Around 15 years ago, Riverside Brookfield High School adopted the ShredderWorks program from the La Grange Area Department of Special Education (LADSE). ShredderWorks is a micro-business within RB where special education students can prepare for their own work environment in the future.
The special education students shred papers for businesses and outside clients for 50 cents per pound, additionally to RB staff and students. Megan Welch is a special education teacher at RB and helps with running the program.
“We have the facilities and the shredding machines to do everything we need to do,” Welch said. “There’s a document certification that we have known as a National Document Destruction Certification, so people know when they give documents to shred that they’re actually getting destroyed and not being read.”
Many things have become more digital since the COVID pandemic resulting in ShredderWorks having less business than usual. As a result, the original sponsor who had run Shredderworks retired once students and staff returned to the building. When Welch came to RB this year, she decided to bring it back into the routine.
“During COVID, it was really hard to keep operating,” Welch said. “People just weren’t physically in the building. Before COVID, this business was making a good amount of money, operating most class hours of the day. But then after COVID, the person who used to do it retired.”
ShredderWorks is not only a small business, but it also allows students opportunities to gain real-world experience in what they enjoy and gain knowledge for jobs in the future.
“The students are able to kind of fit into the business where it’s at, which is really awesome,” Welch said. “We’re really just like a document shredding [business], but it’s a lot deeper than that.”
Special education students are given assistance when finding out how they fit into their workspace. Alongside this, they are granted guidance in what their future will look like and how the ShredderWorks program can help them prepare for it.
“They have transitional goals for what’s going to happen beyond high school,” Welch said. “It’s like a real workplace. Then we try to make it seem as very much like a workplace as we can. There’s procedures for things, and the kids have to listen to their supervisors.”
RB also receives benefits from this program by being an RB affiliated program.
“RBHS is a huge school,” Welch said. “It’s a district school, too, so the amount of shredding we do for RBHS is actually very big. It’s hundreds and hundreds of pounds of shredding every year.”
The ShredderWorks program is able to help RB save money by having this micro-business connected to it, allowing RB to save money on shredding paper and put that money towards students and the school.
“ShredderWorks is always looking for business,” Welch said. “I’ve put out some feelers in the community, flyers, and different things like that. We’ve had a couple of outside clients.”
