Vocational Independence Program

Last Friday, I had the opportunity to revisit a program I had first seen a number of years ago. The Vocational Independence Program at the New York Institute of Technology - VIP at NYIT - is now located on the campus of NYIT in Old Westbury, New York. This marks a new location from its original home in Central Islip, Long Island, when VIP first started in 1987.

VIP is one of only a limited number of programs nation-wide that provide a college-like experience for students who would not be able to manage the demands of a typical college program, but who can benefit from the post-secondary opportunity to improve their executive function, communication, social, independent living, and employment skills. It is recognized by the U.S. Department of Education as a Transition and Postsecondary Program for Students with Intellectual Disabilities.  This status makes it possible for students to apply for federal financial aid, although the cost of the program (similar to a private college) means that even if a student qualifies for some aid, the program may be beyond the means of many families.

VIP students typically have autism spectrum disorders, mild cognitive impairment, or significant learning differences. Some students take credit courses at NYIT, leading to an associates degree after three years and some take a course or two on a non-matriculated basis, but most focus on building the skills that will help them to function as independent adults. There is also a summer program for students considering VIP or planning to enter the following fall.

As noted by Walter Mayer, Associate Director of Admissions and Development, every student has a job coach, academic advisor, social counselor, independent living coach, and banking coach. By the third year of the three-year program, students are typically working three days per week at a VIP-sponsored internship with employers such as hotel chains, restaurants, retailers, hospitals, animal hospitals, and other businesses. Job placement support is also provided to graduates of the program. VIP notes that students finishing the program in 2017 had an 80 percent post graduation employment rate.

Students live on campus, in a dorm located at the adjacent State University of New York at Old Westbury campus, and move back and forth between the SUNY and NYIT campuses via shuttle buses. The residential aspect of the program is an important part of the skills-building that each student works on during their time at VIP.

While improved preparation and support programs at colleges have made college accessible to many students who might not otherwise be able to handle its social and academic demands, there are still many students whose disabilities make it difficult or impractical for them to be successful in a college program. Families want to give these students every opportunity to be successful in their personal and work lives and to give them the skills that will stay them them throughout their lives. The VIP Program is designed to help achieve these goals.

College Programs for Students with Autism Spectrum Disorders

We’ve written recently about the importance of supports for college students with executive function difficulties. Students who struggle with executive functions – organization, time management, and planning – may have excellent academic skills, but may not succeed in college because of their non-academic challenges.

Another group of students who may struggle in college despite their academic abilities and their absence of more “typical” learning challenges are those with autism spectrum disorders (ASD). As described in an article in The Village Voice by Elizabeth Walters, “Because autism is such a broad term, it can be difficult to pin down. Some people with autism are nonverbal and have limited cognitive abilities, while others have IQs in the genius range. Clinicians refer to a "spectrum" because the term includes a range of individual disorders.”

Many students with ASD are capable of doing the academic work in college, but do not apply, or are admitted and are not successful, because of other factors. These include difficulties with social interactions, including reading the social cues of their classmates and instructors and responding with appropriate behavior; some expressive language difficulties; and the organizational and planning difficulties found in executive function disorders. In addition, students with ASD may have such “co-morbid” conditions as ADHD.

Given the prevalence of ASD – recent CDC data estimates that about 1 in 68 or 1.5% of children were identified with ASD in 2012 – colleges are increasingly encountering students with ASD who need appropriate supports to be successful. Furthermore, many colleges recognize the importance of creating an environment that is welcoming to students with ASD and is flexible enough to meet their needs.

College programs for students with ASD have been around for a number of years. The New York Institute of Technology Vocational Independence Program began in the late 1980’s and offers both a path to a college degree and a non-college post-secondary track. The OASIS program at Pace University began under a different name in 2009. Other programs can be found at Rutgers and Fairleigh Dickinson has a program at both its Metropolitan and Florham campuses. Fees vary for these programs, but none are free or inexpensive.

