After the graduation walk come critical next steps for young people with disabilities

(Illustration by Andrea Shockling/PublicSource)

For students with disabilities, “school” may not end with the senior year, and districts are increasingly offering options beyond the classroom.

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by Rich Lord, PublicSource

The April rain let up long enough for Talan Baker to take his first solo ride on the family Harley, and he immediately resolved on riding it off into his future.

“I’m taking your Harley with me” to vocational school near Johnstown, Baker, 19, told his father, Christopher Micknowski, as they milled about the five-motorcycle garage in their Lincoln Place home.

Micknowski: “No, I don’t think so.”

Baker: “I need a vehicle!”

Micknowski: “Maybe you do, maybe you don’t. … We can talk about it.”

Baker often rides one of the smaller bikes to work at a grocery store. (The commute is “maybe 26 minutes.”) He also attends the Pittsburgh Public Schools CITY Connections program for post-high school students with individualized education programs [IEPs]. In his spare time, he and his dad work on the bikes, including some light welding.

He said he hoped his next big stop would be the state-run Commonwealth Technical Institute at the Hiram G. Andrews Center, where he’d study welding, “then probably head off to an oil rig.”

Micknowski: “I’m not so sure I’m crazy about this underwater welding thing.”

Baker: “I am. I like high risk, high rewards.”

Micknowski: “Where did you learn that?”

Baker: “You don’t think I ever learn things in life?”

Baker had a rocky early childhood before the Micknowskis took him in at age 5, and soon gained custody. He had mixed experiences in school, and picked up a handful of developmental diagnoses along the way to an IEP. At 19, he’s approaching a critical moment for any student with developmental and intellectual differences. The standard educational system has legal obligations to serve students with special needs until their 22nd birthday. And then?

“You fall off the services cliff,” said Andrea Gallagher, a former teacher who coaches people with autism through her company, Atypical Zebra. “You get to that young adult space and you’re just supposed to be able to go and work and succeed. Yay!”

Suddenly, the onus to plan ahead is on the young person and their support system.

“When you’re shifting from entitlement to eligibility, that’s when people often get confused,” said Kathleen Walker, a University of Maryland faculty member who specializes in the transition to adulthood for young people with disabilities. “But there are resources to assist you, it’s just navigating how to find them.”

A note from Rich, the reporter: After my elder son Zach (Z for short) graduated, he and I blogged about the years that followed. He attended the CITY Connections program and I arranged to have him deliver the mail at the office at which I worked, with a state-paid job coach evaluating his progress. We were on track … when COVID-19 hit, nixing in-person training. On day one of Pittsburgh’s lockdown, I talked about the pandemic, and asked Z, “How do you feel?” He said, “Scared.” Not sure how much he was comprehending, I asked, “Why?” Z replied, “None of your business.”

To graduate in Pennsylvania, a student needs to either:

• Earn scores of proficiency on each of the three Keystone Exams
• Hit a threshold composite score on the exams
• Follow other locally established, alternative pathways like passing Advanced Placement tests, completing technical education courses or finding full-time employment.

Students with disabilities can also graduate under terms outlined in their IEPs. 

The public education system’s responsibility ends with graduation. (If a student graduates but comes to believe that graduation was inappropriate and they need more help, they have two years to file with the state Office of Dispute Resolution and request reenrollment, said Kristen Weidus, an attorney who represents students and their families.) But students with IEPs who aren’t ready to receive a diploma have options.

“Every student with an IEP has a right, if necessary, to stay until they are 22,” said Weidus. That doesn’t need to mean another three years in classrooms. Schools need to “build a program that is appropriate for this student,” said Weidus, whether that means life skills learning in the building, a placement in a vocational training center, a community college program or employment prep, perhaps with a job coach.

Families don’t always get what they want

The law outlines independent living, post-secondary employment and post-secondary education as goals toward which schools are expected to provide support.

Parents, or anyone else the student wants at the table, can participate in planning the post-senior-year program. But schools aren’t required to do everything the student or parent asks.

