Sisters school program named best in Oregon

A program for young people in Sisters was named Oregon's Exceptional Program for 2017 at the February 16-17 Oregon Transition Conference in Portland.

"The Sisters Transition Program is designed to prepare our students with special needs in the Sisters School District for adulthood," Sisters High School Principal Joe Hosang wrote in an email. "This includes job training, internships and employment, socialization activities, classes at COCC, exercise opportunities and much more."

He noted the program, headed by Josh Nordell with a dedicated crew, has a philosophy of "no barriers."

"This is a very creative group of people," Hosang said in his email. "Additionally this same group started our Unified Sports Program and secured a $300,000 grant to fund a regional coordinator so all schools in Central Oregon can have a Unified Team."

Unified Sports joins students with special needs and general education students on the same basketball, soccer or softball teams.

Nordell is a life skills/transition teacher for Sisters School District and is case manager for more than 20 students. He said the transition program is officially in its first full year, although he and other staff members have included transition activities in students' days for the past five years.

"Over the years we have served youth in a wide variety of capacities," he said. "The goal is to design a program to meet individual needs as best as possible while balancing the needs of the collective. We currently have eight active transition students, then when we do our community activities we take 13 to 17 students."

The program provides training in independent living skills, career and vocational training, recreation and leisure, social and interpersonal issues, community connections and post-secondary options.

Nordell believes success comes from a cooperative approach.

"It's a group of people who are willing to work together, care about each other; willing to question and challenge each other, but at the end of the day knowing we are on the same team," he said. "No matter if you're an elementary student, parent or in middle school, high school or trying to figure out how to be an adult or in a position of leadership. We are in this together, so let's work together to do life better."

Dan Saraceno, a youth transition specialist who works with the program, said older children often end up helping younger ones. He said it's important to teach life skills to help students become independent, but job training is critical too.

"Part of independence is having employment," Saraceno said, adding that five students in the program currently earn money by doing custodial work at the high school.