A Bull in a China Shop is booming.

With coffee as a necessity to everyone’s morning routine, the FAL’s students decided to open a coffee shop for the first time.

“We wanted to open a coffee shop to practice money handling skills, work on speaking clearly and communication,” Special Education teacher Caitlin Duvall said. “It’s a life skills, real world job.”

Not to mention, it gives teachers that extra caffeine boost in the morning.

Jordyn Pursley () believes “[teachers] will love the coffee. They get tired of working and need help staying awake.”

Many teachers can attest to that. Social Studies teacher Rob Greenwood, who has a running account at the Bull’s shop, refers to coffee as “oxygen” in the morning.

Duvall got the idea from Dana Evans and Beth Gray, teachers from Patapsco High School who started the first FAL’s coffee shop – the Patriot Java Shop – in 2014.

The Patriot Java Stop was featured on W-BAL in 2014 for receiving a $2,000 grant from Voya Financial, but was shut down soon after due to a new United States Department of Agriculture guideline that prohibited the sale of caffeinated beverages in elementary and middle schools.

“Unfortunately, the Maryland State of Education chose to impose even stricter guidelines based off of this USDA guideline and restrict caffeine in high schools as well,” Evans said.

Evans decided to write a bill that would allow the sale of caffeinated beverages at the high school level as part of a career readiness program.

“I felt very strongly that this student run coffee shop was the most beneficial thing I had ever been able to provide my special needs students with,” Evans said. “I couldn’t accept that we had to stop it and lose this amazing opportunity for our students.”

After continued lobbying and hard-work, the bill was passed on July 1, 2016.

Since the bill was passed, Duvall and her students were able to open their own coffee shop this year.

“We are going to offer it to teachers only to start. We want to see how busy the business is first,” Duvall said.

The coffee shop is easy to purchase from. It is offered 1^st period on B days.

All teachers need to do is go to the Google link that has been set up by the students and type in their order. The students read the orders, make the coffee, and deliver it to teachers.

“It’s really efficient,” said science teacher Russ Drylie, who often orders from the Bulls’ shop.

“How we make the coffee is we order K cups ahead of time and we have our different flavors and make them in our Keurig’s,” said Duvall.

The coffee is only $1 per cup.

“The teachers have a choice. They can pay us when we deliver or they can start an account and have a tab,” Duvall said. “A few teacher’s pay in advance and we keep track of their accounts and delete it after they make a purchase.”

A Bull in a China Shop will be selling coffee all year.