The Changing Nature of High School

A number of recent articles on how high school education is changing seem to all respond to the same set of observations: too many students graduate from high school unprepared for college or the workplace, and the current national economy is less than hospitable to these high school graduates.

Several innovations -- both locally and nationally -- are attempting to address this situation. Here in New York, a new diploma credential, designed for regular and special education students who will be graduating with a Regents (academic) or local diploma,  is the Career and Technical Education Endorsement. As described by the New York State Department of Education, this credential requires coursework that combines career and technical education, as well as academic components, and may be jointly developed and taught by an academic subject teacher and/or a career and technical education teacher. It also requires that the student satisfactorily complete a "technical assessment." This assessment can be developed by a particular industry (such as the exam necessary for a student to obtain certification as an Emergency Medical Technician) or, if no specific assessment is available, can be developed by the school district in conjunction with local businesses or professional organizations. Such an assessment should include: written examination(s), student project(s) and student demonstration(s) of technical skills to measure proficiency.

Another approach to integrating high school academics and career readiness is happening in several communities on Long Island, where school  districts are setting up technical and career programs in individual schools, rather than send their students out to a regional program at a BOCES (Board of Cooperative Educational Services, which serves a number of regional school districts) campus. There are both budgetary and practical reasons for this trend. As noted in Newsday, reduced State funding to BOCES has increased districts' costs of participation and some districts find it cheaper to keep their students in their own building. In addition, integrating technical and career training with academics is easier when all courses take place in the same building.

On a national level, there is a program known as P-Tech - Pathways in Technology Early College High School, originally developed by IBM to provide a strong education in STEM skills (science, technology, engineering, and math) to students in inner city schools. These students graduate from high school in six years, instead of four, and emerge with both a high school diploma and a two year associate's degree, as well as the promise of a good-paying job. There is an excellent description of these programs and the positive impact they are having on their students (called "innovators" at some schools) in Time magazine, which is also available in a printer-friendly version.

There's No Child Find After High School

The obligation of public school districts to identify students who may have disabilities and to proactively determine if they qualify for services under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is a rarely discussed aspect of the law, called "Child Find."

This section of the IDEA requires that all children with disabilities residing in each State, including children who are enrolled in private schools, be "identified, located, and evaluated." This provision effectively makes it the responsibility of each district to seek out students who are struggling, to determine if they qualify for services, and to provide them with needed services. It goes hand-in-hand with the affirmative obligation of school districts to establish an Individualized Education Program (IEP) for each child who qualifies for services, and to meet at least once each year to review the student's progress and update his or her IEP. 

While we have written about Child Find before*, we haven't specifically noted how the absence of Child Find impacts students who have graduated and are no longer eligible for IDEA services. This shift of responsibility, from the school to the individual student or employee, can be a rude awakening for college students or those entering the workplace from high school. Neither colleges nor employers have any obligation to seek out individuals with disabilities. Unless the individual informs the college (by providing documentation of a disability to the Office of Disability Services) a student will have no right to any accommodations, auxiliary aids and services, or modifications which they might require to access the curriculum or campus. 

This is an important reason for high school students to understand the nature of their disability -- learning, medical, or otherwise -- and to be able to articulate what they need to learn effectively. Students who have been involved in their education, by discussing their learning needs, attending IEP meetings, and generally being aware of what they require to build on their strengths and overcome their challenges, are well equipped to step up when they are no longer covered by the IDEA and need to take the initiative to arrange the accommodations they will need to succeed beyond high school.

*The U.S. Supreme Court declined to take the case we discussed in our prior post on this subject.

Photo credit: Inf-Lite Teacher via Flickr

Compensatory Education

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) specifically sets forth remedies for certain violations of student rights. For example, an IEE, an Independent Educational Evaluation, must be provided at public expense where a district fails to conduct a timely or complete evaluation of a student, or even when a parent simply disagrees with the findings of a school evaluation. Likewise, the IDEA includes the right to reimbursement of private school tuition for parentally placed students where the district has not provided a Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) and certain other conditions are met. However, there is no specific statutory remedy designed to aid students who have graduated high school or aged out of IDEA eligibility (generally at age 21) without receiving the educational services to which they were entitled by law.

