Let's Talk About Transitions: Part Two - High School, Bridge, and Adulthood
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[00:00:00] 

Aleia Mastroianni: Hi everyone. Welcome back to SpecialEd, IEPs, 504s, Oh my: Conversations with DCSEAC. This episode is actually part two of our transition conversation that started last week. If you missed part one, feel free to jump back on the pod and listen to it.

We discussed the transitions between schools, so we were talking about the transition between pre-K and elementary and elementary into middle school, and then today on part two, we're excited to jump into the big conversations about transitioning from middle school into high school, high school, possibly into Bridge programming, and also the big scary transitioning out of the public school system and into adulthood.

It's a good one. Let's get into it.

So, let's jump over to high school, the next big bad transition.

There are some things that change in the IEP, what it looks like we talked about earlier how the minutes change. Kelly, why don't you give a little description of why do the [00:01:00] instructional minutes look a little bit different on the IEP and starting probably in middle school, they'll start hearing more about direct services versus indirect services.

What does that mean? 

Kelly Mayr: Right. So, indirect services would be where a professional, whether it's the special ed teacher or speech pathology or OT is consulting more with your general education teacher. So like I have a daughter with a physical disability, so sometimes OT or there's a program called SWAC will come in and they will look at the classroom situation, they will look at what needs to be done, the height of the table, things like that for my child to be able to benefit from their education. That is not a direct service. They're not really working with my child consistently. They are consulting with the other professionals that are working with her.

So you'll see those kind of minutes. And then direct services have to be provided directly. They're explicit instruction. And again, as we're talking about buy-in from students, you know what that looks like as you go into high school, they're not all exactly the same, but depending on the program, if you have a large [00:02:00] program, SSN is even broken down into two groups. And it's strategies, which is a strategy curriculum. And it is life skills. Right. And those look quite different. But they are both under special education. They are modifying the curriculum. I need parents understand that because if college is something you're looking at for your child, just know that some of those classes don't necessarily qualify for college. So understanding the classes your child goes into in high school is really important. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Mm-hmm. 

Kelly Mayr: Especially in the mild, moderate program. And there's like, when you have a kid, as Meredith mentioned with her child, and I have a similar one, that they're a little bit of a tweener sometimes it is tough to figure out where they're gonna land, so we always have to be looking ahead 

Meredith Daly: mm-hmm. 

Kelly Mayr: To make sure we are gonna cover our bases. But just like middle school, we have team taught options. Which are very nice options. We have some things, I don't know if it's at every school, but like, I have a child now in Algebra one, [00:03:00] part one, which is a really nice option. Right. And so instead of doing algebra one in one year, they're gonna do it over two years. So it's just a slow down. Its general education curriculum, just slowed down. 

Aleia Mastroianni: That's awesome.

Kelly Mayr: Now, in our district, you only need three years of math to graduate. However many colleges want four years. You just need to be looking ahead. So like, I was saying my daughter in Algebra one part one and Algebra one part two, that still only counts as one math class.

Aleia Mastroianni: Interesting. 

Kelly Mayr: Yeah. So, there's some nuances to some of these programs. I still think it's great. My child is thriving in that class. She's really getting it. So having lots of meetings and really understanding what are the different options and how do they best fit my particular child, is really helpful. 

Aleia Mastroianni: I love how we're breaking this out because by the time we're at high school, a lot of our programs are going to look very different because we have our gen ed population that is going through all of the typical things you might imagine in sports and getting ready for college and taking prep classes and things like that.

And then if you're [00:04:00] transitioning your child in Mild/Mod, all of a sudden those goals after school, going into college or going into a different profession is so nuanced on how you support that. And then if you go to the other side of the spectrum with SSN, so with my daughter, where we are looking at profound autism and someone who will never be independent, all of a sudden what school's providing is very different.

Even just in my most recent meeting as we were transitioning and talking about high school, something that matters to me is I don't want my daughter sitting in a classroom so that they can say she sat in the classroom. To say her body is in a gen ed classroom. She's in this elective because that's what she should be. And they're going to tell you, and it's true in a way, to say, well you need to meet these graduation requirements.

You need to be in this many classes. And I want you to know that there is flexibility in programming. You are not the first person who's had a child who cannot attend a whole day of school like my daughter. And I am so excited for her programming. [00:05:00] I'm so excited for her to grow and change and the high school's offering so many interesting and exciting opportunities.

