Transition Research Identifies Five Legal Issues “Themes”

By Susan Rose, Focus Center Coordiantor, Texas Transition Resource Center

One could make a case that the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) is the most litigated law of the land.  It is a law that affords parents and students with disabilities many rights and service entitlements while assigning public school districts primary responsibility for ensuring those rights and services are provided.  It is important that   parents, students, schools, and other responsible agencies learn from those who have fought the good fight ahead of us.  By keeping abreast of case law and their significant findings, we can avoid making the same mistakes while learning what it takes to improve services to students as they transition from public school to adult life.

Advocacy in Action, a regular feature on The Advocacy Institute’s website, www.advocacyinstitute.org, studies current research and makes note of key findings related to special education.  One such study conducted by University of Northern Iowa researcher, Susan Etscheidt, looked into 36 state-level administrative and judicial decisions addressing school-to-post school transition plans for students with disabilities.   While case subjects were predominantly male, the disability conditions involved included intellectual and learning disabilities for the most part, as well as a smaller number of subjects with emotional or multiple disabilities and autism spectrum disorders.

While IDEA 97 was in effect during this study, study discussions include implications under IDEA 2004.  Emerging from Ms. Etscheidt’s research were findings, both procedural and substantive, that fell into in five categories, or “themes”, demonstrating areas where transition planning went awry, legally.  The themes and discussion of IDEA compliance issues are summarized as follows:

• Agency Contacts:  Federal and state laws require there to be a formal written agreement between the state education agencies and the state vocational rehabilitation agencies for coordinating the providing and paying for transition services for students with disabilities.  Service agencies supporting transition can include health, human services, mental health, social security, housing, recreation and postsecondary education/training and transportation. The study found that failure to involve these agencies impedes successful post school outcomes for students receiving special education services.  It also found that districts prevailed in cases where schools did not attempt to substitute parents’ efforts and acted in good faith “to obtain information, include agencies in planning, develop action steps, and link parents and students with agency resources.”
  
  
• Student Involvement:  At the time of this study, IDEA 97required that all students 14 and older must be invited to attend IEP meetings that address transition.  When the student does not attend, the IEP team must consider the student’s preferences, interests and concerns. Districts work as a team to determine interest-based coursework and services that will address the student’s needs and lead them to achieve their transition goals.  Note that with the reauthorization of IDEA in 2004, the age moved to 16.  IEP teams must include the student’s active participation in developing transition plans that include the student’s strengths, interests and preferences.
  
  
• Individualization of the Transition Plan:  Decisions reviewed addressed the importance of individualizing transition plans on the basis of student need, preference and interest. Districts cannot offer generic information, training, or other “insignificant” activities or opportunities as a substitute for a “robust program”, based on assessment and calculated to provide benefit.  When districts demonstrate that they have provided appropriate coursework, work related activities and goals that meet the needs of the student, procedural errors may be excused and districts have prevailed.  Districts can be required to develop a variety of “creative” solutions that include community-based programming that allows a student to apply the skills they have learned, functional skill development that can take place after a student has participated in graduation ceremonies with his peers, and instruction provided in “real life” settings rather than “artificial ones”.
  
  
• District Obligation:  Districts are not required to ensure that the goal of employment or independent living is achieved, but they must do more than provide opportunity and skills to simply apply to postsecondary programs. These are qualitative differences that are at the core of the district’s duty to provide a program calculated to benefit each student.  When students are introduced to a variety of school and community experiences, and districts can demonstrate that school programs are designed to assist students to successfully meet social and vocational goals as well as graduation requirements, districts have prevailed in hearings. However, the fact that a student meets graduation requirements does not relieve the district of the obligation to provide the transition services that fully implement and allow the student to complete their IEP.
  
  
• The Appropriateness of the Transition Plan:  Many of the cases reviewed addressed the issue of how appropriate the transition plan was in addressing the needs of the student. In several cases, the failure to provide adequate specially designed communication aids, reading instruction or proper evaluations while students were in secondary schools resulted in districts being required to provide and fund additional or compensatory services to students who had graduated or who were seeking postsecondary program enrollment.  In cases where districts offered FAPE, and could demonstrate successful participation or completion of IEP goals, requests for compensatory or extended services were not successful.

We have learned valuable lessons from this study of administrative and judicial cases that we can use to improve individual transition planning processes and resulting post-school outcomes.  Advocacy in Action emphasizes that IDEA defines transition as a “results-oriented process” that should support the academic and functional achievement leading to successful postsecondary training and programs as well as independent living and work in the community.

We have also learned that:

• Adult services agencies must be contacted and involved in developing transition goals and plans. Services that they fund must be delineated in the plan.
  
  
• Earning enough academic credits for high school graduation is not a transition plan.
  
  
• Both academic and functional goals and supports are necessary to achieve the results oriented process required by IDEA.
  
  
• School districts are not responsible for ensuring successful outcomes, but they are responsible for developing comprehensive transition programs that are individualized and that reflect the needs, preferences and interests of the student in question.
  
  
• Extended or compensatory services and supports may be awarded as a result of substantive failures to provide transition programs, but are rarely awarded on the basis of procedural violations when districts can demonstrate good faith efforts to develop goals and supports that benefit students and put them “on the path” to successful transitions.

This study spotlights the “dismal post school achievements of students with disabilities” and reminds us of the critical importance of initiating discussions at the IEP table as early as possible in a student’s secondary school experience.  Ms Etscheidt also offers information and good transition practices necessary and most likely to render positive post-school results, such as:

• Interagency coordination
  
  
• IEP team members that are familiar with and engaged in identifying adult and post school services and programs
  
  
• Linkages with and active participation of rehabilitation professionals
  
  
• Clear delineation of responsibilities of adult service agencies in plans
  
  
• Significant involvement and participation of students in developing their own transition goals and programs (In fact, student participation is highly correlated with improved outcomes both in graduation rates and in employment.)

Also noted in post-study discussion is that with the IDEA 2004 changes to the age at which we must begin addressing transition, from 14 to “no later than the first IEP to be in effect when the child is 16”, parents and advocates have their work cut out for them to encourage early transition planning before a student enters high school.  Ms. Etscheidt states with emphasis, “Planning post school outcomes for all students is generally a comprehensive four-year process. Courses that are required for graduation and to pursue future goals are often sequential and require planning to begin well before age 16.”

The above summary of research findings is regarding the research: Issues in Transition Planning: Legal Decisions. Susan Etscheidt, Department of Special Education, University of Northern Iowa. Published in Career Development for Exceptional Individuals, 29(1), 28-47.  To review other related research findings visit http://www.advocacyinstitute.org/advocacyinaction/