NYS D ivision on C areer D evelopment and T ransition Council for Exceptional Children

Transition Mini-Grants 6-Month Update: Considerations to Share

1. A very brief description of the overall purpose/goal of the project

The purpose of this grant funding was to create an opportunity for 12:1+1 special education

students at Franklin Academy to learn about designing, manufacturing, and selling custom

designed clothing in the school store that they run. This goal would be met through the use of a

Cameo Silhouette machine and heat press. These students are all working towards a CDOS-CC

and this project offers valuable opportunities to build essential 21st Century Work Readiness

skills.

2. Progress made to date

● The following items for this project have been purchased using the grant money: Cameo

Silhouette 3 Machine, Heat Press Machine, 2 Cameo Tool Sets, rolls of vinyl, blank t-

shirts in various sizes and school colors, and clear plastic water bottles.

● A school laptop has been utilized to get the Cameo Silhouette 3 set-up and ready for

staff/student use.

● How To videos have been searched for and saved to Google Classroom as a tool to teach

both staff and students.

● The Cameo has been used several times to test cut simple cardstock and vinyl designs.

● Research on the Cameo has led us to find a wide array of projects that could be created

by students. Originally, we only intended to create custom clothing designs, but research

has led our staff/students to brainstorm other options such as; custom water bottle

designs, husky themed Christmas ornaments, and Husky themed stickers.

3. What you have learned so far (i.e. Impact on K-12 or professional student career development, methods used to measure student outcomes, student-focused planning etc.)

● I have learned that this machine offers a lot of opportunities for students to use their

creativity while also building their work based learning skills. For example, as we´ve

been learning how to you the machines, they have collaborated, worked in teams, and

practiced following directions.

4. Challenges and/or barriers encountered

a. The first major challenge that we encountered was our machine and heat press being

delivered to the wrong location. Both were ordered over the summer and should have

been delivered in mid July. Our hope was to spend the summer months getting things

set-up and learning how to use the machines. However, the machines were delivered

to the wrong classroom. After filing a claim and reaching out to the company multiple

times, both of the machines turned up on the first day of school in September.

Unfortunately, this put us behind our plan of practicing over the summer.

b. The second challenge that we encountered was the unexpected learning curve that

goes along with the Cameo and working with vinyl. We ́re finding that we need to

take things slower as we teach the kids to use the machine. Luckily, they all remain

very interested in learning and creating items to sell in the school store.