It’s hard to believe that what we envision in May as an almost endless summer is coming to a close. Schools will reopen across the country during the coming month with students older (and hopefully wiser) and one year closer to the end of high school. The importance of the question “what’s next?” comes back with a vengeance, imposing a range of emotions on parents and students from excitement and anticipation to worry and panic as the inevitable exit from high school comes closer on the horizon. What to do? When to do it? How to do it? Who does it? are critical to transition planning and these questions need to be visited and revisited at least annually once a student becomes “of age.”
As students progress through the transition planning years, the conversations about outcomes should be increasing in frequency and specifics. The first and most important question to be decided is when will a student leave the domain of public education, and how will they do so? The second part of the question is easier to answer since the options for exiting are clearly defined as graduation with a diploma, or by aging out of IDEA entitlement services. For some students, the exit ramp from public school is identified early on; typically, it is anticipated that students who have significant disabilities and who will qualify for adult services will remain in public school until they age out. For other students, however, the question may not be so easily answered, and quite possibly may become the silent elephant in the room at annual reviews, with parents assuming that their child will remain a public school student, while the team is anticipating graduation with a diploma at the end of 12th grade.
It’s not only important for the IEP team to ask parents and students to share their thoughts on long term outcomes, it’s the law that they do so. Long term outcomes, aka post-secondary outcome goals, must be identified by considering a number of factors including student and family preferences, student strengths and abilities, and through age-appropriate assessment. Once identified, the post-secondary outcomes are documented annually in the student’s IEP. These post-secondary outcome goals then serve as the infrastructure of the transition plan and drive the development of the annual goals and objectives in the IEP. Essentially, the annual goals and objectives in the IEP must be developed to move the student toward attainment of post-secondary outcomes.
So, circling back to where I started, beginning no later than the IEP that addresses the transition from middle to high school, parents and student should state what the post-school outcome is that they anticipate, specifying the path of graduation or aging out, that the student will take to get there. Once stated, the team should be asked if they are on board with the plan. Unfortunately, every spring I receive calls from the parents of seniors distraught over the news that they just learned that the plan developed by the team is to have their child graduate at the end of the school year, while they frantically proclaim that their child is not ready for the adult world. Ask sooner rather than later so that you don’t find yourself in this situation. Wishing you all a great new school year!