ROUGHLY EDITED COPY

ICIPostsecondary Education Policy Uncovered: State and Federal

Efforts to Support PSE for Youth with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities – (Adobe)

January 19, 2017Rebecca Lazo

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>> Good afternoon, everybody. Welcome. Thank you for attending the Think College webinar. With us today are Michael --

>> Audio recording for this meeting has begun.>> Susanna, and Margo Izzo. Is Siddarth also here? Great,

thank you for being here. We're going to be talking about state and federal efforts today. A number of states will be featured and discussed. We'll be talking about what's going on nationally. We'll be sharing some stories and there'll be time for comments and questions throughout. Michael will try to keep an eye on the questions and comments box and we will help him do that. If you have any larger issues you want to discuss, we can hold those until the end. There should be time. If we don't get to your questions and you have something that comes up afterwards, e-mail us at thinkcollegeCA -- now I'll switch it to Michael and let him get started.

>> Thank you, and good afternoon, everybody on the line. We appreciate you being here. What we want to do is, I'm going to go over -- oh, wow! Look at those pictures. These are four of the folks that'll be presenting with us today. Including Susanna from Georgia and Margo from Ohio and Siddarth. Many of you won't need a history of postsecondary education, but we thought we'd do it in a very, very lightning-quick round for you. For those of

you who may not be as familiar with postsecondary education for students with intellectual disabilities.

We'll do some review of some federal policy and then, as Rebecca said, we'll go into what some state actions have been around for postsecondary education for students with ID. And then we'll have a set of state stories. We specifically pulled these stories out to illustrate different ways that people are addressing the movement forward for postsecondary education for students with independent elect yule disabilities.

And we want to make sure there's plenty of time at the end, we're going to shoot for at least ten minutes to have some back and forth discussion, but as Rebecca said too, if you have questions or comments during this presentation, don't be shy. Put them in the chat box, and we'll try to take a breath every once in awhile and answer them or make comments on your comments so...again, welcome and thank you for being here.

So...in thinking quickly about where postsecondary education for students with disabilities has come from, a little bit tongue and cheek. I go back to the University of Bologna in 1068, in Italy, when the first university in the world was established and literally, for almost 1,000 years, there wasn't any thought about students with intellectual disabilities and Higher Education. As most of you know, Higher Education has, has, for its vast amount of existence, been, there has been an application process, mostly, for most Higher Education. There are certainly exceptions to that and many of our wonderful community colleges are open enrollment, used to be that City College, for New York City, used to be open enrollment, but...in general, when we think about traditional IHE, they have an enrollment process and students with ID haven't been included in that.

With the passage of IDEA or the Education for All Handicap Children's Act as it was called in 1995, there started to be a change in this. One of the things included in IDEA was education that could take place from 18 years of age to 21 with one exception and that's in the state of Michigan. There's the possibility of going up to age 26. Suddenly, there was this period of time where there was federal payment and some local and state payment to have young people with disabilities to continue to be in school during their teen years and during those years that typically were transition periods. For...students who didn't have disabilities.

So...part of the, what started to happen was that, youth, themselves, who had ID and their family members started to think,

we need to have experiences, and we need to have access for continued education, beyond the high school experience.

And we started to see a proliferation of programs that were focusing on individuals with intellectual disabilities. In general, most of those programs were segregated programs. They were not inclusive programs, they weren't necessarily integrated into the, the Higher Education programs that were available for the general population.

In 2008, you had authorization of the Higher Education Act. During the reauthorization, there was a great push, particularly from family members. And...a number of key legislators at the federal level too, Senator Kennedy being one of those who really pushed things forward. Senator Dodd, Senator Harkin, who really realized, it was important to have access to Higher Education for young people with intellectual disabilities.

And we'll talk a little bit more about what specifically was in there when we talk about the federal period. And...then, after that, we began to see a proliferation of non-TPSID programs. I think we're somewhere around 250 programs now around the country that are, are open to, and recruit, young people with intellectual disabilities. That's a quick review of what we were seeing at the Higher Education level for students with ID. One of the key things to focus on around postsecondary education, is that the program an inclusive program or is the program a segregated program?

I'll actually even step back from saying an inclusive program and I'll just say, is it inclusive? Often when we think about this set of programs, especially the early ones, they literally were programs, they weren't necessarily Higher Education experience per se. Because...they were special programs and in fact, I used to help support one of those programs, which was a bridge program between a number of local school districts and a university experience.