This makes the REACH program at five City University of New York (CUNY) campuses of particular note. The program - at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, Brooklyn College, the College of Staten Island, Kingsborough Community College and LaGuardia Community College – is operated under a grant and there is no cost to participating students, although the future of grant funding is not certain.

The CUNY description of the REACH program notes:

CUNY’s mission is to provide affordable and accessible higher education opportunities to ALL New Yorkers, especially those who have historically not had access to higher education opportunities, like students on the autism spectrum. Inclusive higher education is the next great civil rights movement, and CUNY wants to lead this movement by cultivating a University environment that promotes the success and full participation of students with ASD. 

So far, students enrolled in the REACH program who have stayed with the program have improved their grades, and report greater satisfaction with their college experience. If the program can obtain funding to continue it will be instructive to see further results.

Different Ways to Think About and Apply to College

High school students, especially seniors, can't help but think about college. So much of their high school career -- coursework, extracurricular activities, grades, and standardized exams -- have been undertaken with thoughts of how these will translate into college acceptances by the second semester of senior year. Many students have spent time in recent months visiting campuses and deciding where they want to submit applications this fall.

Before you or your senior decides where to apply and, ultimately, where to enroll, we'd like to make a suggestion that may help inform your decision process.

Take the time to read or re-read the book Colleges That Change Lives: 
40 Schools That Will Change the

Way You Think About Colleges, by Loren Pope. Originally written in 1996, with a current 2013-14 edition updated by Hilary Masell Oswald, this book is a breath of fresh air in the world of competitive admissions, large schools, and ivy envy that permeates many students' college search. The narrative descriptions of these almost universally small colleges focus on the quality of teaching, the engagement of students with their professors, curriculum, and classmates, and the impact that this kind of personalized instruction has on alumni long after graduation.Most of the schools in this book accept a large percentage of applicants -- and a large number are SAT/ACT optional and take a goodly number of "B" students. But the education they provide is rigorous and meaningful, with many having a required core curriculum that gives students a deep understanding of their world and its unifying themes. Most have significant study abroad components, and it is clear that the authors believe this gives their students a significant advantage after graduation. 

Just a few examples of the different programs described in the book are:

• Emory and Henry College in Virginia, where, as the book notes, they do "a very good job supporting students who haven't hit their stride yet" with strong academic support services.
• Cornell College in Iowa (which the authors stress was the first Cornell, founded some dozen years before the ivy league Cornell), whose 1200 students study under a Block Plan, where they take one course at a time in an academic year of eight blocks of three and a half weeks each.
• Goucher College, in Maryland, where the 1500 students are required to spend at least one term abroad -- even if just the three-week January term or a summer. The book notes that around 30 percent of the students go abroad twice. One aspect of Goucher that is newer than even the most up-to-date revision of this book is that students can apply in one of several ways, including via video. The video application, only available for students who are applying via the non-binding, early action application, asks students to submit a short video about themselves and their goals. It is not the only way to apply to Goucher, but it may be just the way for some students to best demonstrate what makes them a desirable candidate. Take a look for yourself and see what you think. We hope this becomes a common way for other schools to learn about their applicants. 

Major Changes to SAT by 2016

In the wake of reports of criticism about the SAT exam (which dropped the name "Scholastic Aptitude Test" years ago in the face of claims that it did not actually measure aptitude for college success), the College Board announced on Wednesday that it will be making a number of changes to the exam. The changes include:

• A return to the 1600-point scale. The overall score will be a composite of 800 possible points for its math and reading sections.

• The end of the mandatory essay. Students may choose to write an essay after completing the reading and math sections if they choose. However, instead of a personal essay in which they express an opinion or describe an experience, students will be asked to analyze a document. The essay will be given a separate score.

• A change to vocabulary words tested. Instead of words some deem esoteric, the College Board says the test will probe student’s knowledge of words that are commonly used in college courses. 

• A shift in math skills tested. The new SAT will focus on three areas: linear equations, complex equations, and ratios/percentages/proportional reasoning. Also, students will be allowed to use calculators for only some portions of the math section.

