Colville Valley Junior Academy is a small but great school. One unique aspect of the campus is, it offers three industries—a bakery, a health food store and a carob candy factory—where students work. The industries help students pay for tuition as well as provide valuable work experience.
At the bakery, students help form dough into bagels and make cookies. In the store, they weigh and bag bulk foods, face items carefully on shelves, and work as checkout clerks. Last fall, board members renovated the store, moving the entrance and rearranging shelves and displays to produce an attractive and efficient layout. In the carob factory, melted carob is spooned on cold trays and put in the freezer where it solidifies into candy clusters. The students bulk package 10 pounds per box. On a regular workday, they package five to six boxes, so at the end of the month Azure Standard, a food company from Oregon, picks up dozens of boxes. From August until May, 591 boxes with 120 pieces or 10 pounds of the carob delicacy in each have been sold.
