Study: More students with disabilities heading to college
BATON ROUGE — Three-fourths of students with disabilities who finished high school in 2017 earned diplomas through the TOPS University Pathway and qualified to attend four-year universities, a new study by the state Education Department has found.
Ten percent of students with disabilities earned a technical career diploma, and 15 percent received some other exit document, such as a certificate of achievement or a general equivalency diploma.
Jamie Wong, the state’s special education policy director, credited this “tremendous” success to an alternate pathway for students that the Legislature created in 2014.
Historically, students earned high school diplomas only through the successful completion of both coursework and standardized exam requirements. Since the new law was passed, Wong said, “it is no longer a state policy that high school may not be possible for everyone.”
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The Louisiana Department of Education analyzed data on 2,800 students with disabilities, ages 14-21, who left school during the 2016-2017 school with an exit document.
The disabilities include mental and emotional issues as well as speech, vision, hearing and other physical impairments.
When the students were sophomores, they had to choose between a TOPS University Diploma Pathway, which aligns with the TOPS scholarship program curriculum, and a TOPS Tech Career Diploma Pathway.
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The tech pathway is known as the Jump Start Program. Its students take coursework that provides them with industry-ready credentials right out of high school.
The 2014 law, known as Act 833, also allows students with an Individualized Education Plan who had a history of struggling with standardized assessments to earn a high school diploma by meeting alternative measures established by their education plan team.
The law allows the child’s team to determine performance indicators specific for the child to promote him or her to the next grade.
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The Education Department also created a unique diploma pathway for students with significant cognitive disabilities. They make up about 1 percent of the state’s students.
Not everyone has been pleased with the state’s Act 833 rollout. April Dunn, chairwoman of the Louisiana Developmental Disabilities Council, said the Act 833 information on the department’s website was difficult to access.
At a Special Education Advisory Council meeting last Tuesday, members of Dunn’s council wore yellow T-shirts with “Inclusion” printed on the front and “We’ve Waited Long Enough!” on the back.
The Special Education Advisory Council is a federally mandated group of stakeholders from across the state that meets four times a year to advise the Department of Education on special education issues. Stakeholders include parents; educators from public, private, and charter schools; and various agency representatives.
Wong, the state education official, said all of the information is available on the department’s website, louisianabelieves.com, in the parent toolbox section. She did, however, seek comments from members of the Special Education Advisory Panel on how to better deliver information to parents of students.
The Legislature also passed a law in 2016 that allows former students with disabilities who did not graduate solely due to exam requirements to petition their local school districts for high school diplomas.
The last day to file was Dec. 31, and the state received 117 requests. The top three parishes receiving submissions were Lafourche with 20, Caddo with 19 and Bossier with 17.
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