For these students, the courts have utilized the equitable remedy (meaning that it was created by judges to right a wrong) of compensatory education. Compensatory education for younger students, who are still subject to the IDEA, comes into play when a school district has seriously deprived a student of the educational services he or she should have received. For example, a student with a learning disability whose district consistently refused to evaluate him could be awarded compensatory educational services by a hearing officer or court -- services such as summer tutoring, additional supports during the school year, or placement in a specialized school -- which are designed to "make up" for the school's failure to properly identify the student as one who needed IDEA services. 

But what about students who have already graduated from high school or aged out of eligibility for IDEA services?  As the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has noted, “In order to give meaning to a disabled student’s right to an education between the ages of three and twenty-one, compensatory education must be available beyond a student’s twenty-first birthday. Otherwise, school districts simply could stop providing required services to older teenagers, relying on the Act's time-consuming review process to protect them from further obligations.”1

Federal Courts have found that the age of the student seeking "post graduation" compensatory services does not make a student ineligible for such services. As a federal court in Indiana noted, the fact that the student was “now 24 years old does not moot his case. The Court may award adult compensatory education if it is necessary and appropriate to cure a past violation of the IDEA.”2

The courts that first crafted this use of compensatory education built on the reasoning in cases that provided for tuition reimbursement under the predecessor statute to the IDEA, noting that, like retroactive tuition reimbursement, compensatory education required school districts to “belatedly pay expenses that [they] should have paid all along.”3

For students no longer covered by the IDEA - because they have graduated or have aged out of eligibility - compensatory education can take the form of post-secondary education, requiring payment for a student who had already graduated high school to attend a reading program at a college for students with learning disabilities. It has also been used to  require a school district to provide annual reevaluations and annual IEPs for a student over the age of 21. However, it is generally available only where there has been a gross deprivation of a student's rights. It is not an easy remedy to obtain and cannot really compensate for having an appropriate education during the years prior to graduation.


Photo credit: Janet Lindenmuth/Creative Commons

[1] Phil v. Mass. Dep’t of Educ., 9 F.3d 184 (1st Cir. 1993)

[2] Brett v. Goshen Community Sch. Corp., 161 F. Supp. 2d 930 (N.D. Ind. 2001)

[3] 800 F.2d 749, 754 (8th Cir. 1986).

Resources for Summer and After-School Programs

The calendar tells us that Spring is here -- notwithstanding the freezing temperatures, biting winds, and predictions of snow tomorrow!  So, we started thinking ahead to summer programs and activities for students and, along the way, found some great suggestions for school year programs as well.

For New York City families, there is a terrific list of both summer and school year programs on the website of InsideSchools.org.  The list is organized by interest area: math, science, arts, humanities, and academic prep. All of the programs are free.

The folks at New York City's Resources for Children with Special Needs have extensive listings of camps for children with issues ranging from ADHD to medical disabilities. They have a new "camp match" program that allows parents to find camps specific to their child's needs.

A national program, with locations from New York to Hawaii, After-School All-Stars partners with schools and both local and national organizations (such as the NBA) to provide after-school activities for school age children who need a safe, fun place to be after school and who can benefit from academic support offered in such a setting.

The American Camp Association website offers information on the more than 2,400 camps they accredit and provides information and tips on camping for parents and children on everything from how to choose a camp to how to deal with homesickness

Some area school for students with learning difficulties also offer summer programs, designed to integrate academic support and summer fun. Winston Prep offers summer programs in both its Norwalk, Connecticut and New York City locations. There is also a summer program for students with language based learning disabilities at the Windward School in White Plains, NY. And the Aaron School, in New York City, has links on its home page to separate programs for students ages 4-13 (Camp Green Trees) and ages 14-21 (Project Innovation, a technology based program).

