By the time the spring of senior year comes around, many soon-to-be grads with “senioritis” will tell you they’re eagerly looking forward to graduation day.
But for a certain group of Columbus high school seniors, their first steps into the real world are a bit more delayed, and their high school careers can continue for another three years. Students in the special education transition program are getting out into the real world to learn job skills that will serve them long after graduation.
Such is the case for Grace Williams, 21, a “super senior” at Columbus North High School.
Williams, who’s happily anticipating her graduation from high school, began volunteering at Columbus Regional Health in December as part of the North transition program.
She’s one of the first of the hospital’s “nontraditional volunteers” — special education students who volunteer for a few hours per week gaining job skills and learning to interact in a professional capacity with customers and patients.
“I love it,” Williams said of her position at the hospital, where she works in the gift shop assisting customers by bagging purchases, straightening and stocking merchandise and greeting visitors.
Her favorite part of the job, by far, she says, is all the people she gets to meet.
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
