For teens with disabilities, transition to adulthood varies widely by school

Above, Judah Scott runs around a practice field on Feb. 25, at Duquesne University’s campus in Uptown. (Photo by Anastasia Busby/PublicSource)

Judah raced out of Pittsburgh Youth Chorus practice and on to the Duquesne University practice field, his mom trailing. He’s been going to chorus for some time, but had he previously ventured out on the field? “First time ever!” he announced before dashing toward the large, blue letter “D” at midfield.

His mother, Teaira Collins, wasn’t far behind, telling him not to pull on the soccer net. “I’m no longer living in my world. I’m living in his world,” she said of her 12-year-old son, who has Down syndrome. “Ju Bug’s world.”

Ju Bug’s world will change in around 18 months, when he hits high school. Collins has parented a child with special needs through high school before, and it did not go so well.

When her now-21-year-old son was 14, his mental health condition had not been properly diagnosed, she said. He didn’t get the right medication, and the teachers didn’t know what to do.

“He couldn’t focus or do what he had to do,” Collins said of her elder son’s time at Pittsburgh Allderdice High and later at Pittsburgh Milliones 6-12 University Preparatory School. “When he got to high school, he didn’t care.”

Individualized education program (IEP) meetings brought teachers and counselors to the table, but they never found an educational option that worked. These days, he’s mostly at home.

Judah, in 7th grade, is doing well at Pittsburgh Arsenal 6-8 and in extracurriculars including chorus and a range of sports. Still, Collins knows that high school can be a minefield.

“I’m not as worried because you can’t mess up a Down syndrome diagnosis,” Collins said.

Not as worried — but very determined. Judah has ambitions to be a disc jockey or YouTuber — plus to one day own a Lamborghini — and she’s determined that the school will be supportive. “When he gets to high school, I’m going to let them know: This is his life.”

That philosophy is in line with Pennsylvania law, which holds that during the academic year in which a student with an IEP turns 14, the school must address and plan for their needs as they transition to adulthood. (Federal law requires that the process starts no later than the year the student turns 16, but allows states to set earlier thresholds.) The school is charged with asking the student questions like “Where do you want to work?”

“It’s such a critical point in any young person’s life, but when you’re talking about a young person with a disability, they’re going from entitlement services [which school districts must provide] to eligibility-based services” for which they need to apply, said Kelli Thuli Crane, an assistant research professor at the University of Maryland and co-director of the Center for Transition and Career Innovation.

The federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act say the high school years are supposed to include tailored services that may include job shadowing, internships, community volunteering, employment outside of school hours and vocational courses.

Last amended a decade ago, the law has only begun to narrow employment gaps.

“Despite progress, employment outcomes for students with disabilities are terrible in comparison to their nondisabled peers,” said Kelley Challen, director of transition services at NESCA, formerly Neuropsychological and Educational Services for Children and Adults, based in Newton, Massachusetts.

Around one in four Pennsylvanians with disabilities participates in the workforce versus 70% of people without disabilities. That’s roughly in line with national rates.

Labor force participation: People with and without disabilities vs. PA total

A Pennsylvania commission is challenging schools and state agencies to do better, setting a series of targets for this year and next — even as educators wonder whether special education funding will survive the current political turmoil that could worsen poor distribution of resources. Nationally, just 10% of eligible students in 2023 received federally funded pre-employment training services. This year, under President Donald Trump, federal funding generally and the existence of the U.S. Department of Education appear to be up in the air.

Mid-sized district, big ambitions

Emma Shaw does not mind showing off her versatility.

At the Hilton Garden Inn in Robinson on a Wednesday in February, 17-year-old Emma put key cards in sleeves, cleaned tables, folded towels, swept and vacuumed. Montour School District paraprofessional Lynn LaMarca, who kept an eye on Emma, said the young woman with Down syndrome also cleans windows, dusts and fills bags of necessities for guests.

Stuffing sleeves is Emma’s favorite, she said, adding that she’d be happy to be a hotel employee someday.

“This is her first year doing work outside of the school,” said Lisa Shaw, Emma’s mother, in a later interview. “She likes it. She’ll say, ‘Mom, I’m going to work today.’” When they drive near the inn, “She’ll say, ‘Mommy, this is where I work!’ And I’ll say, ‘Fantastic!’”

After a few more years of training? “I’m cautiously optimistic. I’m hoping to find her a good position.”

To that end, Montour has a full-time transition coordinator, Kristofer Eichner, who just a few years ago was one of a handful of Slippery Rock University students studying toward that role. He has spent the last several years building relationships between the district and area businesses that now provide four different school-day work experiences to 10 students with disabilities.

When a student shows that they can perform job duties independently, Eichner said, “we have those conversations with the businesses saying, ‘Hey, we think this could be a really good fit. How do you guys feel about that?’ And it sometimes leads to jobs for those students.”

Montour has a district enrollment of just over 3,000, and serves Robinson, Kennedy, Ingram, Thornburg and Pennsbury Village. It spends around $150,000 a year on helping students with disabilities to transition from school to work, and has found ways to pay for specialized curriculum for a variety of fields, a driving test simulator and even an on-campus putt-putt golf course.

It’s an unusual array of services for a district of that size, says Robert Isherwood, the district’s director of special education and pupil services and Slippery Rock’s coordinator for the university’s special education program. He has worked in the field for 36 years, and has figured out how to draw Medicaid funding and state grants into the special education program.

“We are like leaps and bounds ahead of where most school districts in the area are,” said Isherwood. In general, he said, transition is “one of the last things people think about in a public school, because you’re really talking about a handful of 11th and 12th graders with developmental disability and it seems to be very low on the priority list.”