• Ending the penalty for wrong answers. The current test deducts a quarter of a point for each wrong answer (though there is no penalty for answers left blank). The “guessing penalty” will be removed from the new test.

• Analysis of science and social studies texts as part of the reading and writing section. Additionally, in some cases students will be asked to select not only the right answer, but also the textual quote that supports their answer.

One criticism of the SAT, and standardized testing in general, is that affluent students tend to do better, perhaps because they can afford access to test preparation courses. In hopes of leveling the playing field, the College Board has partnered with the Khan Academy to make practice and instructional materials available free of charge. Low-income students will receive another perquisite as well: Those who qualify will get four waivers that will allow them to apply to four colleges for free.

There is not yet any indication of how these changes will affect students with learning differences.

For more information, please visit the College Board’s webpage dedicated to the changes to the exam. 

Photo Credit: Flickr CC - Jeff Pioquinto, SJ

Specific Learning Disabilities in College

As we have written before, students who have graduated high school are no longer covered by the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), which comes to an end either upon graduation or when students who will not be graduating with a standard diploma "age out" of their eligibility for public education under their state's laws (usually age 21). Instead, students in college are protected by the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). The protections afforded by the ADA are broad, but there is one particular area where it differs from the IDEA that can make college entrance and college completion a problem for students who have specific areas of learning challenge.

The IDEA permits modifications to curriculum. So, for example, a student with a language disability may not be required to take a foreign language in high school, or a student with a disability of mathematics may not be required to take the same math courses as their classmates; the curriculum for each of these students can be modified in their area of specific learning disability. Note that these students may not be eligible for certain academic diplomas if their curriculum is significantly different than that of their classmates, but they are usually still eligible for a "local" diploma, one that is accepted by colleges, employers, and the military.

The ADA does not require colleges to make any modifications to curriculum. It requires accessibility, in both a physical and academic sense, but a student must be "otherwise qualified" for admission and graduation. What that means is that colleges can set standards for qualifications for students they admit, and they need not admit students who are lacking certain courses (staying with our example, this could be students who are lacking advanced math or foreign language courses), and even if such students are admitted, they may not be permitted to graduate without taking required courses or obtaining a waiver of such requirements from a college committee charged with granting such waivers.

This issue is of particular concern to some students in community colleges. These colleges are generally "open enrollment" in that they accept all high school graduates from their community. Because they do not rely on the stricter standards of selective colleges, they need a way to make sure students are prepared for college work. For students who have taken SAT or ACT exams, good scores in these exams are a way to demonstrate such preparation. Students who cannot submit strong scores on standardized tests, often because their learning disabilities impact their performance, must take placement tests to demonstrate their proficiency in areas such as reading, writing, and math. Those who cannot pass these tests are required to take remedial coursework and to pass such remedial courses in order to fully matriculate. Then, like all college students, they must also take the courses required for their major in order to graduate. Furthermore, students have to pay for remedial coursework just like they pay for regular courses, but do not receive credits towards their diplomas for these. And, often, they are limited in how many times they can take a particular course -- a "three strikes and you're out" approach.

The issue requires a balancing between the legal right of a college to set standards for admission and graduation and the rights of students with specific learning or other disabilities to be able to access a college education. There is no easy answer and it raises some fundamental questions that we expect courts to deal with at some point in the future.

American Heritage College Planning

High school students and their families are always looking for useful sources of information about college planning, colleges, and everything related to the process of moving beyond high school to the next step in a student's education. There are countless articles, books, websites, and colleges themselves to learn about, but it is difficult for students and their parents to keep up with the constant flow of information and the seemingly endless lists of colleges to consider. High school guidance counselors and web-based college planning programs can be helpful, but we have found another terrific resource for students, parents, and their counselors alike.

American Heritage College Planning is a Facebook page administered by Luciana Mandal, M.Ed., Director of College Planning at American Heritage School, a private Pre-12 school (with over 1400 high school students) in Plantation, Florida. Featuring the oft heard quotation attributed to Frank Sachs, Past President of the National Association of College Admission Counselors (NACAC), "College is a match to be made, not a prize to be won," the page includes links to current books and articles, information about specific colleges, and planning tips that can be useful to all students thinking about college. 