But...it wasn't that those, those young people were integrated into the university, they weren't necessarily matriculated in the university, they happened to attend a program that was on the campus of the university. As we think about those types of services and supports and programs, we have to think about what the characteristics of them are.

When we think about federal education policy, for students with intellectual disabilities, at the Higher Education level, the big marker is the 2008 Reauthorization of the Higher Education Act. There were three important things that happened in that piece of legislation. One was that there was an explicit

statement that students with intellectual disabilities, who attended Higher Education, could be eligible for Financial Aid. For Pell grants in particular, to be able to apply for them and help pay for their postsecondary education. This was a big deal. A huge deal. The second thing was material for comprehensive transition programs as well. And the third item in the reauthorization was the creation of a model demonstration program. And those were what we know now as the TPSID programs. Those programs got off the ground originally in 2010 and there were 27 of them. These were model programs that people could look to, many of you who are on this call started those programs in some cases or you currently work in those programs. And they have been extraordinarily valuable in terms of defining how a strong, inclusive program should be implemented for individuals who have intellectual disabilities.

Other federal laws to think about that have an impact on postsecondary education for students with ID. I just pulled out three examples here that are important. In 2014, there was a reauthorization of what was, what was called WIA, the Workforce Investment Act. Which was renamed as the Workforce Innovation and Opportunities Act. WIOA contains within it a reauthorization for the Rehabilitation Act. Part of what is written in that reauthorization is an explicit statement that says rehabilitation services, VR services should absolutely consider postsecondary education as an option for youth with intellectual disabilities.

There was a specific callout so that the law would make it clear to VR services, state VR services that not only work is what they should be helping youth move to when they were moving out of their high school and IDEA-eligible education period. But they should also be considering postsecondary education as well. Parts of this law are still just being implemented at this point.

So...different state VRs are, are interpreting that, hopefully, to be inclusive and to help those young people who want to move forward, move into postsecondary education.

But...it still is a new concept or a relatively new concept for some VRs. Another federal law that has an impact at this point is the ABLE Act or the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act. The big thing ABLE does is allows families to set up an account that doesn't have an impact on their Supplemental Security Income benefits and...allows the individual to save money for health matters, for transportation matters and medical expenses that may take place. Up to $100,000 can be put into an account. On an annual basis, it's only $14,000 that can be added each year, but that account can grow up to $100,000. And that account can be started as early as a child is, when a child is

born. Much like the 529 accounts that many families start for, for their children to save for college.

In fact...ABLE accounts are a version of a 529 account. So...that's an important step in recognizing that that money saved can be used for postsecondary education. And then, finally, there are sections of the Rehabilitation Act, Section 504, and Section 508, that refer to inclusion of services, particularly the things like, if a state has a Financial Aid package that they would offer to citizens of that state, that they, they have to make that available to, not just the general population of youth, but also youth who have disabilities as well.

So...we've got some significant federal support that points toward young people and helps them move toward postsecondary education. But...where the real work happens, around this, this effort, really is at the state level. Because...in many cases, it is state laws and state initiatives that really help to create postsecondary education opportunities. For, for young people.

So...if we think about the different types of activities that are taking place in the states, there are a number of things that take place and I'm going to turn to my colleague here, Siddarth to help me talk through some of these and provide you with some examples as well.

One of the things in this, you probably are all aware of, state legislation can take place. If you go to the Think College website and go to the state activities pull down section, you'll see that one of the things that we've done there is to try to put up the different examples of state legislation that are available.

Colorado's legislation, Siddarth, can you talk about that? >> Sure, certainly. Last year in 2016, Colorado passed its

Inclusive Higher Education Act. The program will be located at three different institutions across the state. Two universities, the University of Northern Colorado, Colorado Springs and Arapahoe community college. It's a program between the states of Higher Education and partners. Implementation plans for the program under the law, all of them are required to offer programs and supports that will let students with intellectual and developmental disabilities take at least two on-campus courses as undergraduates every semester.

The law also requires that schools create new forces that are designed to meet the students that are there.

>> Siddarth, I'm so sorry to interrupt. Folks are finding it a little difficult to hear you. If you could move closer to

the microphone.>> Sorry about that. Would you like me to repeat that

again? I didn't mean to speak softly. .>> Would you like me to repeat that again? >> I think the captioner was getting it as well. So...you

can just move on, but thank you, Siddarth, you sound better now, thank you.