As Juliet Geniviva finished her senior year at Hampton Township High School in 2016, her parents asked the district to support her attendance at the St. Anthony School Program for young adults with Down syndrome, autism and other special needs, held at Duquesne University. Instead of covering St. Anthony tuition and providing transportation, the district offered her more time in the school’s life skills classroom, plus in-the-building vocational experience and field trips.

“For our sons and daughters to go back to high school while their peers go on to college, I don’t think that’s appropriate,” said mother Janice Geniviva. 

The Genivivas filed a complaint in federal court, contending that the arrangement would not be the free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment required by law. They lost when Magistrate Judge Robert Mitchell ruled that the district’s offer met legal standards.

The family decided St. Anthony’s was important enough that they’d foot the bill — now $7,700 a year for families who self-pay — and her daughter attended the program from 2016 to 2018. 

“I loved it,” Juliet said recently. She got experience cleaning in a hotel, learning filing in a government office, working in the campus cafeteria and using transit — as well as lots of interaction with university students. Janice networked and helped Juliet find a restaurant job, which she learned with help from a state-paid job coach. 

Just one in five adults receiving Pennsylvania-funded services for intellectual and developmental disabilities has a paid job in the community, according to surveys by the National Association of State Directors of Developmental Disabilities Services and the Human Services Research Institute. Around one in three wants a job, but doesn’t have one.

The Genivivas moved to Kennett Square near Philadelphia and Juliet works in the cafe of an assisted living facility. “We are really proud of her, and her accomplishments, and she’s really proud of herself, too,” said Janice.

Hampton Township School District, meanwhile, has expanded its offerings. With 20 to 30 students annually graduating with IEPs, it doesn’t have Pittsburgh’s economies of scale, but has added a transition teacher who works with local businesses to place students in work situations before, during and after senior year. Some post-senior-year students take district-provided transportation directly to job sites. 

The district has also piloted a partnership with nearby La Roche University in which a few post-senior-year students work in the library, admissions department, book store and cafeteria. The district pays the students and provides supervision.

La Roche gets the extra help, plus exposure for students to people with diverse needs, said Sarah White, the university’s executive director for inclusion and belonging. “I think there’s just a big need, especially in this area, and we have a really nice campus for this.”

Rich’s note: Four months into pandemic shutdowns, Z spontaneously started cleaning up trash from the streets around our house. CITY Connections supplied a safety vest. After more than a month of solo street cleaning, we volunteered for our first organized neighborhood clean-up. When 2020 ended with CITY Connections still virtual, Z enrolled in the Community College of Allegheny County environmental services certificate program at CCAC North. His written account of his first day: “I watched a video about washing hands. I ate Mambas.” At home: “I cleaned the floor. …  I did the dishes.”

‘Dead set’ on a career path

Baker dressed in a work smock and welding helmet on an April morning at CCAC’s West Hills Center in North Fayette. He was there for a demonstration organized by CITY Connections. Cody Stroud, an associate professor who coordinates the Welding Department, asked about his experience.

“I’m so used to stick welding,” Baker said. “It’s my passion.”

Stroud gave a safety briefing to Baker and a fellow CITY Connections student, and quickly had them working. Within an hour, Baker welded “Talan” on a metal plate.

The welding went “better than usual,” Baker said. “Hopefully if I do go into welding, and a welding career, I would join like any other career, once I get my welding certificate from the Andrews school, and then once I do that, I’m going straight to North Carolina so I can get my underwater welding certificate, so I can go to an oil rig so I can weld there. … I’m dead set.”

CITY Connections has capacity for 90 students at its six sites citywide, but since COVID, enrollment has hovered at around 60. Pittsburgh Public accepts a handful of students from other districts to that program, as it does for an up-to-21 program at the Pittsburgh Conroy Education Center for students with more involved needs.

Kelly Ammerman, a teacher who runs one of the six sites, characterized her day as a “Rubik’s Cube,” which she’s constantly twisting in an effort to link students to an endless array of training, volunteer opportunities, life skills exercises and job opportunities.

The Allegheny Intermediate Unit has a similar program, called PRIDE, that similarly exposes students through age 21 to work experiences, teaches activities of daily living and community navigation, and involves lots of interaction with non-disabled peers. It takes referrals from suburban districts around Pittsburgh.