"The media can often skew information," Ms. Mandal noted. "So, when we see well-written and accurate articles in the media that represent our real experiences in the field, we like to make them available to anyone who follows our Facebook Page." She continued, "The practice in our college office at American Heritage is to guide students individually, based on family and student priorities. We believe that education is a process and not a race, and that the college degree is a step toward a career. That "good fit" college is what we seek for each student, so having toured over 250+ colleges (collectively in our department), we know much more about the college fit than where it sits on a rank list. Therefore, the articles we post present important angles not well-known to the public."

It's easy enough to keep up with the information posted by Ms. Mandal and her colleagues; just add the page to your "friends" list and be prepared to be informed.  

College Tour: Iona, Manhattanville, and Marist

A day trip to picturesque Rhinebeck, New York took your blogger past several area colleges that would be good places to consider for families looking for colleges with strong support for students with learning differences.

Iona College, located in New Rochelle, NY was founded by Christian Brothers in 1940, and has grown to student body of well over 3,000, offering more than 45 majors as well as Division I athletics. For students with learning and related issues, Iona offers the College Assistance Program (CAP). Students apply separately to CAP, which provides professional tutors and counseling services, as well as coaching for students with attention and organizational difficulties. In addition, students enrolled in CAP are required to meet at least three times a week with their CAP counselor. For students who need less significant supports, or who decide not to enroll in CAP, the Samuel Rudin Academic Resource Center offers a wide array of accommodations and supports to students with documented disabilities.

A bit further north is Manhattanville College, which was founded in 1841 and presently has approximately 1,700 undergraduates and 1,000 graduate students, enrolled in 90 areas of study on a 100 acre campus. We have long been familiar with Manhattanville and its supportive H.E.L.P. (Higher Education Learning Program) services. This program is available to students with documented learning or related disabilities who are registered with the Office of Disability Services and who desire comprehensive support. There is a separate fee for H.E.L.P. In addition, all students can use the tutoring services of the Academic Resource Center, which provides both professional and peer tutors in a wide array of subjects.

We have previously had the pleasure of speaking with Carin Horowitz, LMSW, who directs the Office of Disability Services and H.E.L.P. at Manhattanville and she welcomes inquiries from students and families interested in Manhattanville's programs and services.

Finally, our drive north took us past Marist College, whose expansive campus along the Hudson River covers over 200 acres. Marist has over 6,000 students and offers 44 undergraduate majors, as well as graduate and certificate programs. As with the other two colleges on our mini-tour, Marist offers a separate support program for students with learning and related difficulties, which requires a separate application and a separate fee. Students meet one-on-one with their learning specialist to work on such skills as organization, test-taking strategies, and writing skills.

Construction delays and downpours aside, we were pleased to be reminded of these excellent resources for college bound students who need learning supports.

Summer "To Do" List for High School Grads

The end of high school is an exciting time, filled with special events like prom and graduation and, for most students, the anticipation of starting a new adventure at college in the fall. There is an understandable urge for students and parents alike to want to spend the summer catching their breath and relaxing. But for students with learning or attention issues, relaxation will have to wait. As we have written about in prior blogs, this is the time to make sure you have your accommodations in place for the fall and are setting yourself up to succeed in your college courses.

Unlike in high school, where students with IEPs or 504 Plans could rely upon their school to make sure they got the necessary accommodations in their classroom or on tests, in college the full responsibility for arranging for accommodations and making sure they are implemented is on the student -- not the school. This is because the law that governs learning and other disabilities changes upon graduation from high school – from the IDEA to the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). As your blogger often tells students and their parents, “there is no IEP in college!”

So, students who will need accommodations, such as extended time on exams, a quiet exam room, specialized software, a note taker, or any one of what the ADA calls “academic adjustments, auxiliary aids and services, and modifications” need to take several steps to make sure these are available for them.