>> Sure, that's an example of model state legislation that is out there now. Moving on to California, which gives us --

>> Siddarth -- let's pause for just a second. I want to make a comment about legislation in general. For those of you who may be in the middle of advocating for your states to, to do something around postsecondary education for individuals with intellectual disabilities, legislation may feel like a really big lift. We provided this particular example, this Colorado example, is around the pilot program, which is sometimes a little easier to help move forward. So...we wanted to make sure that you had that type of example. If you go to the Think College website and look at the different states, you'll see that there isn't -- there isn't a lot of legislation. What is there, Siddarth? Maybe 12 or 14 states that have legislation at this point?

>> Yeah...I believe that'd be accurate.>> You'll see different variations of types of legislation

that's there. Some that is relatively small, like, a pilot program, or even, an example of a resolution that was passed, I think in April of this past year. 2016 in Oklahoma, right? And...that resolution was to look at the possibilities of creating a system for postsecondary education for individuals with intellectual disabilities.

So...while legislation may feel like a big lift, take a look, if you're, if you're trying to advocate for this, these efforts and we can also help you if you're, if you're thinking about how we can move forward some legislation.

Siddarth was going to talk a little about commissions and task force. And we have specifically pulled out California as an example here. You want to talk about that commission there?

>> Yeah, so in California's case, California's legislature in 2015, authorized a state-wide task force on Special Education. That was created to help identify policy areas where Postsecondary Ed reforms were needed. And the report that the task force released put great emphasis on curriculum developers, urging them to prioritize preparation for Postsecondary Ed. It also encouraged California's government to collaborate actively with third parties such as local education agencies, regional occupation programs and charter management organizations.

So...as to diversify the range and type of inclusive Higher Ed opportunities for students. It also called for California to create a data collection system to, that pertained specifically to individuals with disabilities who are enrolled in Special Education. And as we'll talk about a little later on, there are similar systems and, that are being created across other states as well.

>> One of the neat things about this California Commission was that it was looking across education from early childhood up to postsecondary and...while it's not a huge piece of this commission report, it, it clearly is embedded in that report and it's called out in the executive summary in the front part and it's detailed within the body of this, this commission's report.

So...if you're thinking about trying to move forward, the issue of Postsecondary Education for students. Don't be frightened by this Commission. And add this as one of the things that move forward with this task force commission. It's nice to see it in a pretty dense document, and again, if you go to the Think College website, you can actually see this particular document.

Another way states are addressing this is through specific studies that are targeted at Postsecondary Education for young people with ID. We've got an example of Texas, right, Siddarth? On that one?

>> Yes, so, in Texas's case. Texas produced a report on persons with intellectual and developmental disabilities. The law that authorized the creation of that report created a requirement for Texas Higher Education coordinating board to collect and maintain data that pertains to the participation of all students with IDD in Texas's Higher Ed system. It also required the state to -- sorry, also required the Higher Education coordinating board to collect state-wide data that tracked their involvement in Higher Education from admission to graduation.

This would include students admission records, their retention within programs on a year-by-year basis, as well as graduation rates and professional licensing they get afterwards as a result of their schooling.

>> Great, and finally, there are sometimes reports that are asked for, by maybe a governor's office, it might be a state superintendent or Secretary of Education or state licensure.

>> In North Carolina, the State Education Assistance Authority created a report in which it reviewed all of the existing Financial Aid resources for students with intellectual disabilities in the public Higher Ed system. And it was meant to

resolve the current issue which is that students in this comprehensive transition programs can receive state Financial Aid for Higher Education, because they're not enrolled in eligible university degree programs under state law.

So...the report recommended that North Carolina's state government expand eligibility requirements for the UNC's need-based grant program and the states education lottery scholarship. So, that'd be inclusive of students with IDD.

>> Great. Thanks. We hope that gives you a little bit of a flavor of some of the types of activities that are taking place at the state level. Just because there's not legislation, doesn't mean that there's not activity taking place. And certainly, if you're working on something within your state and you need some assistance, we're actually happy to help support that, certainly talk with you about it and possibly help strategize about how to move forward with Postsecondary Education for students with disabilities.

Right now, we wanted to do a little bit of a deeper dive into some of those activities. So...one of our guests here is Susanna Miller-Raines, who is from Georgia. Susanna, the current state-wide coordinator for the Georgia Interdisciplinary Program for students -- I'm going to get this wrong -- Susanna, help me out.