Recommended Reads: The Mysterious Benedict Society

The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Ages: Perfect for the average sixth grader

Awards: Booklist Editor’s Choice: Books for Youth Award, the Notable Children’s Books Award, and the Texas Lone Star Books Award

Plot: Brilliant orphan Reynard “Reynie” Muldoon is lonely and misunderstood at the Stonetown Orphanage, so he’s ecstatic about an advertisement he sees in the paper: exceptionally talented children can take a mysterious test with exciting (though unspecified) outcomes if they pass. Reynie triumphs over each of the exam’s delightfully tricky phases (readers will enjoy trying to solve the riddles alongside him) and finds himself teamed up with three other loner misfits who have also passed. Three of the four children are clearly gifted, though in different ways. Reynie’s strength is his ability to think logically. George “Sticky” Washington earned his nickname because any information he comes across sticks in his formidable memory. Kate Wetherall is brave, enormously athletic, and displays a MacGyver-like skill for turning just about anything into the perfect tool to get her out of a jam. The gifts of the fourth member of the team, tiny Constance Contraire, are less obvious. She is rude and argumentative, and while the other three become fast friends, they’re all a little puzzled by her inclusion on their team. But Mr. Benedict, their kindly, if narcoleptic, benefactor and organizer of the test, assures them that she is essential to their mission. The children learn that they are to be sent to nearby Nomansan Island as spies to attempt to foil the evil Mr. Curtain’s fiendish plot to (what else?) take over the world. The self-dubbed Mysterious Benedict Society has to draw on every bit of strength, cunning, and grit it can muster in this delightful adventure.

Our Take: Most kids love to read books starring child geniuses, and books about spies, and this entertaining mystery is sure to please. Though there are a few places where it seems to drag a bit, for the most part the plot is exciting, fresh, and unpredictable. Kids will love this book for the story and kooky, memorable characters. Parents and teachers will love it for the way it extols the importance of intelligence and moral values and teaches vocabulary. Some of the rich wordplay is embedded in the text, but some is explicit - and very palatably so. For example, when Kate confesses to Reynie that she doesn’t know the meaning of “ignominious,” she is offended by Reynie’s reply of “Shameful!” until he hastily explains that he was defining the word for her. The book is filled with humor, some of which is obvious and some more understated. The numerous puns were one of our favorite aspects of the novel; parents should be ready to point them out, as some may be too subtle for some kids to recognize immediately. The evil Mr. Curtain (whose first name is Ledroptha – fitting, since he hopes to “drop the curtain” on the world when he unleashes his devious plan) has set up shop on Nomansan Island (i.e. no man’s an island). One of Mr. Curtain’s henchmen is a huge, hapless youth named S.Q. Pedalian, who is just as tall as his sesquipedalian-eque name suggests, and who frequently uses long words, though often incorrectly. Constance’s last name, Contraire, highlights just how very contrary she can be. Throughout the book, we delighted in the way the four children learned from each other, absorbing both knowledge and important lessons about bravery, friendship, family, multiple intelligences, and teamwork. And readers will learn along with them as they turn each enjoyable page.

Adult themes: None

Good to Know: The Mysterious Benedict Society is the first of a four-part series. Young geniuses will also enjoy Mr. Benedict’s Book of Perplexing Puzzles, Elusive Enigmas, and Curious Conundrums. And what best-selling series would be complete without a webpage? Visit for more information about the books, their characters, and the author, as well as some brain-bending games.

Whiteboards, Reinvented!

There’s something magical about whiteboards. Give a reluctant student a pencil and pad and he’ll groan. Give him a portable whiteboard and a marker and his eyes will light up. Students who dislike spelling will generally write long lists of words without complaint on a white board. Long division woes? Write the problem on a whiteboard and watch a student chomp at the bit to get at it. Maybe it’s the novelty. Maybe it’s the colored markers and the sharp, crisp lines they create. Maybe it’s the knowledge that mistakes will disappear with the swipe of a finger. Whatever the reason, there’s no denying that the power of a whiteboard belies its simplicity.

White boards aren’t exactly convenient, though. A student can’t draw up a master plan, then toss the board into a backpack and expect the lines to remain when she takes it out again. And tutors who want to use a whiteboard may need to spend lots of time setting up sample math problems or sentences, which must then be carefully protected so that they don’t rub off before they can be worked on.

So we were thrilled to discover the clever products available through a company called Whiteboard Reinvented. For example, the Mini Ideaboard is part notebook, part whiteboard, and all ingenuity. Three rings hold five whiteboard sheets, perfect for brainstorming. There are also four transparent overlays that can be placed over a whiteboard sheet for editing or over a piece of paper. Imagine the possibilities – students could trace letters as they work to learn cursive, do a sheet of math problems, even have fun tracing a

favorite comic! The whole thing is encased in an attractive cover that will either close over the sheets to protect them or prop up the board to share ideas with others.