First, the student must disclose his or her disability to the college. This happens after the student accepts a spot and sends in the deposit. The disclosure is made by advising the Office of Disability Services (every college is required by law to have one, although they sometimes go by another name) and submitting documentation of your disability. You can find the specific requirements and forms for this on the website of your college’s Office of Disability Services.

After the college has reviewed and accepted the documentation, you will need to let them know what accommodations you require. This is usually a discussion - and sometimes a negotiation - where you let them know what you have used in the past and they may suggest other accommodations that can be helpful. This discussion can take place as late as during Freshman Orientation, but we urge those students who can do so to make an appointment to visit (or for a virtual visit) with the Office of Disability Services during the summer to finalize the accommodations that will be offered.

Only once the Office of Disability Services has approved the accommodations can the student take the crucial step of advising his or her professors of their accommodations, so they can be implemented. For those readers who have a copy of Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and Their Families, you can find more specific information on documenting disabilities in Chapter 4 and on arranging accommodations with your professors in Chapter 12.

Photo: Monika2010 (altered)

Hitting the Mid-Atlantic College Trail

As the school year comes to an end and families finalize their summer plans, high school students and their parents will often take time to visit college campuses. We've written before about these trips and have come across an excellent guide in the New York Times The Choice Blog that should be required reading for every student who embarks upon this journey. There's also a chapter in my book, Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and Their Families entitled "The Campus Visit" with lots of advice on how to get the most from your time on campus.

Your blogger is planning a college trip of her own this summer, to check out some of the schools in the mid-Atlantic region that may be of interest to some of the students with whom we work. I'm heading off with a friend who is a guidance counselor at a suburban Maryland high school. We plan to visit Fairleigh Dickinson University's Florham Campus in Madison, New Jersey, and to check out its well-regarded Regional Center for Students with Learning Disabilities. We will then stop at Rider College in Lawrenceville, NJ before heading south to stop at the University of Delaware where we will visit their Academic Services Center. 

Our trip will then move on to Maryland, where we plan to visit Frostburg State University, McDaniel College in Westminster, and the University of Maryland campuses in both College Park and Baltimore. We'd welcome any of your suggestions for other places to visit along the way. Just drop a note or suggestion in the comments below. I'll be reporting back on this blog about what we learn later in the summer.

Photo of UMD-College Park campus: Arianrivan via Flickr Creative Commons

High (School) Anxiety

Your blogger has had the opportunity recently to visit two local private high schools whose missions are to educate students with learning and related difficulties. Both The Churchill School in Manhattan and the Community School in Teaneck, New Jersey had invited me to speak to parents about the issues addressed in my book Life After High School.

In both schools, parents shared a very palpable concern about how their children would manage the transition from a specialized, supportive high school to post secondary education -- college or another kind of program -- and eventually to adulthood. These parents had all been through the special education process with their children, having emerged with spots in coveted, state approved (and publicly funded) schools where their children are taught in small classes by teachers with expertise in remediating learning difficulties. Many of these parents had provided their children with significant levels of support with tasks like organization, advocacy, and academics, beyond that customary for more typical learners.

The parents that I met at these presentations are far from unique in their concerns. Parenting any child is a complex process, but parenting a child who struggles in school is even more so. So what can parents of teens do now, while their child is still at home, to help foster independence beyond high school? Some helpful steps include:

Help your child understand how he or she learns. By really understanding their strengths and weaknesses and knowing what learning strategies work for them, students will be better able to arrange their academic accomodations and supports and to ask for the right kind of help.

Foster Affinties. Studies have shown that children who build on their interests and who pursue special skills, tend to be more resilient as adults. Students who may struggle with academics can have many areas where they are successful and should have opportunities to pursue their interests -- sports, hobbies, or the arts.

Build Self Advocacy Skill. By the time a student graduates from high school he or she should have attended one or more of the meetings where their IEP is developed, and certainly should have an understanding of the services they receive in school and why they receive them. It is not easy to get a teenager to deal with this aspect of their lives, but it is important to enable them to work towards independence.

When Should College Planning Begin?