>> Georgia inclusive Postsecondary Education consortium. I'm going to tell you about what happens in Georgia. We do have a grant now, but we had a lot of activity before the TPSID grant. We started out small, even before I came around. There were meetings that started taking place around 2007. Maybe 2008. And it was a few people sitting around a literal dinner table at one of my colleague's homes. There were providers at the table there, were parents at the table, there were K-12 people, teachers, and there were people from the university center, which was us, the Center for Leadership and Disability. And the Georgia Advocacy Office, as well as other centers. And there were no college people at the table when it all started. But, quickly, once momentum started to build, we did pull in a college, Kennesaw State University. There was a connection there through one of the initial people at the dinner table and they were willing to take the chance and this Georgia council was willing to help them take the chance. Next slide.

So...in the meantime, while Kennesaw was getting started, there was interest in creating some more programs across the state and...the Center for Leadership and Disability, where I work wrote a proposal for a mini grant in 2011. We could start

thinking about creating a consortium and really starting to think bigger and more systemic.

So...our mini grant was based on enhancing the identity and effectiveness of the Georgia Inclusive Postsecondary Education Consortium to conduct a few meetings with stakeholders around the state and provide technical assistance to at least four colleges and then evaluate program effectiveness in terms of feasibility, inclusiveness and sustainability of proposed models. We used the think college standards to work with these four universities to think about how they could create programs that would be sustainability and inclusive. We didn't have a lot of money, just an idea. A UCED who believed in this and was willing to take a chance. Next slide.

So...what did we do with the mini grant? They hired a statewide coordinator, which was me, it was part of my -- I was hired at the end of 2011 and came on at the beginning of 2012 and this was the first project put in my lap. I was hired to do youth initiatives and transition. This fell under the transition umbrella. I started work and had a beautiful grant to start making plans with. So...we hosted a state-wide meeting with all the state holders and started to get buy-in. We hosted a state-wide meeting for all interested colleges and universities and...many of them are still working on it or starting a program today. That's really exciting. And...we provided technical assistance to the colleges and universities, what we continue to do and...I really started social media networking, we created a Facebook group. I eventually turned that into a Facebook page and we created a Twitter profile. You can follow us on Twitter, it's, our acronym is GAIPSEC. That's how you can find us and...we're pretty active here at the center on social media, but we found that a really great way to reach out to people.

Next slide? So...we only had the money one year. We did a lot of work with it. When the grant was over, we created a one-year strategic plan and a five-year strategic plan. Which is really fun to look back on now. The last thing that was said, on our five-year plan, was to have ten inclusive programs in Georgia by 2018. Dan thought that was wishful thinking, but we're thinking it will happen and we're excited.

When it comes to legislative pieces, where we have found success was with getting a budget line item. So...in 2012, during that legislative session, we attempted to get $10,000 -- not 10 -- $100,000 from the legislature. We weren't ready. We didn't have all of our ducks in a row. We weren't prepped, so we didn't get money that year. The next year, 2013, we had our ducks in a row and pushed hard. We were able to get $100,000

added to our state DD budget. Our developmental disabilities budget. It's not in our Higher Ed budget. We ran into a lot of red flags and we thought it was best to take the easier route and not make college presidents upset and worried about their funding getting lost or moved. We went the DD route.

And...we were able to get funding, $50,000 for KSU, because they were already established and were the only school at that point. So...the other one was given to East Georgia State College. Our big champion was in south Georgia where East Georgia is. He wanted an Inclusive Postsecondary Ed program down there. They were our first legislative victory school.

In 2014, for fiscal year 2015, the funding, we asked for double funding, because we had Georgia Tech join the ranks in Postsecondary Ed programs, as well as Columbus State University. So we needed more money. We had more schools. And...we continued to get the $200,000 and money is going to scholarships and to the school and we are now, in Georgia, up to seven schools and we are going to need more money. We really want to use this money, the $50,000, maybe, reducing it to 35 for a school. We don't know what's going to happen, but...we would like to be able to give each school a little bit of money so they have some solid funding stream coming in to really help pay for a position like a Program Director for the schools to use. So, that's kind of where the money's going. This year, we're asking for an additional $300,000 to make it $500,000, so we can give each school that's opened in Georgia money and we have a couple others that are getting ready to open in the next year and another one in the fall of 2018. So...that's what we're doing.

