Central Kitsap High School has a number of different classes and clubs that provide for the rest of the students body. One of these classes is the student store otherwise known as the Cougar Den. The Cougar Den is open during all lunches during the school day and they sell various numbers of drinks and snacks to students. Though it is a student store and may appear to be run by students, there are supervisors that help the students run the store.

Kerri Ferate is one of the teachers here at Central Kitsap and is also the teacher that runs the store. She has been running the store for four years as of now and finds it “very fun to have an active store environment be supervising instead of just teaching lessons out of a book and doing assignments.” Although the class is not all just fun and games.

While many students have fun in the Cougar Den, there is also work that needs to be done. For example, students need to be trained in order to know how to run the store. The training is usually done by students that signed up for Store Management after they completed Store Operations class the year prior. Those students then become a manager and are tasked with training and overseeing the store. Equipment for the store also needs to be ordered and purchased. Ferate and Maureen Christian, a paraeducator/assistant that also helps run the Cougar Den, order products or equipment needed. Through students may seem like they run the store, Ferate and Christian do a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes.

When the store is open, Christian states that she teaches and assists the “students with the daily operations of the Cougar Den. That includes troubleshooting register problems, cash management, balancing invoices, maintaining accurate inventory, customer service, plus ordering and receiving products.” When the Cougar Den is closed and/or when school’s over, even more takes place.

At the end of the day, when all the cleaning is done and the end of the school day is finished, Ferate says that she’s does the “shopping at Costco and at Cash and Carry.”

Christian also says that at the end of the lunch periods and the store is closed, she’s “busy with the daily deposit, inventory, reports, and whatever else the instructor needs.” Although to some it may just seem like a class, it could help students prepare for the future.

Bridges agrees and says that “it teaches you [the students] the baseline of what a job is.”

Christian also agrees and says that “students can learn teamwork and other people skills as well as the logistics of running a small business such as a 7-11 or a coffee shop. At the very least, it gives them training to be a great employee.” As the year is approaching its close, students are still getting recommendations for next year’s classes.

Bridges says that would recommend the class because “because it helps you interact with others to get a common job done” although, he says that he wouldn’t recommend it because of the people that may seem to be incompetent.