But I also know that for me, because the high school level curriculum, when she's not taking her modified classes, she can't, she doesn't have the dexterity to do jewelry. She's absolutely triggered by someone telling her what to do with art. I don't want her body sitting there for the sake of inclusion, or even for the sake of a high school credit.

It's a very different type of advocating or programming that I'm looking at for someone like my daughter. And then when you take something like your children or Meredith, when your sons are up there, I personally think it's the hardest. I don't wanna leave out our AN families, because I also run the AN support group.

I love our AN families who are sort of the tweeners between the two programs. You're not SSN, you're not Mild/Mod, and you're also trying to say, what does my future look like when blended in with my different abilities and different challenges, and how do I create programming that matches that?

It's [00:06:00] another space for advocating, another space for trying to look into the future. What does this look like? And if you want to be college bound, if you wanna go to a tech school. These things need to be individualized and thought about. And then the behavioral, when we talk about a n or even in SSN, I'm a firm believer that nothing happens before behavior.

That if you are emotionally dysregulated, you will learn nothing. So it doesn't matter how fantastic your programming is, being able to support the emotional side. So whether that's mental health supports or sensory rooms or quiet breaks mm-hmm. Or whatever it takes- you're not gonna be able to attend and learn anything from your academic classes. And sometimes in AN we're running into that or even in Mild/Mod where we're trying to push into these gen ed classes. 

Kelly Mayr: Right. 

Aleia Mastroianni: And then you're, if you're falling behind or you're seeing D's and F's or your behaviors spiking, all of that is part of the disability as well.

And trying to create systems to support that, to reregulate. It's hard. 

Kelly Mayr: It is really hard. And I agree. We always go back to the I [00:07:00] and IEP. It's individualized. I would also say, and this uh, nugget of wisdom came from one of my children. He said, nobody goes to school for algebra two.

If it weren't for band, I would've dropped out of high school. So some of our students who are neurodiverse actually can do quite well in certain classes. Right. So you may see a different kid. In band than you see in English two. And so I am thrilled that our district now has pathways. It's over 20 pathways now. And I think some of our students could really benefit from those pathways. Like one of my kids is looking at the EMT program for her senior year. So I would encourage parents to go visit Legacy. They have open houses often, at least a few times a year.

Yeah. Go look at all those pathways. They're changing all the time. We have cosmetology now. We have auto mechanics, we have hybrid and electric car mechanics. We have pilots, we have, teaching and CNA and we have so many different programs.

So [00:08:00] go visit those, 'cause maybe your child, because of their disability. Whether it's an emotional disability whether they're struggling with sensory, there could be pathways that actually fit better.

Aleia Mastroianni: This could throw us off into a whole nother podcast area, but I'll just mention it briefly. The idea of your electives or your specials, or your sports being your anchor to school. I'm currently listening to a different podcast with three hosts and two of them are high school dropouts and both of them specifically highlighted, falling behind academically, being in school suspension. The work would pile up. Pile up to the point where, and then because of grades, they took away their sport. They were like, oh, well you can't play soccer because your grades are so low. And they're like, well, that's the only reason I showed up. And both of these people dropped out at one in seventh grade and one in ninth grade, and they're now successful podcasts. 

Kelly Mayr: Right, because there's a lot of different pathways to success. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Yeah, they're, they're actually both great comedians. It really hit me, especially with the sports things for all of our kids, our Mild/Mod kids, our gen ed kids.

When you say, Hey, your grades are low, so you can't be in the play, you can't [00:09:00] go play football. I understand there's a lot of thought behind that and I don't wanna jump us into a new podcast idea, but I think it is critical for us, especially with our population to say, Hey, sometimes it is these other classes that create the anchor, that keep the interest. And if you erase that, the whole system falls apart. 

Kelly Mayr: And as a parent, what I would say to that is, okay, so if that's the expectation, what are we doing at the school level to support the child to get those grades up so they can participate? If that's an expectation that we can't change and I don't know, there's CHASA rules and things ,then what can the school do? I know at my particular high school, there is a class called School Success. It is not a study hall, it has a curriculum. The teachers are amazing and I advocate for getting my kids in 'cause it's a safe space for them and it's a place to decompress. The teachers that teach that will even advocate for my kid. Maybe email and teacher and be like, Hey, you know, I see these grades haven't been put in and we're trying to keep ahead of things and it just helps to have somebody else just have their [00:10:00] back. So there are things in place, but we have to talk about it and ask. Unfortunately it's hard to find these things.

