In LaRue County, 460 students received specially designed academic and social/emotional instruction, both in the regular classroom and separate classrooms during the 2023-24 school year. LaRue County Schools rose to provide the need for these services including but not limited to speech therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, orientation and mobility therapy, braille, sign language, job/life skills instruction and community based work transition program and instruction.  

Through a partnership with LaRue County Schools, the LaRue County Cooperative Extension Service collaborated with exceptional education teachers, therapists and instructional assistants to provide life skills instruction for their students at LaRue County High School through hands-on cooking lessons in the kitchen with a strong focus on nutrition.  Both the Family & Consumer Sciences Extension Agent and Nutrition Education Program Assistant teamed up to provide these lessons.

The participants ranged in age from 14-21 and were current students at LaRue County High School in either the Exceptional Education classroom or Community Work-Based Experience classroom.  With hands-on cooking lessons provided every other week for a series of 8 classes, important life skills were taught that included math through measuring ingredients, understanding proportions and following sequence in a recipe; time management through prioritizing and patience; teamwork through assigning tasks and coordinating to get to the end result; nutritional knowledge through instilling healthy eating habits and learning to make informed decisions about their nutrition.  Lesson plans from Teen Cuisine were utilized to accomplish these tasks. 

Upon completion of the program, survey results showed that 83% of the youth improved their frequency of drinking soda, ate whole grains more frequently, and made healthier choices in general.