UMFS day school's expansion gives students more options

UMFS day school's expansion gives students more options

http://www2.timesdispatch.com/news/2010/nov/09/umfs09-ar-640281/

Richmond, Va. --

Goat cheese, balsamic vinegar, olive oil and garlic.

Before this year, you wouldn't have heard Kivon Matthews, 16, talking about foods like that, much less cooking with them.

Now she has expanded her horizons in a new culinary program at Charterhouse Day School at UMFS (United Methodist Family Services), part of an expansion that more than doubled the school's space and increased enrollment by more than half.

"We cook things we didn't know about before," Matthews said. She added that even if nonculinary student Chris Martin, 15, turned up his nose at anything involving olive oil, she liked it.

When the school's new space is celebrated today on the UMFS grounds with a keynote speech by Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones, an open house will feature dishes prepared by Matthews and others in the new culinary program.

They have made country ham biscuits with orange and honey butter; tarragon chicken salad; roast beef and cheddar rolls; hummus served with vegetables and pita; mushroom tarts; and platters of domestic and imported cheeses, including marinated goat cheese.

One classroom will be filled with desserts like the seven-layer cookies that Matthews was making in a Friday "bake-a-thon" under the direction of culinary instructor Marie Fitzgerald.

"My day-school kids are awesome," Fitzgerald said. "There are no discipline problems. They get to cook. They get to eat. They're awesome."

Charterhouse Day School offers specialized education for middle school and high school students who aren't successful in a traditional school setting. Each classroom has a teacher and a behavioral specialist to deal with issues that range from learning disabilities to emotional disturbances to Asperger's syndrome. Before the expansion, the school had 25 to 27 students; now it has 42.

The $210,000 renovation created five classrooms in two UMFS cottages that most recently had been used by a program for senior citizens with Alzheimer's disease. Space increased from 5,000 to 11,300 square feet.

A new cosmetology program teaches work-related skills, much as the culinary program does. Cosmetology facilities are within the new school space, while the culinary program uses the kitchen in the UMFS dining hall.

UMFS also has a residential treatment program for 24 young people. About 285 active senior citizens live in Guardian Place apartments on campus.

Other services include foster-care programs, adoption services, intensive behavioral treatment, school-based services, and Project LIFE to prepare students for independent living as they age out of the foster-care system.

The new day-school facilities got a thumbs-up from several students last week.

Martin especially liked the new computer lab, which includes an interactive electronic whiteboard that he described as being like a game show set.

Norman Browning, 13, was also impressed: "It's a lot nicer than the old building."