Far removed from most classrooms, in a quiet corner of D-building, a team of passionate teachers and members from the community helps a group of 10 eager students reach the critical milestone of graduating and transitioning into productive adulthoods.
In its sixth year of running, the Secondary Transition Program has supported students with special needs. Two teachers, Ms. Karen Kiechle and Mr. Nick Pemberton, teach these students standard subjects like English, Global History, Math, and Science, along with social skills and practical life skills that can be transferred into real careers like farm work and gardening. They are helped by teaching assistants and aides who support the daily needs of these students.
“It just used to be a life skills classroom,” Kiechle said. “Now, they learn something they can utilize in real life and be productive citizens.” The program has brought students back from BOCES to home districts, which has helped save money and include more kids in their communities.
Recently, teachers Mr. Scott Breigle and Mr. Robert Tuori collaborated with the program on building the High Tunnel. Secondary Transition Program students are planting spinach, garlic, and tulip bulbs to sell in the spring to make money to put back into the program, teacher aide Ms. Rae Williams said.
Helping hands are also coming from outside of IHS. Jobs skills teacher Ryan Notarpole comes in two days a week from Challenge Industries, a non-profit, community-based agency that helps people get jobs. Thanks to Notarpole, several students have already been able to get jobs.
The program has linked students with housing, Medicaid, and leisure activities, along with work at dishrooms at Ithaca College and Cornell, custodial work in the community, landscaping, and a farm club where students participate in growing, packaging, and selling produce in the summer. The Cornell Cooperative Extension has offered a gardening curriculum for these students. The Ithaca Youth Bureau and Challenge industries have also helped place students in jobs in the summer.
For all youth, graduating from high school represents a critical personal and educational milestone. Finishing high school provides undeniable economic advantages in the form of steady employment and higher wages.
To graduate, students in the Secondary Transition Program must meet a separate set of learning standards. Primarily, teachers adhere to the New York State Career Development and Occupational Studies standards, which requires students to learn about the workplace, academic subjects, interpersonal skills, technology skills, managing information and resources, and systems skills.
As everyone else, these students are also subject to a separate testing program called the New York State Alternate Assessment, which are administered in their 18th year or last year of school. Once they meet all the standards, they receive a Skills and Achievement Commencement Credential, which is not considered a regular high-school diploma but indicates that the students have met the alternate academic achievement standards.
To help its students meet these standards, the Secondary Transition Program employs a unique learning system created by TST BOCES. The curriculum is designed to be appropriate for students’ cognitive skills and includes a strong life skills program, Kiechle said.
While the Secondary Transition Program aims mainly to prepare its students for their life after school, it is also a place where its students feel welcomed. “People can, very rudely, not see these students as viable and important in our school community,” she said. Williams said that the students are sometimes bullied or ignored. “They’re sensitive students,” she added, recalling that the students have had to leave the cafeteria in the middle of eating their lunches because of the profanity and loud swearing.
To the teachers, treating these kids with kindness and respect is of utmost importance. “They’re just like everybody else. They just want to learn and they just want to be included in something that’s bigger than themselves,” Williams said.