Students Helping Students

The Department of Special Education’s HIRE ME Program Provides Education Through Experience

For two mornings each week of the academic year, local high school students meet bright and early with Ship undergraduates to gain practical experience that will prepare them for the future. High school students with disabilities from Shippensburg Area and Big Spring School Districts receive coaching and work experience at job sites across campus. The undergraduates, working as job coaches, receive experience working with and fostering the development of students with disabilities.

Overseen by Dr. Thomas Gibbon, associate professor and chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Special Education, the Helping Individuals Reach Employment Milestones Everyday (HIRE ME) program is part of the College of Education and Human Services (CEHS) Special Education program. The program is administered

by a graduate student and employs approximately fourteen undergraduate students to help high school students develop and practice vocational and social skills each semester. The roughly thirty high school students have the opportunity to work at job sites on campus like Reisner Dining Hall, Starbucks, Ezra Lehman Memorial Library, Dunkin’ Donuts, and multiple administrative offices, including the CEHS Office of the Dean and CEHS Department of Social Work and Gerontology.

The program was a great working experience. It can help us when we get out there and get a real job.

Jamie Clark, Big Spring High School ’21

“Students with disabilities are getting actual training at an actual job site,” Gibbon said. More often than not, he explained, these students will be pigeonholed to certain jobs when they graduate from high school. They will be assigned jobs like cart return or basic food service without the chance to use higher skill sets like clerical skills.

“This program gives them the opportunity to be a competitive employee by experiencing real work and learning hard skills at a variety of different job sites,” Gibbon continued. “They also learn soft skills such as working with a supervisor, appropriate interactions, conduct, dressing for work, and showing up on time.”

Jamie Clark, a Big Spring High School senior helps to prepare lunch with Ship students through the HIRE ME program. Pictured far left are graduate assistants Rachel Oliver and Kaitlyn Andrews.

HIRE ME provides the school districts a more realistic option to competitive employment for their students, and the districts use the program as a first introduction to work. After graduating from the program, the students receive assistance finding and maintaining a long-term, paying job.

The high school students are not the only ones learning. Much like they would in a practicum or internship, the undergraduates are gaining paid experience working directly with students with disabilities.

“I have three jobs, all on campus, and this is the only one that I can feel myself using in the future in my career and actually making a difference in someone’s life,” said senior Rachel Oliver, a dual special education and early education major. “This is another experience I get to have outside the classroom, seeing something different that can help me with the skills in my career in the future.”

“They’re developing skills that they can use,” said Kaitlyn Andrews, the graduate assistant currently administering the HIRE ME program. Many of the job coaches are dual enrollment students in special education, elementary education, social work, or psychology, she added. “We’re giving them the opportunity to develop and fine tune those skills that they will need.”

Andrews, a graduate student in the school counseling master’s program, gains her own share of experience through HIRE ME. She identifies job placement sites for the high school students; develops the training system for the job coaches; and, manages hiring and clearance processes, scheduling, and data collection. Her role provides hands-on experience in nonprofit work, program development, and working with different constituents to accomplish tasks.

“I have to collaborate and communicate with so many people across the board, and that is something that I know I will have to do as a school counselor,” Andrews said. “A lot of the key features that I have to develop for that career are things that I have to have for this graduate assistantship.” For more information on the HIRE ME program, visit the College of Education and Human Services website at ship.edu/coehs.

At Dunkin’ Donuts, Derek Zimmerman from Big Spring High School works to make sweet treats with a smile.

[I’ve] learned that communication is important, and working together is good. If you don’t know anything, you should ask for help so you don’t mess up or make it worse for yourself.

Derek Zimmerman, Big Spring High School ’21 (above)