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Pleasanton Unified School District students with intellectual disabilities and other special needs will now have the chance to improve their skills in the workplace thanks to the recent opening of the district’s CVS Health Skills Lab.
Located at Village High School, the skills lab, which officially opened on Sept. 17, is a near-exact replica of a CVS store where students who are enrolled in PUSD’s Workability Program can get hand-on learning experience working in a retail setting. The lab features a counter with working registers, fully stocked shelving with products and other things that were donated by CVS Health.
“This gives them work experience so that when they go look for a job on their own after they leave the district, they have some experience to back them up to help them get that job,” PUSD workability specialist Janeen Rubino-Brumm told the Weekly.
Following his visit to the skills lab on Tuesday (Sept. 23), U.S. Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Livermore) said in a statement to the Weekly that the space is all about “dignity, independence and opportunity.”
“These training program ensures students with disabilities are equipped with technical and professional competencies. By giving students with disabilities a space that looks and feels like a real workplace, Pleasanton Unified and CVS Health are showing what true partnership can achieve,” Swalwell said. “Every young person deserves the chance to build confidence, learn skills, and find their purpose in the workforce. I’m thrilled to see this innovation right here in my district, and I’ll continue to support keep these programs in Congress that open doors and change lives.”
Rubino-Brumm said while the lab will continue to be housed at the Village High School site despite the district’s plans to turn that area into the Educational Options Center — a marquee project listed under the $395 million Measure I bond.
According to the district, the Workability Program, which is funded by the California Department of Education, “provides work opportunities and career education, experience and information to local students with disabilities enrolled in high school and transition classes”.
Rubino-Brumm said about four years ago, she heard about a CVS Skills Lab opening in Southern California and that since then, she has been working with the company to open what is now the first-of-its-kind skills lab in Northern California.
According to her, the lab helps juniors, seniors and post-secondary students with intellectual or other disabilities become more confident in working in a real-world environment while also giving them valuable work and life skills.
“What this does is it allows our students in the transition program and in our other two high schools to learn retail skills, customer service skills … stocking, organizing, greeting people … things like that,” Rubino-Brumm said.
She said as a parent of a son with intellectual disabilities, this work is really important to her because she understands how important it is for students with disabilities to gain independence following their time in high school.
“That is always our goal, is to help our students become independent, confident and employed so that they can contribute to their communities, which is really what they want,” Rubino-Brumm said. “They want to contribute in meaningful ways just like everybody else in their life and this will enable them to do that.”
She also said given that the employment rate for people with intellectual disabilities in California is so low, school districts like PUSD must do everything they can to help this population of students succeed after their four years of high school are over. In February 2024, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the employment-population ratio for individuals with disabilities was 22.7%. For comparison, the employment-population ratio for those without a disability was 65.5%.
“It is a key to our future success,” Ethan Sorensen, a PUSD student enrolled in the Workability Program, said of the new skills lab.
After learning the necessary work skills at the lab, students enrolled in the program can work with any one of the 16 businesses that offer jobs to these students through the program. Some of those employers include Grocery Outlet, Meadowlark Dairy, Open Heart Kitchen and the Pleasanton Golf Center.
However, Rubino-Brumm said the program has lost funding over recent months and that student hours have been capped, meaning they have a limited number of hours they can work for pay.
She said the Workability Program has been looking at nonprofits, the city and most recently, the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop to continue providing spaces for these students to work. Eventually, she hopes they can get more funding so that the students can continue making money.
“The whole point of (the Workability Program) is to get our students to the point where they can go out and work and feel confident in what they’re doing,” she said. “It’s just so sad and disappointing that they can’t continue to make the money now like they have been.”