Teachers doubling as transition counselors

The staff available to help students with the transition varies district to district, said Brian Welles, the assistant director of special education and pupil services at the Allegheny Intermediate Unit [AIU], which provides services to schools within the county, but outside of the city of Pittsburgh.

In some districts, the transition process is handled by a teacher who also has a full-time instructional load. “They’re doing double duty or they maybe have a couple less classes,” freeing time for transition work. That’s not ideal, Welles said. “Someone with dedicated time to transition is a necessity in this day and age. The issue has always been funding, and in recent years, finding someone to staff it.”

Challen says that nationally, having a full-time transition coordinator remains uncommon, estimating that fewer than half of schools across the country have one.

The AIU operates three schools for severely disabled students from the suburban districts, and those locations have transition coordinators. It conducts mock interview events, and shares with districts — for a fee — a travel trainer who teaches students how to use public transit to get to employment. It also operates a transition program called PRIDE — similar to the Pittsburgh Public Schools’ City Connections program — for students who need continued support after their senior year.

The AIU has not, however, seen much demand from districts for help with transition coordination.

‘Real employment experience is so critical’

A person with a disability who gets paid workplace experience as a student is four times as likely to become employed as someone who does not, according to Ryan Hyde, executive director of the state’s Office of Vocational Rehabilitation [OVR].

“Your last day of school should look like your first day of adult life,” said Mary Hartley, a former chair of Pennsylvania’s Employment First Oversight Commission [EFOC] and president of The Arc of Greater Pittsburgh, an affiliate of the disability advocacy group Achieva. “We believe people with disabilities can work, and that they should be moving toward employment.”

The six-year-old oversight commission advocates that people with disabilities get help toward regular work earning at least minimum wage.

EFOC wants the General Assembly to require that all districts have at least one full-time transition coordinator, and to allocate funding to pay for that.

Without that, students are “not getting the support they need to really access the community,” said Hartley. “A lot of these kids are going to fall through the cracks and not get that experience. That real employment experience is so critical.”

The Pennsylvania Department of Education isn’t pushing for full-time transition coordinators in every district, said Carole Clancy, director of its Bureau of Special Education.

“There is a critical staffing shortage in every education provider across the Commonwealth,” so adding another required position may be counterproductive, Clancy said.

In a state with 500 school districts, with enrollments from 200 to 140,000, ensuring anything is challenging.

EFOC has laid down several 2025 goals for state agencies and school districts, including that:

• The state Department of Education should, by April, identify high schools and districts that are not collaborating with OVR on meeting student needs.
• The department should, by June, start tracking the number of students with transition plans who drop out.
• Also by June, the department should ensure that every student with an IEP who is leaving high school has a job, a post-secondary education placement or a plan to lead to one or the other.

Clancy said her department has logged rising graduation rates (and declining drop-out rates) for students with IEPs since 2021, and is trying to improve tracking of post-graduation employment, and does not know of any districts that are uncooperative with OVR.

Hyde said OVR counselors last year made it to 8,389 IEP meetings — out of 168,000 Pennsylvania students ages 14 and up who have IEPs. “We’re invited to a lot more, but unfortunately we can’t make it because of our staffing resources,” he said, adding that OVR has early reach coordinators who visit schools and do presentations to nudge students to think about transition.

“I think that’s a very good effort for OVR,” said Clancy. “That’s a lot of students, and where the students are on that path of needing OVR at the table to discuss what’s happening really varies by the student.”

Schools with the right mix of funding and staffing, or working in regional partnerships, can prepare young people with disabilities for success — but there’s nothing automatic about it, said Josie Badger, a certified rehab counselor with a doctorate in health care ethics who chairs EFOC. “It comes down to the time in the day, and none of us have enough time.”

Uncertainty about Washington

Judah rolled around on the big D at Duquesne’s practice field, flipping through TikToks. He was not too inclined to talk about what he did at school.

“The art project,” he said. “Paint and library and read a book and gym, pool.”

Tiring of questions, he pointed, declared, “Look, there’s a ghost!” and ran.

He was, though, happy to summarize his social media presence. “I make YouTube videos. I make TikTok, Facebook and Instagram.”

“YouTuber is certainly a newer career interest that we’ve had in the last couple of years,” said Crystal Evans, transition facilitator for Pittsburgh Public Schools, in an interview.

“We always tell students we don’t want anyone else planning their future for them,” she said, but when a student at age 14 comes to an IEP meeting and says they want to be, say, a professional athlete, the playbook is to use that desire as a motivator toward beneficial training.

PPS has six times the enrollment of Montour, and 1,874 students 14 or older who have IEPs. The district has, in the last decade, built a spectrum of workforce training options for students with special needs, including:

• The Community-Based Vocational Education program, which puts students and job coaches in active workplaces
• The Start on Success program, which also involves job site experience but generally without a job coach present
• Travel training focused on use of public transit
• In the near future, discussing the Career and Technical Education program in IEPs

Trump has talked about eliminating the U.S. Department of Education, and his administration has broadly sought to curb federal spending.

The cuts could impact transition services, said Challen, and they’re already hitting “research-funded projects going on in high school that were providing transition services for students. Some of those were slashed abruptly.”

“A lot of the research and the support that is being provided to the states to continue to provide these services is being pulled, and that worries me,” adds Crane.

Hyde said more than 78% of OVR’s funding comes from the federal government. “The whole national vocational rehabilitation program is a little nervous,” he said.

“Some of our staff are still paid out of federal dollars,” said Patti Camper, the PPS assistant superintendent for the Program for Students with Exceptionalities. “The loss of federal funding for education absolutely will impact special education students and make it more challenging to meet the needs of students.”

This article by Rich Lord first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.