Mm-hmm. I mean, I've been around a really long time and that's probably the only reason I know some of this stuff. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Mm-hmm. 

Kelly Mayr: And it has changed. Like my adult children, I guess that's an oxymoron, but my young adults in my family are sad that they didn't have all the opportunities that are now here.

And they probably really would've benefited from some of those. So, find out young, find out early. If you have a student in SSN or AN and you're looking at the Bridge program, go now. Check 'em out. If you are in the mild, moderate program, check out, Legacy. You can see there's a whole catalog of what programs are at each school. Mm-hmm. Like Thunder Ridge has a culinary program there. Mountain Vista, I think has CNA and probably a couple others. And I think Rocky Heights has fire science. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Yeah. I think Douglas County High School and possibly Ponderosa both have a pretty big automotive program. And kids can move between schools.

Kelly Mayr: And now there's transportation; that was a barrier to access that they worked on. Mm-hmm. And so now you can even get transportation from one [00:11:00] school to the other. We also have a master schedule through all the high schools, which was a difficult transition for some of the schools. But it really was beneficial because now you can go to your homeschool for the morning and then you can go utilize in the afternoon some of these alternative programs. 

I think we should also touch on there are alternative high schools. So we have in Lone Tree, we have Eagle Academy.

And Eagle is an alternative high school. It starts at the age of 16. It starts later in the day. It starts between one and two depending on whether you work mornings or not. And you are required or encouraged to have a job as well as go to school. There are also credit recovery programs at every high school.

So even if those first year of transitioning to high school is really rough for your kid and you think, oh my God, they failed the class, we're not gonna graduate. It's okay. We have supports in place system to get them through. 

Aleia Mastroianni: I think that the hard truth maybe that we're sharing here is, especially if your child has a disability, the advocating and the [00:12:00] being involved never stops. 

Kelly Mayr: So true. 

Aleia Mastroianni: You just never stops. These programs are there, but they're not going to naturally fall in your lap necessarily. Sometimes it's if the right person talks to you, or especially at high school, if we wanna talk about limited communication in middle school, it is even less in high school. Even the SSN programs with our most affected kiddos, they're really trying to also dial down that hyper parent involvement and build as much independence for those children as possible as well.

So staying involved. You wanna be appropriate and let your kid grow. But also some of these supports and programs that are there, you have to push and ask for yourself. A lot of kids are moving to online school. We have eDCSD, which is another thing that you could look at.

We also have DC Oaks.

Kelly Mayr: Which is also an alternative school. And I would say like if you have a child in a center-based program and they have Unified sports, that's a great way to be interacting with other parents in the program. Mm-hmm. To be interacting with their students. And the teachers and EAs often come. [00:13:00] Knowing your team in high school, 'cause as Aleia said, the advocating never stops and it actually becomes very important as you get towards the end of high school that everybody's on the same team. As Meredith mentioned, when you have kids that are kind of straddling different programming models, really having frank discussions of what is necessary for adulthood. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Yes. 

Kelly Mayr: Like there are IQ cutoff scores and if your child is above a 70 it is more difficult to get adult services. You can use adaptive scoring too. So it's a little bit complicated. So having your team, if we're all on the same page, can be really helpful and really benefit your student as you move into adulthood. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Here's my super nugget of wisdom related to that, and as we pop over to Bridge programming, like Kelly's saying, a conversation that I continue to have with my team, who have been amazing and wonderful... so you have a 70 IQ and that will qualify you for state services, for intellectual disability.

So we are talking about waivers and we will [00:14:00] have separate podcasts on this. I have one set up coming soon. It is very important. How this pertains to your team is very frequently when they're testing your children at school because they want, they wanna be strength forward and this is what they can do.

And they're really interested in how far can we stretch that skill, which is awesome. But they'll add little accommodations or things, or we offered three gummy bears to keep going or whatever. And it inflates that score a little bit on what your child could actually accomplish without all these accommodations.

By inflating that score a little bit, sometimes teachers or staff members don't understand that they are then depriving that child into adulthood of services that they do actually need. So my nugget of wisdom, every time I fill out an adaptive form, and it says it at the top, it says, can your child perform this task consistently and unprompted?

