Do you take education with your coffee? If you attend Burnsville High School you do. Along with morning lattés and lunch fare, the new café at the Diamondhead Education Center in Burnsville-Eagan-Savage School District 191 serves as a learning laboratory for students.

"We want seniors here to get as close to a postsecondary setting as possible," said Gene Roczniak, associate principal assigned to the senior campus. In an effort to give seniors a more rigorous high school experience, the school is using the café as a cooperative business venture to tie into its business marketing program.

Marketing students are involved in naming the café (the finalists include the Nook and Sparky's) and had their opinions heard in focus groups. "We had a taste test of foods and helped decide what would go in the café," said Martha Davis, 16, a junior. Students also are keeping an eye on the competition. "We're trying to find ways to market it so students go to the café instead of the pizza shop across the street."

Micheale Tesema, 17, a senior, says there's a lot to consider behind the scenes. "It's not as simple as it looks," he said. Having a job at Dairy Queen helps, he said. But, he added, "at Dairy Queen I don't have any power."

Next fall, the knowledge and the power will be channeled into a new marketing class that imbeds in the café experience, said Roczniak. Advertising, inventory control, invoicing and everything else that goes into running a business will be part of the class. Web-based software will allow teachers to pull up information on inventory and pricing. Students will run advertising campaigns and promotions and have the opportunity to work in the café.

The café is a welcome addition to the Diamondhead Education Center, a former shopping mall that the district remodeled into a community learning center that includes the student overflow for Burnsville High School's 740 seniors, the district's early childhood and family education program, continuing education, a senior citizens center, preschool and health clinic. In the evening, five metro colleges offer courses as well.

"It serves every age from 6 weeks to over 100," said Tom Umhoefer, director of the district's community education department. "We have more than 1,400 bodies coming in every day." Before the café opened, he said, there was nowhere to relax or grab a snack.

The need to offer the Burnsville High seniors a better lunch option was the main impetus for the café. Seniors spend half their day at the high school and the other half at the Education Center. To accommodate lunch, students had an hour and 40 minutes to eat and switch to the other campus. "We reassessed that in order to give students more class time," Roczniak said.

But reducing the lunch period to 38 minutes didn't work without a school cafeteria. The idea for a coffee shop was born, knowing it would serve more than the high school seniors and would also integrate the various populations using the Education Center.

Already seniors citizens are joining high school seniors to manage the coffee shop and serve as mentors. "One retired senior used to run a golf course and another is a CPA," Umhoefer said. Staff members also will include a mix of students fulfilling volunteer hours as well as paid positions.

Students such as Davis like the food and the lessons that go with it. "I want to go into marketing, so this a huge plus and a jump start on college and my career."

Kara Douglass Thom is a freelance writer living in Savage.