Conversations about special needs employment shifting from ‘if’ to ‘how’

Shalhevet High School office assistant Daniel Schwartz’s responsibilities are mostly clerical. They include mailing copies of the school newspaper, The Boiling Point, to Shalhevet families; ensuring students clean up after themselves; reminding students not to bring food or drink into the art studios of the recently renovated Fairfax Avenue campus; and other such tasks. 

Schwartz, however, is not an ordinary employee. The 26-year-old has cerebral palsy that was caused by a brain bleed at birth, which rendered his left arm and hand ineffective and impaired his vision in his left eye. 

Nevertheless, the lanky, dark-haired, yarmulke-wearing 20-something works a total of 24 hours per week between two jobs: two days a week at Shalhevet and up to four days a week at Pavilions grocery store in Beverly Hills. He has worked at Pavilions for the past 10 years and at Shalhevet since 2014. 

Schwartz may not be an ordinary employee, but his situation isn’t unique. Several other Jewish day schools in Los Angeles — including YULA Boys High School, Pressman Academy of Temple Beth Am and Perutz Etz Jacob Hebrew Academy — have hired young adults with special needs. Although there has been no coordinated effort behind such hires among the schools, Angie Bass, director of the early childhood center at Pressman Academy, said she hopes someday to see schools working together to bring more special needs adults into the professional fold of the schools.

“I would be very interested if that happened,” Bass, who interviewed a special needs applicant who eventually was hired at the school, told the Journal.

During a recent school day at Shalhevet, Schwartz interrupted his daily routine to participate in an interview with the Journal alongside the school principal, Noam Weissman; Schwartz’s mother, Hendel; and his job coach, Maria Pineda.

Weissman said Schwartz’s hire has been a success, both for Schwartz and for students of the Modern Orthodox high school. 

“He’s an important reminder for the students to behave in a menschy way,” Weissman said.

Every Wednesday and Thursday, Schwartz goes to Shalhevet accompanied by Pineda, a job coach with the Exceptional Children’s Foundation. Pineda, who will continue to assist Schwartz as long as he works at Shalhevet, described how her client manages performing what would for others be fairly simple tasks, such as operating the school’s mailing machine when he is sending copies of The Boiling Point to Shalhevet families. 

“As his job coach, I see him sometimes having a hard time, including putting a newspaper inside an envelope, a task that for us [is easy],” she said.

“He has to use one hand,” Schwartz’s mother, Hendel, said.

“At times I hear Daniel say, ‘It’s hard,’ but he has been able to manage. … [H]e figures it out, he finds a way to do it,” Pineda said.

Schwartz was hired, in part, through a personal connection: His older brother, Jonathan, an attorney, and Weissman are friends. Still, it was Schwartz’s personality that convinced Weissman to hire him. The principal recalled Schwartz delivering a toast at Jonathan’s engagement party.  

“I think what sold me is I saw him — he was giving a toast for his brother, or, more than that, he was excited to give that toast. … I was like, ‘I think this guy is fun and I think this guy could be cool to have around students.’ … [W]hen students have the opportunity to be around fun, positive people, why not take advantage of that?” Weissman said. 

But Schwartz’s concept of “fun” is a little different when he’s on the job, such as his warning a misbehaving Shalhevet student that he was being watched.

“Last week I said to one of the students, as a joke, ‘I have eyes behind my head,’ ” Schwartz said.

“He’s much stricter than me,” Weissman said. 

According to The Boiling Point, Schwartz is the first employee with special needs to be hired at the day school. Is he a symbol of what special needs adults can accomplish if given a fair shot? His mother thinks so. 

“He represents a huge community, and there are so many of them who really need employment and really need doors open[ed] for them, and I think that’s one of the messages I want to try to get across,” she said.

Jacob Katz, 32, who has Down syndrome, is another example. He works as an office manager at YULA Boys High School.

Katz joined the staff five years ago thanks to a family connection with the school’s leadership. He works 30 hours a week at YULA — without a job coach. But it wasn’t always that way. Initially, an aide from the California Department of Rehabilitation accompanied Katz and provided guidance both to him and the school staff. 

“You have to know how to maximize the interaction so it’s a good experience for everybody, and it’s not like you drop a kid like that in a work environment or a school and they’ll know what to do,” said Ernest Katz, Katz’s father, who is a clinical and pediatric psychologist. 

Jacob Katz’s co-worker and YULA Boys School administrator Chavie Gorman admitted she had reservations when Katz joined the staff. Initially, she worried that he would not be able to keep up with her; now she said he makes her better at her job.

“I love having him here. He doesn’t slow me down,” she said. “If anything, he helps me maintain the pace that I need.”

Michael Held, executive director of ETTA, one of the largest local Jewish organizations focused on programing for the special needs community, said the hiring of people with special needs at Jewish day schools is indicative of positive change in the larger community. 

“When Jewish day schools are asked about including someone on their staff who has special needs, we don’t get the same questions we used to get. They might ask, ‘How do we do this properly?’ but they are ready and willing and prepared because attitudes have changed, and that’s a big step for the Jewish community,” Held said in a phone interview. “It’s a significant improvement and, looking ahead over the next five or 10 years, it will get bigger. People with disabilities will find more employment in mainstream settings.”

Late last year, ETTA received a $60,000 Jewish Venture Philanthropy Fund grant to create ETTA JOBS, a special needs vocational program providing coaching, placement and more to people in need. The program is currently serving eight community members, and Held, for his part, expects the program to grow. 

“Adults with disabilities are being seen as productive and should be gainfully employed and not just be given busy work,” he said.

Michelle K. Wolf, executive director at the Jewish Los Angeles Special Needs Trust and a Jewish Journal contributor, who has a 22-year-old son with a developmental disability, said employment provides special needs individuals with the self-esteem required to succeed in the world. It also, on a more practical level, provides the all-important paycheck, though special needs individuals who are employed consequently receive less Supplemental Security Income (SSI) assistance than those who are not employed, she said. 

“Work provides us with meaningful activity and self-confidence. And money. Everyone needs a paycheck,” Wolf said, “even people who receive government benefits should still work.”