I like to call it the difference between can they do it or will they do it? And it is vastly different. And with my youngest [00:15:00] child, I could spend 20 minutes supporting her to get her socks on. She could eventually do it. We might have meltdowns, we could possibly get there.

Will she do it consistently and be ready to leave for school on time, like you would typically expect them. When I'm filling out that form, I'm like, never. Because at the very top, the instruction says, will your child perform this consistently, independently? And without prompting.

And in that situation, the answer is no. And I like to remind the school the same. I'm like, but would my child do this if you didn't remind her? They're like, oh, no. So, that can help you get more consistent. And this is more for those of us who are, we are looking at students who are more profoundly affected and we're looking at trying to gain adult service for them, for the rest of their lifetime.

And so this is more our SSN crowd, but really for any crowd, I would want the testing to be actually representational of what this person can actually accomplish, so we can tailor their services towards their actual ability

Meredith Daly: So I would say that moderate need, right?

[00:16:00] Like the borderline. So Kelly, what were you saying? Like that's a super important one. 'cause they're the ones that are gonna be scoring here or here more. 

Kelly Mayr: So. 

Meredith Daly: What were you saying with that IQ? 

Kelly Mayr: Yeah so IQ, the cutoff is 70 and my child, depending on the test, it can fluctuate from sixties to seventies.

But that is a drastic difference because there's just the way the world works, there is a cutoff and to get things like Medicaid waiver as somebody with an intellectual disability, 70 is a cutoff. As you get into high school as you're transitioning into being an adult at 18, you need a current IQ test, right?

So you can't do what's called a records review. So towards the end of their career, you do want a current test, but as Aleia said, you wanna have a frank discussion with, typically the school psychologist is the one giving the test and say don't add extra time, don't mod. They shouldn't anyway, but sometimes it happens.

So we want a really honest 

Aleia Mastroianni: mm-hmm. 

Kelly Mayr: You know, IQ. And that was hard for me as a parent. I was always strength based, like from the time my daughter joined our family and see her as [00:17:00] capable. And so for me to have to change the mindset to wait a second, even if her IQ was marginally higher than 70, if she can't access it 'cause of trauma and all different reasons what am I doing for her?

I'm just taking away services. That was a journey I had to go through as a parent to really get my head in that space. So you're gonna want an IQ towards the end of your high school year Now something I learned recently in Bridge, they do continue to do your triennials, which I didn't really know.

So they said, do you want us to do another IQ test or do you want us to do what's called a records review? I'm like, oh, let's do a records review because we had the number we needed. I know that sounds a little bit manipulative, but we also know that these are our kiddos and like one IQ point doesn't make them more functional.

Aleia Mastroianni: The IQ test itself is inherently flawed a little bit. And those of you that are fighting for waivers or support, I don't think it's necessarily manipulative, I think it is exactly what you said, shifting that mindset from, we're always focusing on the strengths, but then in this specific situation, this is not the time to sugarcoat it. [00:18:00] This is not the time to say, well, you know, sometimes 

Kelly Mayr: maybe if we do nine different things, can do. Exactly. We like. 

Aleia Mastroianni: That's not the time. This is the time to say, here's the cold hard truth because those are the meetings that are getting you access to supports. And so at your IEP meetings, at your transition meetings, I don't think that's the time to sugarcoat. You can certainly say, here's our skills, but here's our real areas of deficit where we need support.

Because those are the meetings where you're trying to establish those support systems. So Kelly brought it up, but I'd love to transition us into Bridge, which some of you may or may not heard of. And then this is sort of shifting now often to our students who are more profoundly affected by their disability.

And often this is not something that is offered or appropriate for our Mild/Mod students or even some of our AN students. Kelly's had students go through them. 

Kelly Mayr: All the programs. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Meredith and I have not. Tell us, what is Bridge, why would we want it? 

Kelly Mayr: So Bridge is the program for young adults with disabilities from the age of 18 to 21, because the law requires that we educate students [00:19:00] with disabilities from the age of three to the age of 21. Just like I said with the other programs, like when we transition into high school even when they don't offer transition meetings, you request one, you go over, you visit. That's really helpful. I would encourage parents to do the same thing with Bridge. I will tell you it's not always encouraged or you're not really told about it.

So what I did before my transition meeting into Bridge is I visited every Bridge program. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Wow. 