We’re also fans of the Launchpad. It, too, has five whiteboard sheets, but it’s also got a lined pad of paper underneath them for preserving the best ideas. Imagine a student brainstorming for an essay; he can list all his ideas on one whiteboard page, arrange the best ones on another whiteboard page in the form of a mind map, then copy his final arrangement on paper when he is satisfied with it. The Launchpad also comes with two clear dry erase pockets that will fit any A4 printout for easy editing. These would be great for any of the ideas listed above (practicing handwriting, doing a math worksheet), or for papers used daily or

weekly. For example, a student with lots of responsibilities during rushed mornings could place a checklist in the pocket, then check off items as he completes them each day (e.g. wash breakfast dish, feed the dog, collect sports equipment, etc.). It could also house a blank weekly calendar onto which a he could record assignments, due dates, and other important information.



In short, Whiteboard Reinvented is a wonderfully innovative company whose products may be just what you need to inspire similar creativity in the students in your life.

Love The Giver? Read the Rest of the Quartet!

It’s hard to believe that most young people would not have been able to define “dystopia” ten years ago. Dystopian fiction is one of the hottest genres these days, with series like The Hunger Games, Divergent, Matched, Uglies, The Maze Runner (we could go on) flying off shelves – and, in many cases, onto movie screens. With this onslaught of new inductees to the world of young adult dystopian fiction, it’s easy to overlook one of the pioneers of the genre, Lois Lowry’s groundbreaking and award-winning novel The Giver. It was, and still is, a staple of the middle school language arts canon, and most adults in their mid-30’s on down have breathlessly turned its pages only to be haunted by its ambiguous ending. The Giver is one of the best-known and best-respected young adult books around. But did you know that it is the first in a four-part series?

The Giver Quartet is comprised of its famous and eponymous first installation, plus Gathering Blue, Messenger, and Son. Gathering Blue, written seven years after its predecessor, presents a new dystopian society very different from Jonas’s Community. Kira, the protagonist, lives in a village that lacks any kind of sophisticated technology. Its inhabitants have no machines and do everything by hand. It is still a culture that values the strong, however, if by default rather than by design as in the Community. Kira, born with a twisted leg, has only a slim chance for survival, but her remarkable gift for embroidery gives her a chance to save herself. There only the vaguest allusions to The Giver in Gathering Blue, and they come only at the very end, but the same themes are explored with writing that is just as gripping. And reading both is essential preparation for Messenger, which comes next. 

We’re loath to give too much about Messenger away, so we’ll share only sketchy details. Some familiar characters resurface in yet another settlement, located, as it turns out, in the same forest as Jonas’s Community and Kira’s village. Life in this third town is simple in many ways, but the technology and the culture are more sophisticated than in Kira’s village. The magical realism in The Giver, which plays a role in Gathering Blue, becomes more dominant in this book. Its hero, Matty, is one of our favorite characters in the series. As in the previous two novels, Lowry explores the dark side of human nature, though we’re happy to report that selflessness, humility, and love win the day.

Son, the fourth and final book, is the most sweeping novel in the Quartet. It begins back in the original Community and tells the story of Claire, a so-called birth mother who discovers many of the dark secrets we learned in The Giver and rebels against the Community. The reader learns before too long that she and Jonas are contemporaneous, and it is interesting to read the familiar events in The Giver from a different perspective. Like Jonas, Claire chooses to escape from the Community; her motivation, however, is not her own freedom but the desire to be reunited with her son, who was taken from her to be raised by others like all newborns in the Community. Again, the reader is reunited with familiar characters, and the conclusion of Claire’s adventures and travels provides a satisfying ending for both the book and the whole series.

One great thing about The Giver Quartet is that it’s appropriate for younger readers. Due to dark themes, violence, and more complex language, series like Divergent and The Hunger Games are best for slightly older kids. The Giver, while anything but simple, is accessible to the average fifth or sixth grader. We enthusiastically recommend the whole series to young readers, particularly to those who have been on tenterhooks since they finished The Giver.