Last year, KJZZ reported on families of high school students with disabilities who were surprised to find out that their students were graduating; sometimes those families found out at the last minute. State law allows students with Individual Education Program, or IEPs, to stay in high school until they’re 22 years old — so the fact that students younger than that were being forced to graduate was possibly illegal.
Last week, the Arizona Board of Education approved a new rule that aims to help address this. Under the new measure, schools need to start planning for what happens after graduation for students with IEPs when they’re 14 years old. Part of the goal is to get schools and families on the same page, in terms of when students are set to graduate high school.
Karla Phillips-Krivickas, a member of the Arizona Board of Education and founder and CEO of Inclusive Strategies, which focuses on education needs for students with disabilities. Phillips-Krivickas joined The Show to talk about what exactly this new rule does.
Full conversation
KARLA PHILLIPS-KRIVICKAS: Sure. Well, let me give you a little bit of background. Students with disabilities who are receiving special education services have what we call IEPs. I don't want to assume that readers, that listeners know what these things are, which are individual education plans and programs. Within those programs under federal law at the age of 16, the schools are required to start planning for their transition, college and career life after school.
It came to my attention that about over 30 states had lowered that age on their own to 14 or freshman year, which as you know, makes sense, most kids were starting to play on because you've got to make sure you're taking the right classes and everything. So that was really the impetus for why I wanted to do this because I thought it made sense. Everybody I talked to said, yeah, that's best practice and we should be doing it. So that was kind of the background of it.
MARK BRODIE: How does this potentially impact and maybe what is the relationship with students who maybe ideally would stay in in high school a little bit longer? For example, people who have some kind of disability that allows them to stay in high school longer.
PHILLIPS-KRIVICKAS: First of all, I want to clarify something that not everybody knows. I think we all know that a lot of kids with disabilities sometimes stay in high school longer. But what not everyone knows is any child identified with a disability in an IEP can stay through 21 in Arizona, 22. So it's not just the kids that we would typically think about. But I think the issue that really prompted me to move forward with this is something that has been written about and spoken about. I believe on this show, it's what we call premature graduation.
I had heard from advocates and attorneys that for years now there were a significant amount of parents of children with significant disabilities who felt they were being pushed out of high school early at the end of senior year. we ran a bill to try to address it. This year, the bill made it out of the Senate bipartisan but stopped in the house for a variety of reasons. But we've been building awareness about it, having people come and testify at the state board, and the common theme that we heard from these families was they felt really caught off guard.
So we called it the No Surprises Act that no parent should be senior year to find out that their kid is or is not graduating.
BRODIE: When they thought their kid would be allowed to stay for maybe a few more years.
PHILLIPS-KRIVICKAS: Correct. So part of the rule, not only requires them to start planning earlier freshman year, ideally, but it also requires the school districts to give one year's notice to the families prior to an anticipated graduation date.
BRODIE: Is the idea that by starting this planning a little bit earlier, it maybe helps the schools even to understand, Ok, we have a student who might be 19,20 21 years old, what are we going to do for them? What are we, where are they going to be when they're older than the other kids in the school?
PHILLIPS-KRIVICKAS: It's probably fair to share with you and listeners that in the disability community, we often refer to the turning of age 18 as you fall off the cliff. So it's even hard for me not to get emotional to think about this. My daughter is approaching that age 17.5, but you all through your K-12 experience, and really even prior to that in preschool, you've got quite frankly, lots of federal laws and programs and entitlements and services. And when they graduate from high school, all of that ends. And so that's what we call it kind of falling off the cliff. So it's a really significant issue for families of kids with significant disabilities.
And as I've shared publicly, I have a daughter with Down syndrome. It doesn't even really matter how great the school is, how great the programs are. By definition, she has a developmental delay, she needs more time. And that was really the message that we heard from families. It really wasn't just a criticism of the classes or whatever it is they were or were not taking. It's just our kids are significantly delayed, they need more time to try to catch up.
BRODIE: So what are you hearing from school officials, education officials about how they plan to implement this rule and maybe what they think its impact is going to be.
PHILLIPS-KRIVICKAS: Well, I've heard from a lot of school districts or schools that they were already doing that because the law allowed them to. It was just the 16 was like the bare minimum. So a lot of them were doing it earlier because it was a best practice. I'm really happy to tell you that there was 100% support from the field. We had no opposition.
Of course, you're always wordsmithing when it comes to legislation and rules, but we had support and I'm really excited and proud of that because I think the schools know that they need more time too because it is a really complicated web of programs as kids start to approach that 18, that includes Medicaid, you know, economic security, all of these programs. So it just takes time to create those programs.
But I also want to point out that, you know, Arizona has over 200 school districts and over 300 charter schools. And the reason I think that's important to point out in this context is we often think of the 30 really big districts. The Tucsons, the Mesas, they have wonderful staff, transition directors programs. A lot of kids are in small and rural districts and charter schools that have to had need more, even, need more time and more consideration to try to navigate all of that.
BRODIE: I wonder if in some of those smaller, maybe rural districts, will it be difficult if they, for example, don't have a ton of guidance counselors that they're not only dealing with trying to help 16 year olds to plan ahead, but now they're also having kids who are younger doing that. It sort of increases the universe of students that they have to work with, but maybe don't have the resources to hire more people to work with them.
PHILLIPS-KRIVICKAS: It's a hard question to answer, although a very valid one only because the makeup of the districts is so different depending on geography in terms of how the staff works, it's just very different.
BRODIE: So what will you be looking out for now that this rule has been implemented to make sure that it's being done or to really gauge how effective it is?
PHILLIPS-KRIVICKAS: What I will be looking for and hoping to see not only from the state Department of Education, but also from advocates and nonprofits and all the providers is really starting to craft pathways. So pathways is a really hot topic in education right now. And we think of CTE, AP, all of those dual enrollment, the pathways. The kids with significant disabilities need unique pathways. And I don't think those have been clear. So I think that schools would appreciate that too from the department from the board. But I also think it's, it's communities coming together.
Like when I think of a rural community, they may only have one or two kids. If this is affected, all of the families know each other, they know the businesses. So just having that extra time is really going to get them, give them the time they need to really craft that unique pathway for a small subset of kids.
BRODIE: Is there anything you're going to be looking out for to see if this is, and I hate to phrase it this way, but enough of a solution or if there are more things that you might need to try to look at going forward.
PHILLIPS-KRIVICKAS: I think we still again need, and when I say pathways, not only the physical pathways, but I think there will be guidance needed from the state Department on what is allowable and what is not, because I think there's a lot of confusion in the field. And it's interesting because like everything in education, every state is very different. But I would love for us as the advocates in the disability community, go and see how other states are doing it and find the best programs that are working and try to figure out how to replicate those.