Kelly Mayr: Because when you're sitting at the table, and at least for me the Bridge representative was virtual, so she was on the computer. I wouldn't have had all the information, so then they would be making a decision of where to place my child, and I wouldn't really know what that meant. So I took a few days and I set it up with the principal of Bridge and I went and visited every program. 

Aleia Mastroianni: And currently how many Bridge locations do we have? 

Kelly Mayr: So that's changed a little bit. Currently, as of today, we have the Highlands Ranch location, which is on Park Meadows Drive. We have the Lone Tree location, which is on Teddy Lane. We have a [00:20:00] new Parker location. It's a lovely new building that the district did buy just a couple years ago. And that has absorbed the Castle Rock location as well.

Aleia Mastroianni: Oh, that I didn't know. So are they not doing Bridge, at 'cause it 

Kelly Mayr: used to be at Douglas to be Douglas County High School. No, that program is no longer there. That's been combined with Parker. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Only have three Bridge sites now. 

Kelly Mayr: We do right now. Now we have heard that we are getting a new Bridge site in one of the underutilized schools that was being shut down.

Aleia Mastroianni: We're very happy about this guys. 

Kelly Mayr: We very happy. 

Aleia Mastroianni: This means our Bridge students instead of being in a strip mall location, we'll be in a school building and we're really excited and hopeful about this. 

Kelly Mayr: Yes. 

Meredith Daly: I'm excited about it. Yay. So if your school's closing, you're stoked. It's going to Bridge and Child Find.

Kelly Mayr: So you're right. And Child Find. And that was a concern in the community that I heard that parents were afraid these schools were just going to be left empty. But I can assure you that is not happening because they had been paying a lot of money in rent for these different programs. So we are over the moon excited to have that. We also have another couple [00:21:00] of opportunities within Bridge. One is the Legacy program, which is where my daughter is, and they run a cafe at the Legacy campus, which is open to the public from 8:30am to 1:30pm Monday through Thursday.

Go visit them. 

Aleia Mastroianni: It's amazing. 

Kelly Mayr: It is amazing. And it utilizes the ProStart program over there. So the culinary program makes the food and then the Bridge students run the cafe and they serve the food and they work on the cash register and it's an awesome program. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Couldn't encourage you more. And in our show notes, I'll add a video we made several years ago about how to get into the Legacy building. Your heart will be so full to be served by these young adults and it's well worth the visit if you can make it out to the Legacy Cafe. 

Kelly Mayr: And that is a program that you can only do one year. And it's typically not your first year at Bridge. So just understand that. But I encourage parents to go visit all the Bridge programs.

They're all a little bit different, right? It's not just based on geography, it's also based on what your programming needs look like, how often you're doing jobs in the community or [00:22:00] whether you're doing more field trips. And that's gonna be based on your ability and what your goals are.

Aleia Mastroianni: That was gonna be my follow up question about Bridge, because I had heard, and this might be old information, that the different sites were based upon ability, which made sense to me. Like pretend that our Parker location is where our kids who are more affected go so that we can create programming around that.

And that our Highlands Ranch one has, you know, maybe a jobs focus and that it wasn't based upon where you are in our district and our district's very large. So there's a lot of transportation time. Yes. Yes. Do you know if they switched to all sites serving all abilities or ...

Kelly Mayr: I would say they probably landed somewhere in the middle. So it is not a hundred percent based on ability, and it's not a hundred percent based on geography. There's a lot of different parts that go into that decision. Some is space as well. But there are different levels at every location. And I'm assuming that will be the same when they move over here to Saddle Ranch as well. Within a Bridge program, there'll be different classrooms and that, you know, my daughter is at Legacy, so she's working at that cafe four days a week [00:23:00] and then like today is Friday and she is in the community with other students from Bridge. Mm-hmm. They were going out to breakfast. They'll be getting together for different things. There is also another program within the district that some kids get chosen for, it's called Project Search. I would say that is for our students that are gonna be probably at the highest level of function. My daughter did very much wanna get in that program. She was unfortunately not chosen.

She does have a physical disability, which would've made it tricky. But they actually work at um, UC Health and the expectation in the Project Search program is that they will possibly be able to be employed by UC Health at the end of the program without supports. So you can imagine that's for it is

Aleia Mastroianni: for our higher function.

Kelly Mayr: Yeah. It's a very select population, which some of our moderate students could fall in. Right. I mean, that's what we're kind of running into. Way back in the day we had a mild special education program, a moderate special education program, and then SSN and then Affective Needs was added after, but those days were a long time [00:24:00] ago.

