whole process of making things," said Stevens. "It involves following directions, making different things, then even selling those within the community."
The educators agreed that being able to apply academics to real-life practices is good for the students.
Stevens said, "We should capitalize on those abilities and build those for students so that they can do things that are productive, as independently as possible."
For now, they said they're selling the dog biscuits within the school with proceeds going back into the classroom. They said the hope is to make it available to the community.
Contact Jane Monreal at jmonreal@wcnc.com and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.