photo by: YouTube screenshot

Lawrence school board members met on Monday, Oct. 27, 2025.

At the former Pinckney school building, young adults in the Lawrence school district’s special education programs are learning life skills like cooking and cleaning in simulated apartments, and starting next semester they’ll have the chance to work at the on-site bakery too.

Lawrence school board members heard about the progress at the building, which is now known as Community Connections at Pinckney, during their meeting on Monday. The building, which was an elementary school until May 2023, now houses specialized programs such as the Community Transition Program, or C-Tran, for young adults ages 18-21, therapeutic classrooms and an alternative suspension program.

C-Tran focuses on helping special education students build independent living and social skills as they transition into adulthood. Currently, the school serves 50 to 60 students each day.

Jenna Viscomi, the administrator at Community Connections at Pinckney, said her vision is not only to provide work experience for the students already at Community Connections, but to also open additional opportunities for high school students after they graduate.

The Pinckney site now has two simulated apartments so the students in C-Tran can learn how to cook meals, clean and manage their own living space. This is the first year that the students have been able to use these apartments.

“Every week, each classroom must prepare a meal, budget for a meal, shop for a meal and clean up after a meal,” Viscomi said. “And so there’s always students in those apartments cooking. We also have to clean the apartments once a week, because as a young person, it’s really important for you to know how to clean your own shower and to clean your own toilet and how to vacuum and how to do things to keep your own space clean.”

Viscomi added that students are beginning to personalize these spaces and make them their own.

“The students loved the apartments so much, they started to bring in their own personal things to place in the environment,” Viscomi said. “So they have done some decorating, which is really great, but it has made a huge difference in how we teach … for our students.”

In addition, the students participate in the Job Olympics vocational skills event every March at Johnson County Community College, and Viscomi said this year, several students from Lawrence placed first in multiple events.

“We actually have a room that we call the vocational room where classes or students can go in to work on those job readiness skills, those pre-job skills that are so important to work on, to get ready before you go and get a job in the community,” Viscomi said.

Viscomi said most of the students, who work a variety of jobs while they’re at the facility, will leave with job offers or will already be employed elsewhere by the time they are ready to leave Pinckney.

As the Journal-World reported, students in the C-Tran program will soon have the chance to receive job training at one of the district’s newest projects: a bakery at the Pinckney building that will produce locally sourced grain products for school meals. As the Journal-World reported, the school district received a nearly $100,000 grant for the program from the United States Department of Agriculture. Viscomi said the bakery is going to start employing students next semester.

“We gave (the staff) a semester to kind of get their feet wet and figure out what to do,” Viscomi said. “So starting second semester, we will have students that will work in the bakery. They’re very excited about that.”

In other business, school board members:

• Approved the board’s legislative priorities for the Lawrence school district, emphasizing its commitment to closing opportunity gaps for students and preparing them for college and careers, as the Journal-World reported. Each year, the board revises the priorities statement for the district and creates the basis for advocacy efforts and informing its legislative partners of the greatest needs in the district.

• Approved a contract between the school district and Behavior Health Allies for the 2025-2026 school year in the amount of $270,000. The contract will provide special education services documented in students’ individualized education plans.

• Held two executive sessions: the first to address personnel matters involving non-elected personnel, and the second to discuss potential litigation with the district’s legal counsel. No action followed either session.