Glade Run Lutheran Services in Zelienople recently installed a Practical Assessment Exploration System lab for students in the transitional and independent living programs. The lab allows students to develop hard and soft career skills by providing them with hands-on simulations of real working environments. Rose Klein, second from left, is a new transitions coach and lab instructor.

School is the place for learning, both about the world and oneself.

Glade Run Lutheran Services recently installed a Practical Assessment Exploration System lab to help students in its transitional and independent living programs do just that.

“This is a game-changing tool,” said Sheila Talarico, vice president of development and external affairs for Glade Run Lutheran Services in Zelienople. “It's a simulated work environment.”

The lab, which Glade Run officials have been planning for years, allows students to explore and develop career-related expertise.

This includes both hard and soft skills in career development simulation programs such as industrial/construction and food service.

Students have the opportunity to gain key business knowledge, such as learning how to take a sick day. They also gain experience working by having access to working environments like simulated coffee shops.

The lab is particularly useful for students with such disorders as autism, according to Talarico, because it provides hands-on learning tools that help to assess career aptitude and interest.

“It helps us in the very early stages to identify what their skills are,” Talarico said. “They come to understand their own learning styles.”

Talarico estimates Glade Run serves 50 or 60 students a year from 50 different districts. Those who will have access to the lab will be ages 14 to 21.

The lab — purchased in part with a $30,000 grant — is located in a renovated part of Glade Run's transition program building.

This means it's easily accessible to students, even with pandemic precautions in place.

“They don't actually have to leave the program,” Talarico said, “which is especially important now.”

In a year when so many plans are put on hold, Glade Run has been able to move forward with a Practical Assessment Exploration System plan that was years in the making. Installed before students returned to school, it's now operational.

“Phase 2” of the project for Glade Run includes opening up the lab to other schools and organizations.

Talarico said officials hope the tools will be useful to those outside of Glade Run.

“We hope to be a resource,” Talarico said.