The following website is Reading Community School's systemic approach for providing meaningful transition activities and information to parents for school-age students with disabilities in order to successfully facilitate their move from special education services to community life.
Philosophy
As educators, one of our most important goals is to prepare students to become fully participating members of their communities. For students with disabilities, the life skills education and training they acquire in school may be the only resources they receive to help them transition from being students to life as independent and productive adults.
Still think providing life skills education for your students isn’t necessary? Consider the following U.S. national statistics.
The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA 2004) states that schools must provide specific transition plans for students with disabilities, which must be in place by age 16 as part of the student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP).
Among the most successful secondary school transition programs are those that implement a comprehensive approach that includes planning, curriculum and assessments and employment resources to help students with disabilities transition into the work force.
(Council for Exceptional Children, 2012)
The purposes of IDEA include ensuring that all children with disabilities have available to them a free appropriate public education (FAPE) that emphasizes special education and related services designed to meet their unique needs and prepare them for further education, employment and independent living [34 CFR 300.1(a)] [20 U.S.C. 1400(d)(1)(A)]. In order to support this focus on preparing students with disabilities for further education, employment and independent living, Congress add secondary transition services requirements as a component of IDEA.
Ohio is exceeding the requirements of the Federal Regulations through the enactment of Ohio Senate Bill 316 which now requires comprehensive transition planning and provision of transition services beginning not later than the first IEP to be in effect when the child is fourteen years of age.
The information below describes the required transition activities for school-age students with disabilities that are intended to facilitate their move from special education services to community life.
(i) Appropriate measurable postsecondary goals based upon age-appropriate transition assessments related to training, education, and, if assessment data supports the need, independent living skills; and
(ii) Appropriate measurable post-secondary goals based on age-appropriate transition assessments related to employment in a competitive environment in which workers are integrated regardless of disabilities; and
(iii) The transition services including courses of study needed to assist the child in reaching those goals.
Created by Candy Colangelo