And so they've combined mild, moderate, which can be very tricky. 

Aleia Mastroianni: A couple of quick facts for our parents as we talk about Bridge and what it can offer. First, Bridge is not compulsory. You do not have to attend the way you have to attend high school. It is something that you qualify for.

And I've asked many times what are the qualifications to get you into Bridge? 'cause I want to give you guys clear information. Unfortunately, I've never been able to get that from our district. I think like everything it is individualized based on the needs of your student. Those of you that are in Mild/Mod, I really wanna flag this up for you because it is more traditional for it to be brought up for our SSN students and our SSN high school teachers might be more used to inviting Bridge to some of those IEP meetings in that junior and senior year. Much less is this brought up in AN or Mild/Mod. And so if it's something that you think your child might benefit from, knowing that the leveled supports, it's three more years of school.

You actually don't get your diploma. You'll walk with [00:25:00] your high school class, but you get your diploma once you finish your Bridge programming or if you decide to leave your Bridge programming. And it will still be individualized with the levels of support. Some of our moderate kids who might need, especially if you have a higher functioning autism or ADHD or things that make social interaction of interviewing, and things like that, difficult, Bridge programming really can help with building those jobs skills. But it is more school.

And some of our kids don't wanna do it. They're like, I am done. I don't want to do this. You might have opinions there, and it's not something that you can choose to do. You do have to meet the qualifications the district does need to, 

Kelly Mayr: whatever those are. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Exactly. And I haven't been able to pin down what is it that you have to qualify for Bridge?

I will keep asking. It's sort of like when you're trying to qualify for special education, same idea, right? You would approach your team and say, I'm interested in Bridge, can we talk about the qualifications and see if my child fits that?

Kelly Mayr: And just understand that it is not academic in nature. Bridge is [00:26:00] all job skills. It is all activities of daily living and they talk about budget, things like that. I don't want parents to think that this is like prep for college. There isn't really an academic component to it.

Meredith Daly: Hey Kelly, could you clarify: you talked about pathways and Bridge and so you have some of those parents, maybe not SSN and that more like moderate need, can you explain the difference on those conversations you would have with your team?

Like would you wanna say, I wanna look at Pathways and Bridge as an option?

Kelly Mayr: So we have many Pathways now in the district. At the Legacy campus, they have one special education teacher full-time right now. I believe they were adding another one this year, but I'm not sure what the status of that is.

So there is a level of special education support there. I would say it's probably not a super high level. So, they're probably gonna need to be able to do the skills required for whatever programming. So whether that's HVAC. Like my daughter doesn't have working hands, so that would probably not be something that she would benefit from, nor [00:27:00] would they really want her in there because there's not gonna be someone who's gonna do it for her.

So, I would, like I said go visit all the Bridge programs. If Bridge is something that you think would be a good fit for your child, visit the other Pathways, the Legacy program.

Aleia Mastroianni: And to further drive home what Kelly just said, it's a very important distinction for the Legacy Pathways- these classes are not specifically modified for students with special needs. While there may be a special education instructor at the entire campus that could come in and do a little bit of support, unlike in high school, like let's say with your daughter or my daughter, when they're going in participating, with little air quotes, in their elective class, the typical high schools are set up to try and support students minorly participating in that to the best of their ability. That is not Legacy. 

Kelly Mayr: No. 

Aleia Mastroianni: The expectation is that they can meet the course requirements and they could have some special education support, but it's not, 

Kelly Mayr: It would be more like my daughter who has dyslexia and wants to do [00:28:00] the EMT program. Would she maybe need note cards? To help her to memorize the different things or, you know, it would be stuff like that. It wouldn't be 

Meredith Daly: Like a 504 accommodation sort of. 

Kelly Mayr: Yes, exactly. More, more like that level of support.

Aleia Mastroianni: I think you would need the cognitive ability or the physical ability to complete the course requirements.

And I don't think that's necessarily true in some of our high school electives where they're pulling our kids in so that they can experience it to the best of their ability, but they would not bring those students up to Legacy. 

Kelly Mayr: Right. So this is actually job training, right? These are going for your child to be able to try out a pathway to a job. That is not the same as doing an elective. Like my daughter did photography and she really enjoyed it. But she needed a lot of modifications in order to do that. That would not probably be a career, for her. These are career pathways. But they're very cool. So I would encourage parents to go see them and see if they are a fit, you know, for their particular student.