An article in today's New York Times looks at the different approaches to beginning college preparation taken by traditional, nonprofit private high schools and their newer, for-profit counterparts. As the Times article asks, " Is it better to get a jump on the process but risk turning high school into a staging ground for college admission? Or is it preferable to start later, when students are more developmentally prepared but perhaps missing opportunities to plan hobbies, choose classes and secure summer internships?"

We think there is another perspective that needs to be considered -- that of students with learning, attention, and related difficulties who receive support services in high school and who anticipate needing accommodations in college. For these students, the process of getting ready for college simply can't wait until their junior year. They need to begin preparing for college almost as soon as they begin high school. This doesn't mean that they have to decide where to apply, just that there are decisions they need to make and skills they need to acquire long before they are almost ready to graduate. These include:

Self-Advocacy

Students with learning issues need to use their time in high school to learn about their challenges, to be able to express how they learn best and to develop strategies for handling the increasing workload of high school (and then college). They need to be able to ask for help when they need it and to negotiate for themselves. These skills are crucial to college success, when it will fall upon them -- not their college and not their parents -- to arrange for accommodations and to make sure they are implemented. Ideally, they need to learn about the Americans with Disabilties Act, which provides the legal basis for the accommodations that will help them succeed after high school.

Curriculum Decisions

All students need to take and pass specific courses to graduate from high school. But students with learning differences need to make sure that modifications they are granted by their high school, most commonly a waiver of the requirement that they take a certain number of foreign language credits, don't preclude their acceptance at a particular school which they hope to attend. Most colleges want their applicants to have taken a foreign language for admission and many also require that a student take a foreign language in order to graduate. Waivers and substitutions are possible, but not guaranteed. And not every major at a college may have a language requirement. Students who are offered a modified high school program without a foreign language, or students who attend a specialized high school which does not offer foreign languages, should be prepared to deal with the consequences when applying to college.

Testing

Students who have an IEP and receive special education services are required to be re-tested every three years, a process called a triennial review. Sometimes, especially when a student has had an IEP in place for a number of years and all is going well, the school and/or the parents may not seek to have full testing done for each triennial review. But the SAT/ACT exams require up-to-date testing as part of their process for granting accommodations (such as extended time), and college disability services offices do as well. Testing during the 10th grade year -- or as soon as a student turns 16 and can be tested with the adult version of the most common IQ test, the WAIS-IV-- is ideal. Colleges want to see the WAIS, rather than the WISC, the version of the IQ exam given to children under the age of 16. Keeping this information in mind during the earliest years of high school will help make both the SAT/ACT accommodation process and the college application process go more smoothly.

These are only a few of the issues that college bound bound students with learning and other difficulties need to start working on in high school. However ideal it may be for students to focus only on the immediacy of high school issues and to forgo planning ahead until college application deadlines loom, this may not be the best path for students with learning challenges.

Photo used under Creative Commons by Stewart Black (modified)

Mental Health Issues on College Campuses

 

An excellent program, held earlier this week at Fordham University School of Law (also sponsored by the New York State Bar Association), focused on legal and practical issues raised by college students with mental illness. 

These students include those who first show symptoms of emotional difficulties while dealing with the academic or social pressures of college, as well as a growing number of students with long-standing mental illness -- mild or more serious -- who are now enrolling in colleges across the country. The consensus among the program speakers was that the number of these students is growing because of such factors as more effective medication that can mitigate the impact of mental illness and the impact of the Americans with Disabilities Act and related statutes, which have required colleges to make reasonable accommodations for students with all kinds of disabilities.

There was a good deal of discussion during the program of the problems caused when college administrators and mental health counselors fail to take action or share information about students in crisis because they believe that doing so will violate federal law, specifically FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. All of the speakers - who included attorneys, mental health professionals, and college administrators (and a number of individuals who serve in more than one of these roles) -- were clear that they would rather deal with a lawsuit claiming that they breached a student's confidentiality under FERPA than face one in the aftermath of a tragedy. "There is no FERPA police force," one attorney stated. In addition, as we have noted before in this blog, there are numerous exceptions to FERPA, including when disclosure of information is necessary to protect the health of the student or other individuals.

