RMHS students help special needs children

Rolling Meadows High School students recently collaborated in the construction of a privacy cube for neighboring District 15 John G. Conyers Learning Academy, which operates a preschool program for children with special needs.

Rolling Meadows High School’s Future Educators of America and the Career Technology Education division’s woodworking program worked together on the project.

Last fall, under the guidance of faculty sponsor Linda Pribyl, FEA raised funds to buy the wood and supplies to make the cube, and teacher Patrick Fonsino’s woodworking classes constructed the cube using a Computer Numerical Control machine and other technology. FEA students then painted the finished cube.

Privacy cubes give children their very own place to crawl into, with a comfortable, private space to read or play quietly without distractions. FEA officers and the student from the woods class who worked on it recently carried the completed cube across the street to Conyers Learning Academy to the delight of the preschoolers who will be using it.

“This project was a wonderful collaboration of two very different areas in our school, working together to help children in our community,” said Pribyl. “Our students are very talented and willing to think creatively to solve a problem.”