Aleia Mastroianni: And to know that there are some [00:29:00] accommodations that are available, but much more on the 504 Yes. Mild/Mod. Here are some tweaks we can do to help you access this curriculum rather than, Hey, we know you are not capable of this curriculum, but you can still sit in the class.

That's, that is not the purpose of Legacy. So if that's where your kiddo is, I wouldn't waste your time with Legacy. So Bridge would more support the students where we're like, Hey, you truly don't have the ability, whether it's physical or cognitive or even emotional tolerance to be in one of those classes. Here's a whole other support system where we will teach and support some of those life skills.

For our students who are profoundly disabled. It's like, how do I keep my hands clean? How do I wash my laundry to 

Kelly Mayr: Yes. 

Aleia Mastroianni: All the way to how do I manage stress when I am attending a job interview for our students who have higher abilities? So there's sort of those two areas that support those different levels of ability.

Kelly Mayr: Well, and all the Bridge programs, at least all the ones I've seen have kitchens. 

And so they do cooking, right? So they are doing [00:30:00] things that are helping them transition to adulthood, but in a different way than some of the pathways that are at Legacy or at some of our high schools.

Aleia Mastroianni: So that's Bridge and Pathways. I am thrilled to have Kelly here because Kelly has some interesting, wonderful insight about what happens when our students leave the school system entirely. That beautiful, awesome structure and special education support that's been with us for anywhere between 18 to 21 years. What does that look like? 

Kelly Mayr: What happens next? Right. Well, and that is the phase I'm in right now.

Now my daughter is graduating from Bridge in May. And so there's a lot of changes. There's a lot of changes at 18 as far as, you know, Aleia touched on Medicaid waivers those sorts of things. And we'll have a different podcast to go into that in more detail. But there have been some parents that have said it felt like falling off a cliff when they got done with Bridge.

Because finding things for your child to do to be a productive member of [00:31:00] society, to be out in the community can be challenging. And while for most of my daughter's career, the school has provided that structure, and now it is on me as a parent. And some of that also has to come under funding for those things. They are not free. If your child is on a Medicaid waiver, that often covers it depending on their level. So that's what we're doing now. Now my daughter, a lot of the job training programs that were available, we went through something called DVR and you can look up DVR, it's a great program, but they are all about jobs and finding jobs.

But the jobs they do did not work for my particular child because of her level of physical disability. So, it was a little bit frustrating 'cause there's all this focus on, you know, interview skills and resume skills. And I'm like, where are the jobs? Where are the jobs? ' cause I have a lot of kids. I have a lot of young adults.

And the job market's tough. Even if you are considered basically typical. So, it can be challenging. So what we decided as a family that volunteer [00:32:00] work is real work. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Mm-hmm. 

Kelly Mayr: And that we call her volunteer job. And it is obviously not for money, but she, with a little support, applied online to be a volunteer at Children's Hospital here in Highlands Ranch.

And they accepted her and she interviewed. She asked them, have you ever worked with somebody with an intellectual disability and a physical disability? And they said, yes, we have. And so she works in radiology. She does it about twice a week now 'cause she's still in Bridge. She advocated for herself.

She went to the management to even add another department. So now she's working in the child resource room another day a week. But that was all on us to try to cobble together programming. On February 19th, there's an event at Legacy that's gonna have community supports there.

I would encourage parents to go check that out. There's day programming that is available. There's also, I think one called the Traveling Gnomes that I don't know anything about. But I'm interested in finding out and they do more kind of field trips out into the community. So, it's a big [00:33:00] transition for parents. My daughter's Bridge teacher is amazing.

And he said, you want something five days a week. We need things that fill our time, that bring us joy because we don't want our adults with disabilities just sitting around. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Exactly. 

Kelly Mayr: And that can certainly happen if we are not super proactive. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Here you are talking about the cliff and you are talking about my fear For sure.

And I'm gonna put a couple of resources in our show notes that directly apply to this. First, I'll put a resource to that resource fair that's coming where we will have a bunch of different community supports that are out there where you can go and visit different people and vendors.

I'd love to include a little mini TED Talk. It's about 10 minutes and it is a young woman with autism and she talks directly about the focus on job training that happens in so many programs for those with significant needs, especially those with significant autism and how problematic that is for some of these profoundly autistic people who don't understand money, don't [00:34:00] understand the concept of money or work.

