The student run smoothie stand opening in the Seneca Valley Intermediate High School joins other drink enterprises springing up in Butler County High Schools.

Since 2017, a coffee shop has been selling hot coffee, tea, cappuccinos and healthy snacks to Seneca Valley Senior High school students, staff and faculty.

Staffed by exceptional students in a space just off the senior high's main lobby, Raider Roast, is open from 7:30 a.m. to 9:45 a.m. every school day.

The shop grew out of an earlier coffee delivery service started in the 2014-15 school year.

That was also the origin of the Rocket Fuel Cafe that opened in the Mars High School at the beginning of the 2018 school year, said Samantha Flanhofer, the life skills teacher.

Her students started with a cart that traveled from homeroom to homeroom selling items before moving on to a full-blown coffee shop across from the library right by the main office in the high school.

Open from 7:30 to 10:45 a.m. every school day, the cafe sells coffee, various teas and hot chocolate.

“They work with members of the Gifted Club and the French Club,” Flanhofer said of her students. “It's been a huge success.”

Manning the cafe as either managers or baristas teaches her students lessons in work etiquette, money exchanges and social skills, she said.

Those are the same lessons that students working in the just-opened Rock Shop at Slippery Rock High School are being taught, said Melanie Cole, transition coordinator at the school.

Started Sept. 5, the Rock Shop is located in the concession stand at the front entry of the high school. Manned by special education and regular students, it dispenses snacks, beverages and coffee from 7:30 to 11 a.m. to students who have study hall in the school days first four periods.

Cole said, “It's going great. The students are respecting the freedom they have been given. They have not taken advantage of it.”

Life skill students also man the coffee shop called the Knoch Off Cafe in part of the former library at Knoch High School.

Open for every period, except lunch, of the school day, the shop dispenses coffee, health snacks and tea.