Teens going green

WEST JORDAN — It looks like a Christmas card: Rows of lush red, white, pink, even jingle bells poinsettias lining South Valley School's greenhouse — not a bad showing for special-needs teenagers taking their first steps into job-skills training.

Ninth- through 12th-graders from throughout the southern Salt Lake Valley are raising about 4,000 poinsettias for sale this holiday season through South Valley's vocational greenhouse program. About two-thirds of the plants, ranging from $8 to $16 apiece, have been preordered; the rest are for public sale.

But fund-raising isn't the goal.

Rather, the school wants to "give these guys an opportunity to succeed at something," teacher Cherie Gundersen said.

"The No. 1 benefit I see for these kids is (for them) to develop some confidence and self-esteem in their own abilities," she said. "They need to feel good about themselves — and they do."

South Valley aims to help students with special needs gain life and vocational skills and become contributing adults. The school serves high school students and young adults in various vocational training programs, including woodworking, framing, engraving and a Life Design program aimed at helping young adults with disabilities become more independent.

David Neely, who oversees the greenhouse, started his work in 1980 inside a 3,000-square-foot facility. Since then, the program has grown to use 11,000 square feet of greenhouse, where students nurture plants from poinsettias to houseplants like jade and aloe vera to, in the springtime, geraniums.

It is the only vocational greenhouse for students with special needs of this magnitude, principal Scott Thomas said.

"It's a great place for students," Thomas said. "They thrive in these environments. They love to get their hands dirty, build something and see the end result.

"If I had my way, we would have these programs all over the state."

The greenhouse program accepts Jordan District high school freshmen through seniors in special-education courses, be they students with learning disabilities or those who are deaf or blind. Participating students visit South Valley for up to two hours of daily instruction, learning basic job skills from staying on task to cooperation. They even get paid, Neely said.

The students think that's pretty neat, their teachers say.

But it's not the highlight for 15-year-old Jamie Petrovich, a student at West Jordan Middle School.

"We get to learn how to act at a real job," she said.

Anyone can buy plants at the school, located at 8400 S. 1700 West. Visit web.jordan.k12.ut.us/svs/greenhouse/index.htm for more information.

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