And if we're forcing them into a situation, forcing them to earn money, it becomes problematic. And is this for the good of this person or not? Mm-hmm. And I am in that position certainly with my daughter as well, where employment is not ever going to be our goal.

We are not looking for employment. But what are we... we cannot do nothing because right in her perfect world, she could sit on my bed with my TV going and her iPad going and flipping between YouTube and she's perfectly happy to do that, she thinks. But then obviously behavioral erodes and all of those types of things, she's also not someone who matches a lot of day programs.

Kelly Mayr: Right. 

Aleia Mastroianni: A lot of the day programs out there don't service students in wheelchairs. And a lot of the programs don't accept students who actively don't want to be there. They're more the kiddos who are social. These are really big, scary existential questions. How do I create and cobble together a life of meaning for my child after we've been in this [00:35:00] very structured system for so long? I love that you brought up volunteerism. My sister is disabled and lives with me, and we had to go through the mourning process of - because of my disability, I cannot have traditional employment.

What is my value? How can I give back to the world? 

Kelly Mayr: Right. 

Aleia Mastroianni: And she also volunteers at the hospital and is able to do volunteer work. But these systems are not perfectly set up and in place the way the school system is. And so it is important as parents, even though it's scary and we don't wanna think about it, that we do think about it and look at what does the actual adulthood look like for our children.

And it's just like their school was completely individualized.

Kelly Mayr: And it happens faster than you know. And there's kind of a disconnect with the school 'cause the focus is on jobs. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Mm-hmm. 

Kelly Mayr: Because that's just unfortunately what our society values. But, if your child is at a level of disability, they qualify for Social Security, SSI if they work, they can work, but they will lose the [00:36:00] money from SSI. So financially doesn't, it doesn't really benefit them.

With volunteering because of my daughter's level of disability, they require that there's another volunteer there with her. So if that person cancels, they cancel, which makes her very sad. So it's just, I think we have to change our mindset as a society of what brings value and that money is not the only thing that brings value. But cobbling that together. So that's what I'm in the process of right now. Because like your daughter, my daughter is perfectly happy to sit on her phone, twenty four seven. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Exactly. 

Kelly Mayr: But it's not good for her mental health 

Aleia Mastroianni: mm-hmm. 

Kelly Mayr: That lack of structure. And there was a parent that came to a meeting I was at for something else, and she talked about the cliff and she said it was so profound and her son is so depressed and she doesn't know as a parent where to turn. So I just think even though these are hard conversations and hard things to think about, that we need to be thinking into the future and what a purpose-driven life looks like for our people. And keep moving forward [00:37:00] in that. And, you know, these are all transitions and transitions are always scary. But also beautiful. And I'm optimistic for the future. 

Aleia Mastroianni: Not meant to be depressing or anything like that, but the job of a special needs parent really never goes away. This is sort of tapping into that existential dread that we all feel if we come full circle all the way back to preschool, we start with that dread of, oh my gosh, what does this mean?

How is this going to affect your life? How is this gonna affect our life? Mourning what you had hoped for. And then if we come all the way out to the end of Bridge, it's sort of like we need to face that existential dread. We need to face our own mortality.

Kelly Mayr: I was gonna say, I think we even need to push it out further. And for some of us, myself included, this planning is not easy. But having, things like people in place to take over financial and medical responsibility for our children when something happens to us. Having possibly an Able account in place so that there is money to support our people when we're gone.

So these are [00:38:00] all conversations that are hard, but are, they're very important. 

Aleia Mastroianni: So parents, we won't leave you hanging, I promise. We are going to do another podcast episode that we'll talk for the whole time about transitioning into adulthood. We will get that prepared for you as well. 'cause I know that right now, at least for me, we're poking at one of the biggest anxieties that we have as parents especially parents of kids with special needs.

Alright, parents, this was a big one and I wanna say thank you to Kelly and to Meredith for joining me on this emotional, podcast episode topic and sharing all of their expertise and honestly helping me prepare as well. If today's episode brought up some big feelings, please know this is normal. Transitions can feel overwhelming. They are overwhelming. They can feel emotional and scary. But we're here to do this together.

So thank you so much for spending time with us and like always the pathway is hard, but we're walking it together. Thank you for hanging out with DCSEAC and we'll catch you on the next pod. Bye bye. Bye. [00:39:00] Alright. Good job. End record.