Programs like CITY Connections exist in some other cities, said Jeni Hergenreder, a staff attorney with Disability Rights Pennsylvania. “In rural areas, I don’t really hear about those types of programs existing,” she said, adding that some districts and intermediate units that serve them have post-senior-year programs that combine classroom instruction on life skills with community job skills work. “There are not enough of these programs out there and even in areas where they exist, many families may not be made aware of them.”

Some districts without such programs may not always mention the option of post-senior-year education, and families may “have no idea what the possibilities are, what the district could still be providing, paying for and helping the kid with for those few years,” said Hergenreder.

Cost is not a legitimate reason to deny support.

“If a school is saying that the only reason that something can’t happen is that they don’t have that service now or don’t have the money, that is not a legal reason for a service not to be provided,” said Weidus.

Walker recommends that people do their own research. “Map out all of your resources and make sure you’re hitting your deadlines for certain applications,” said the University of Maryland specialist.

Steps can include:

• Consulting a ready-made guide like the Pennsylvania-produced Charting the Life Course
• In Pennsylvania, applying with the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation [OVR], which funds job coaching and other services
• In Allegheny County, registering with the Office of Developmental Supports, which coordinates and funds in-home, community and independent living services
• Involving the young person in volunteering or other activities
• Examining postsecondary and job training options, many of which are here
• Networking for potential job leads.

CCAC has a variety of certificate programs that either cater to, or accommodate, students with special needs. Some require tuition, others are funded by OVR. Either way, the focus is firmly on employment.

“My students learn that there are times when it gets very hectic and high pressure in a restaurant,” said Randy Herbe, instructor in the food service program at CCAC North. 

“They’re able to work in just about any place … and not be just a dishwasher.

“They’re going to at least be a prep cook. They’re not going to be cheap labor.”

Rich’s note: Z’s neighborhood interactions have been mostly — though not entirely — positive. Still, when someone I didn’t recognize knocked on our door, I stiffened. They handed me a card. It read: “Seeing your son come clean up has touched us all. We decided to put a little envelope together for all his hard work. … He is appreciated and safe.” Signed by members of six households, it contained $120. “I have cried several times as a result of this gesture,” I blogged. Maybe we were doing something right.

Friends in the neighborhood

CCAC’s four-month welding certificate program costs $3,200, and can lead directly to a job with base pay of $50,000 a year, said Jennifer Cowans, executive director of the college’s West Hills Center.

Baker, though, had other plans. He spent two weeks in March living at the Hiram G. Andrews Center, trying out dorm life and sampling the center’s programs, which include automotive technology, building maintenance, culinary and welding.

He wasn’t entirely comfortable having a roommate, and didn’t love the food. “But hey, at least they give us dessert, unlike school.”

He and Micknowski worked together on the application. They hoped Baker would start there in the fall — and debated whether it’s an island on the way to an oil rig gig.

Baker: “They make a million a year.”

Micknowski: “Okay, do they have internet? Do they have the video games? … Do they get Doritos and Twinkies and Oreos?”

Baker: “Well, we’d get supplied stuff.”

Micknowski said he was keen on the social value of post-secondary education.

“He had some friends in the neighborhood here that befriended him when he was much younger, and that lasted for a while. And once they decided that they didn’t want to be his friends anymore, they were quite mean,” Micknowski recounted. Maybe a more mature peer group will bring better results. “A lot of people, when they hit college, trade school or their first jobs, they end up with friendships. They end up with situations where, you know, they have a friend for life, or an associate or a resource.”

Then one day in late April, the email came in. The Hiram G. Andrews Center wanted Baker — but not to wait until fall semester. He was asked to start classes on May 12.

The news sent Micknowski rushing to order a small TV plus other dorm essentials, and get a doctor’s recommendation that Baker receive a single room.

“We already got a refrigerator,” Baker said. “I’m not worried at all. I’m really excited about it.”

“I get to go to college for the first time.”

Coming soon: An unconventional job search.

Rich Lord is Z’s father, and the managing editor of PublicSource, and can be reached at rich@publicsource.org.

This story was fact-checked by Angela Goodwin.

This article first appeared on PublicSource and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

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