Starting next year, the high school will have a life skills apartment in special education teacher Scott Dion’s room (615) for special education dept. classes to be held in. This apartment is the result of a new law being passed that every school needs to provide students with disabilities a program to help them transition into the real world.

The classroom will be staged as an actual living quarters with a bed, kitchen, laundry room, dining room table, and more. With this new addition, students with disabilities will learn how to transition to living independently once out of high school.

The layout of the apartment is going to be based upon that of Ludlow High School. Some schools have the transitional space in a completely different building than the high school, but Ludlow also has theirs right in the school.

School Superintendent Nick Young was able to find about $20,000 in the budget for this apartment to be added into Dion’s room. While Principal Diana Bonneville says that she does not expect all of that money to be used, they are very appreciative of the amount that could be put towards this new addition. Fine/Applied Arts Dept. Chair William O’Neil is currently working on the staging of the apartment in his woodshop classroom. He will be building furniture and cabinets to be used in the apartment.

Special education teacher Robert Stackow will teach the upperclassmen and post grad students life skills and transitional services, while Dion will teach the underclassmen.