East Valley High Balloon Company Takes A Light Approach To Education

East Valley High School freshman T.J. Frazier got in on the ground floor of the balloon company.

The business is barely off the ground - pardon the pun - and Frazier knows how lucky he is.

“I used to get into trouble, lots of fights and stuff,” he said. Now, he has something constructive to do. “I have people looking out for me.”

Special education teacher Pat Fera chose Frazier as one of the handful of kids to help start Air Affair, a business that will sell and deliver balloons to high school kids and, eventually, anyone within the boundaries of the East Valley School District. Frazier is an average student with learning problems.

Sales of balloons will start in earnest after Christmas break. The balloon cart will be out in the halls during class breaks and lunch. If the administration clears it, the special ed kids will sell their product at basketball games, track and field meets and football games next fall.

“If a parent has a bad morning with their kids at breakfast,” Fera said, “I want them to be able to call us and say, ‘Would you run a balloon up to my son or daughter.”’

The way Fera sees it, the balloon company stands to make Frazier and a bunch of other kids rich.

Rich in real life wisdom. Rich in the ability to handle the public, make change at a cash register, work under stress.

Take Valentine’s Day, for instance.

Fera knows from experience that Valentine’s is the craziest day all year in the helium balloon business. He learned that in Salem, Ore., where he first developed a balloon company for special ed students.

“By the end of the day, I had pulled 20 kids in,” he said.

Fera already imagines decking out the wheelchair of special ed student Bridget Bleistein with balloons for deliveries around the school.

That kind of high visibility for special ed kids will be something different at EVHS, Fera said. The special ed program, with 90 kids, has been at the high school for just two years. Before that, the district collaborated with Central Valley.

A thousand dollars from Education Service District 101 gave Fera the chance to buy a cash register, rolling cart and inventory of balloons, ribbons and other supplies.

He figures that in maybe three years the program will be self-supporting, with a couple of highly motivated regular business student running the company and interpreter/parapro Mary Hirst overseeing the enterprise.

And the real payoff, he said, will come when students like Frazier graduate with a resume that includes a couple of years of selling balloons, plus some retail experience outside the school, plus Fera’s name as a reference.

“That’s a marketable kid,” he said.

“This is just one more way to get a student to attach to school. One more reason to get them to stay in school.”

Knights of knowledge

Seventeen students in the extended learning class at Greenacres Junior High last week won first place in the state in the Knowledge Master Competition, a Jeopardy-style contest. And thanks to computers, the eighth- and ninth-graders did it without ever leaving their classroom. Sample question: Name a state bordered by a gulf and an ocean.

Teacher Sandra Allen led the following kids to victory: Amanda Barrett, Shannon Brown, Lisa Conley, Emily Crossen, Kjersti Gemar, Kasey Graham, Ryan Hallingsworth, Kristin Ingalls, Elizabeth LaFrance, John Miller, Mario Reillo, Melissa Simmons, Hally Sprank, James Temple, Sarah Temple, Amber Thompson and Angela Wagner.

Want to vote?

Mark two dates on your calendar if you want to vote in the Feb. 6 levy and bond elections in school districts across the Valley. Register at any fire station or most school offices until Jan. 6. If voting absentee, you have until Jan. 22 to register. But that requires a trip downtown to the Spokane County Courthouse.

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