PART 2: 4 Hallmarks of Exceptional Transition Education for Students on the Autism Spectrum
Bill Mulcahy – Assistant Principal, League School or Greater Boston
The League School of Greater Boston is a model of Best Practice in Transition Education. We are a “best practice” school because of our ability to effectively integrate four important elements: a program team model, vocational programming, transitional planning, and a partnership for the transition process. In this series of blog posts, we will take a closer look at each.
(Part 2 of 4) An Exceptional Vocational Program
Continuing our discussion of best practices when it comes to Transition Education, we will next focus on vocational programming.
League School’s approach to vocational programming includes having a dedicated vocational coordinator, vocational manager, culinary arts teacher, school store manager, and job coaches to properly address the vocational training and transition education of our students. In preparation for working in the community, League School has a wide variety of in-school pre-vocational training opportunities in our vocational center, supervised by our vocational manager. We currently have 22 vocational internship sites in the community with multiple time slots at each site, supervised by our vocational coordinator and job coaches.
In addition, our school store, the Hawk’s Nest, and our training kitchen both provide valuable pre-vocational training opportunities for our students. Our students also have a fleet of 15 vans for them to access the community beyond the four walls of their classrooms. These community experiences provide opportunities for students to practice their IEP goals, generalize skills across multiple settings, and report to work at their community internships. In addition, students attend Job Club, do college searches, and visit community colleges as they do vocational exploration, resume writing, and post-22 planning.
Having such a comprehensive program in place enables League School to optimize opportunities for its students. Our next blog will address the third important element in the process, Transition Planning.
