Catch 22: Special needs students in transition programs can ' t take community college classes in Minnesota

We ’ve discovered  an interesting “Catch-22. It applies to Minnesota but may be common elsewhere.In MN a student entering a state funded transition program cannot do courses at a community college — even if they pay for them directly and even if they were doing them while in High School through Minnesota’s PSEO program.The reason is that Community Colleges require a High School diploma, but transition programs require that a studentnot have a High School diploma [1]. While in High School students may attend Community Colleges for advanced courses through programs like PSEO (MN), but not after finishing High School. Once a student is in a transition program they may likewise, through the transition program, be eligible to attendselected community college classes.This catch-22 won ’t snag many students. Most students entering transition won’t have been doing PSEO classes or be interested in most community college courses. It may, however, catch autism-spectrum adults with relatively strong academic skills. Our #2 falls into this category.We ’re sorting out our options, but wish we’d known this in advance.- fn -[1] In practice though eitheradaptation or modification a MN student with an IEP (includes “special needs”) will typically have the credits to graduate. To maintain eligibility for transition program education for ages 18-21 the student may attend graduation, but the diploma is not placed in their hands. So, they finish High School at age 18, but t h...
Source: Be the Best You can Be - Category: Disability Tags: autism college education transition Source Type: blogs