Colorado ESSER Report: Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief Fund

A professional-grade espresso machine and an ice cream maker may not seem like educational tools, but with a $3,000 ESSER Rural Program Development grant, the West Grand School District has turned them into teaching machines.

West Grand’s money used the funding to bolster its Career and Technical Education classes, which were disrupted during the pandemic. Remote learning was no substitute for the hands-on learning the program provides.

West Grand School District 1-JT in Kremmling with fewer than 400 students received funding from the $141,000 rural pandemic aid grant program to update equipment and supplies for the CTE program, splitting the funding between the food science and business classes.

The food science supplies included items to teach about canning, processing meat into sausage and jerky and how to make homemade yogurts and cheeses.

In the food science program, students learn where food comes from, how we make it and all about food safety. 

“We got some ice cream makers so the kids could learn how to make ice cream and sorbets,” said Emmylou Harmon, math/science/vocational teacher and district health coordinator. Added to all this was a fryer for the chicken parting labs and a dehydrator for making jerky and fruit leather.

And that professional-grade espresso machine?  The business students’ club, Future Business Leaders of America, is using the espresso machine to upgrade student skills and the drinks they sell. 

FBLA runs a school store/coffee shop called the Mustang Market. The machine meant “they could sell espresso drinks in their coffee shop versus just selling coffee and hot chocolate,” said Jennifer Hooks, West Grand High School principal. “It makes all the same types of espresso drinks that you could get from a coffee shop.

The market is both an internal fundraiser and a way for the students to learn how to run a business, Hooks said.

“They make all the menus,” she said. “They make all the pricing. They do all of the accounting for the business and budgeting and ordering. Every class period, they rotate students who run it, and then those students are kind of rotated out every week. In this way, everybody gets the opportunity to go in there and make the coffee, and collect the money.”

The shop, which also sells a variety of snacks, is not open during breakfast time or the lunch hour. The district food service provides free food during those times.

However, “Kids are allowed to get a pass from their teacher to go to the coffee shop and get something and come back to class,” Hooks said.

Not surprisingly, the espresso drinks are a hit for students and faculty.

The Mustang Market in West Grand School District has been bouyed by ESSER funding to buy an espresso machine.