Parents and students need to keep in mind that despite news reports when violence or suicide occurs at a college, a college campus is actually a very safe place. As Victor Schwartz, M.D., a psychiatrist who is Dean of Students at Yeshiva University in New York noted, the level of violence on campuses is lower than that in the communities in which they are located, and the rate of suicide among college students is one half that of students in the same age group who are not enrolled in college.

Attorneys Deborah Scalise, Melinda Saran (Vice Dean at SUNY
 Buffalo Law School), and Carolyn Wolf discuss ethical issues

Most mental health issues that face college students do not reach the serious levels of possible violence or suicide. For high school students who have a history of depression, anxiety, or mood regulation issues it is important to investigate the resources available at any college you are considering. What mental health services do they have on campus? How and when are students referred to community mental health providers? Will you be able to have prescriptions for medication filled near campus? And all students and parents should be aware that college can be a stressful time for young people and should learn about the kinds services a prospective school offers to support the mental health of its students.

Life After High School on BlogTalk Radio

Susan Yellin, Esq., the Director of Advocacy and Transition Services at The Yellin Center, was interviewed yesterday for a segment on BlogTalk Radio about her award-winning book, Life After High School: A Guide for Students with Disabilities and Their Families (Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2010).

Listen to the segment here.

Susan Yellin, Esq.

The half-hour interview was part of a series hosted by Beth Polner Abrahams, an attorney in Nassau County, New York, whose practice is focused on estate, tax, and special needs planning for families, the elderly, and individuals with disabilities. The wide-ranging conversation focused on the laws that protect students with learning and other difficulties in high school and college, steps students and families should take when thinking about college, alternatives to traditional college programs, and the practical issues involved in obtaining accommodations for college exams.

Mrs. Yellin will be appearing at several area schools and libraries in upcoming weeks:

• March 7th at The Community School in Teaneck, NJ
• March 14th at The Churchill School in Manhattan
• March 20th at the Upper Saddle River Library in New Jersey

Check out The Yellin Center's events calendar for more details.

Monday Miscellany

Writing Opportunity for New Jersey 5th and 6th Graders

Teachers 4 Student Success, a non-profit organization, will be hold a writing camp for 5th and 6th grade students in New Jersey this summer. The camp is designed for students who have either been diagnosed with a learning disability or who simply find writing difficult. Instruction will take place over 10 sessions from July to August, and will be based on research-tested methods for teaching expository writing. Because the program will be subsidized by a grant, the cost for the entire summer is only $20.00, though students must be willing to attend all sessions in Fort Lee, NJ or Ridgefield, NJ. Eligibility restrictions may apply. For further information, please contact Pooja Patel at pooja979@gmail.com or (201) 310-1348. Space is limited.

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A New Post-Secondary Program

Last week we had the chance to visit Giant Step Services, a two year vocational and independent living program for young adults with significant learning challenges. What brought us out to Hauppauge, in Suffolk County, New York, was the fact that this program is run by the same folks who created the Vocational Independence Program (VIP) at the New York Institute of Technology. VIP is a highly regarded post-secondary option for students whose learning difficulties would make college very difficult, but who can benefit from vocational education and life skills and social experiences. VIP students can also take courses at NYIT.

The team at Giant Step follows a similar model to VIP, but is not affiliated with a college, although students may take classes at Suffolk County Community College or elsewhere. The program is located in an apartment complex where the participants live together in two- or three-bedroom apartments. They receive significant levels of services and support to work in the community. The Giant Step program is still new, but given the background of the folks who are running it, we are hopeful that it will be an important resource for young people with significant learning challenges. For more information, contact Giant Step at (631) 631-5550.

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ARISE Coalition

New York City parents, teachers, and others who are concerned about the state of special education in the city should be aware of the ARISE Coalition (Action for Reform in Special Education), whose membership is a "Who's Who" of nonprofit organizations, educators, unions, and political leaders "seeking to connect and bring meaningful and positive reform to New York's schools. Their email alerts are a good way to keep abreast of NYC Special Education news.