YOUTH

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Avondale student finds success with ACCEL

BY LAUREN SERRATO

West Valley View Staff Writer

After struggling in a traditional school setting in 2017, Avondale student Kallie Cook and her family sought a different academic environment that would provide oneon-one learning.

Fast forward five years and 12-yearold Kallie is thriving at ACCEL, a nonprofit special education day school in Phoenix.

Kallie is one of three students out of the 250 students in the program who has achieved and is working on modified independence, which allows her to leave the classroom and move throughout the building.

“Slowly we’re building in more and more opportunities for her to find success,” said Jonathan Evans, ACCEL principal. “Her teacher and I are pretty sure that this will lead to an independent status pretty soon. Kallie is wonderful, she’s fantastic. Her student behavior is wonderful, she’s engaging. She’s interested in the program. She’s interested in people. She’s such a kind soul, and she’s really just come a long way and just fantastic to be around.”

While the sixth grader has found success with the ACCEL program, Kallie’s mother, Kayla, said it hasn’t always been smooth sailing at home or at school for her daughter.

Kayla credits her daughter’s progress in all aspects of her life to the ACCEL program and its teachers and staff.

“There’s definitely been a change in her confidence. She doesn’t have to ask for as many things anymore, which is really cool,” Kayla said. “She kind of does her own thing at home — obviously with supervision — but even little things like taking showers on her own, which is huge, because we used to have a lot of problems. Now, she’s really good at letting you know what she needs, which has been great.”

Kayla said ACCEL has developed ways to deal with her daughter’s emotions. She was once worried that wasn’t possible.

“Aside from her independence, the biggest change in her has been her getting mad,” Kayla said. “She used to be very angry because she couldn’t express herself well enough to let us know what she needed. So that’s been a huge relief for all of us, is how well she’s able to explain what she needs and her ability to do a lot of things on our own.”

Not only has the school benefited Kallie, but the program has provided her parents with necessary tools to continue the growth and development at home. Kayla added that navigating through Kallie’s autism diagnosis and witnessing her growth would have been tremendously more difficult without ACCEL.

“Her progress definitely would have been slower,” she said. “We’ve been given a lot of tools that we’ve been able to use at home with her. I don’t think we would have grown as much as a family, honestly, because we’ve all grown together through this. And I really think ACCEL has been a huge part of that.”

Kayla added that one of the top benefits since Kallie started at ACCEL has been the supportive and understanding community, one that she admitted her family didn’t know they needed.

“We had a basic understanding of how to handle some things, but we didn’t have people who actually understood autism,” Kayla said.

“She’s the first autistic person I’ve ever met in my life. We had a very basic understanding of it, a diagnosis really; we didn’t have anything that we could use to teach her and teach ourselves how to be more patient people. It’s just been a huge transition for my husband and I, especially because we didn’t understand it. I don’t want to say we were completely impatient,

Each school day, Kallie Cook wears a homemade necklace covered with pictures of her favorite people. (Photo courtesy of ACCEL) but we weren’t as patient as we should have been through a lot of it, so ACCEL has really taught us all a lot.” Evans said Kallie’s success has stemmed from the smaller class sizes, as she transferred from a school with more than 25 students in a classroom ACCEL...continued on page 28

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27 Goodyear Girl Scout starts her own business

BY LAUREN SERRATO

West Valley View Staff Writer

A9-year-old Goodyear Girl Scout is one of the Valley’s newest and youngest entrepreneurs as she celebrates her business’ one-year anniversary.

As an animal lover, Giselle Harkins wanted to volunteer at shelters, but after fi nding out she’s too young to do so, she opened Pawsome Pet Boutique.

“I create over-the-collar pet bandanas and gemstone bracelets with charms for pet lovers, and I can also personalize bandanas and pet bowls with names or short phrases,” Harkins said. “I started my business in 2021 after fi nding that I was too young to volunteer my time at local animal shelters. I still wanted help. So, I took an online course through My First Sale to teach me how to build and run my own business.”

Pawsome Pet Boutique offers designs in six sizes, small enough to fi t a chihuahua and kittens, and large enough to fi t a great dane.

Harkins said she enjoys making the product, including shopping for material and crafting each item by hand.

“When I am at the fabric store picking out new designs I try to think about what my customers would like for their pets rather than just choosing my favorite designs. This helps my shop have something for everyone,” she said.

Since the start of her business, Giselle and her mother, Tiffany, have participated in six public events, including Goodyear’s Wag & Tag event on Feb. 12. At pop-up events, Pawsome Pet Boutique makes between $200 to $800.

After each, Giselle divides her earnings, reserving 20% to reinvest into her business; a minimum of 10% to donate to local animal rescues; and the remaining 70% to go into her bank account for saving, spending and donating.

The fourth grader’s love for animals has been evident since an early age, Tiffany said of her daughter, noting that the Harkins family has four pets, two dogs and two cats, which Giselle described as “cute and fl uffy.”

“She’s always been interested in animals. She’s wanted to be a vet for as long as we can remember,” Tiffany said. “When we started homeschooling, I asked her what she wanted to do that she wouldn’t have been able to do in regular school, and she wanted to volunteer. Then we found out she was too young, so we brainstormed a lot of ways that she could help animals.”

In addition to volunteering, Giselle wanted to earn her own money.

“We were deciding on chores, and she was the one to say she wanted to create her own business, and so we started brainstorming what she could do and pair it all together and then this thing was kind of born, and it seems to be getting bigger by the day,” Tiffany said.

Giselle credits her leadership and business skills to her time as a Girl Scout.

“My favorite part about being a Girl Scout is probably earning badges and helping the community and the cookie

Giselle Harkins is the owner of Pawsome Pet Boutique. The 9-year-old credits her time with the Girl Scouts for her business and leadership skills. (Photo courtesy of HMA Public Relations)

season, too,” Giselle said.

“When she fi rst started girl scouting, she was pretty shy. She gained so much confi dence, so much knowledge and business skills and otherwise, and where I’ve seen most of her growth is

Scout...continued on page 28

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