The Putnam County School System will expand its Independence Program for graduates with disabilities by building a training home.
The home will be built by Cookeville High School students and will be located on the Cookeville High School campus. Students will learn basic life skills. Putnam County Director of Schools Corby King said special needs students can stay with the school system until they are 22 years old.
“We have the independence program currently housed at Tennessee Tech for those students, and there’s always a waiting list and always more,” King said. “And not all students have the independence skills yet to go to Tech. But we have a group that’s finished high school, they’ve completed that, but they’re not fully independent.”
King said initially, the school looked into buying one of the construction houses built by Cookeville students and moving it on campus.
Career and Technical Education Program Supervisor Jackie Vester said she is excited about CTE student involvement in building the home.
The home will be paid for with money made by Monterey’s former construction program. Vester said a house has not been built in Monterey in six years. The money cannot be used for other things.
“It’s going to have to basically sit there infinitely unless it’s used for students to build a house,” Vester said. “The suggestion is that we move that money, which is $110,779.60 to CHS’s account to site build the Independence program house that will impact the students across the county. Then we don’t have money just sitting there that really was raised by the last group of Monterey students that built that house, and now it can go toward a good cause as our thought process.”
King said students were involved in drawing the plans, which Vester said came together in a day on digital design software AutoCAD.
School Board Vice Chair Dr. Dawn Fry said she is excited students about the opportunity.
“They are moving on and going to be able to learn those independence skills that they teach in that class from cooking and budgeting and all the stuff and work skills, all the stuff,” Fry said. “But they’re going to be able to up to something else, which means they’re growing and they know that and they’re becoming more independent.”
Vester said the house will be between the CHS Greenhouse and the softball field. By site building the house, Putnam County Schools saves $14,000 that would have needed to move the house from somewhere else.
Students from Cookeville, Monterey, and Upperman will attend the training home.