Next slide? >> Susanna, before we go to the next slide, Kathy Lambert is

asking how many students with intellectual disabilities were in each of the programs their first year?

>> So...their first year...KSU had three students their first year. Georgia Tech had, I believe...eight students. I think Pam's on here. I think it was eight students. And...Columbus State had...two students. East Georgia started with three students. University of Georgia is starting this semester with five students and Georgia State is starting with two students. I think that's -- oh, Albany Tech started with one student.

>> Great...thanks.>> I think that's all.>> You're welcome.>> I see Dana has a question, if it's okay, we'll hold that

until toward the end. So...there you go, Susanna, back to you.

>> So, I just wanted to share that math, so...we've gotten seven that are solid, our current programs, and the hollow ones are programs that are coming on board in the next two years. All right?

And I just wanted to show you, I know this is kind of small on your screen, but...I wanted to -- this is our favorite info graphic to show that in 2009 in Georgia, we started with three students and...I just changed some of the numbers, so I don't have the exact math, because I just changed in yesterday on the students we have right now. But...we're really excited to have seen this much growth over such a short period of time. And...we're looking forward to more growth as we go. All right?

So...part of what we did when we built the consortium with the TPSID mini grant was start a leadership team. These are all the people that are involved in our leadership team and we meet together, it took awhile to get a routine, but we decided quarterly face-to-face meetings are our best course of action here in Atlanta to get all the players involved. We're having our next meeting on February 2nd, but we have the Center for Leadership and Disability, which is us. And the other UCED. Our Georgia council, our P&A, our Department of Ed, our VR, behavior department, DD agency, local Center for Independent Living and postsecondary programs have representatives on the leadership team.

We got a TPSID grant which we were already on the road to having programs, not by 2018, but at least by 2020. And the TPSID grant, all it did, really, was help us speed up and be able to provide more technical assistance and more opportunities. So...we're establishing new programs and so, we have a little more money to establish some new programs sooner than we would have. So...we're really excited about being able to move forward. Next?

That's it! Here's my information if anyone has questions. We did, we started out with $15,000 and now, we are working with a lot more. But it doesn't take a lot to, if you have the commitments from your state partners, which is really what we needed. And...we have a great relationship with our VR, I'd be happy to talk about offline with anyone as well. So...that's what I have.

>> Thanks for, thanks for going through that, Susanna. You can hang around so we can maybe loop back around with a couple questions we've got.

>> Yep!>> But I want to move forward to, to Margo Izzo and Paula,

are you there as well?

>> Paula hasn't been able to join us yet, but....>> Okay -->> I'll let you know when she comes in.>> Okay. This is Margo Izzo from The Ohio State University.

Margo's going to share a little about what's happening in Ohio at this point. Ohio's program's called Transition Options in Postsecondary Settings for Adults with Intellectual Disabilities. Can you start us off by saying what's in place now in Ohio for youth with intellectual disabilities?

>> I certainly can, Michael. During the, our first TPSID grant, we built a state-wide network of six universities in each of the corners of the state as well as in central Ohio and...we formed the Ohio statewide consortium, Postsecondary Advisory Committee that has representatives from each of the programs across the state. As well as each of our state partners. The Ohio Department of Education, the VR agency and department of Higher Ed. That postsecondary Advisory Committee meets on a quarterly basis to first share an awareness of how these college programs are operating, what the costs of the programs are and what the outcomes of the programs are. And...then, we are attempting to align the policies and the practices of the various state agencies so that the, their counterparts at the local level are aware of the postsecondary opportunity that is growing across Ohio.

We...also meet monthly with each of our partners, through a conference call and...through these conference calls, we assist each other, apply for the comprehensive transition in postsecondary programs, application, three of our sites now have TPP status and two additional programs are applying within the next month or two. And we're educating families through both our relationships with public schools, as well as webinars with like the Down Syndrome association, across the state and William Syndrome Association across the state. We're getting the word out to families and local school personnel and agency partners about the opportunities for Postsecondary Education across Ohio. We aligned our work with Ohio first. Governor John Kasich has been an advocate for people with disabilities. He has funded the employment first initiative so that all individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities will become employed in integrated settings and we've been working very closely with the Employment First Advisory Committee to help demonstrate the college program is another path to employment and we are very proud of our employment outcomes across the three programs that have graduated adults. Our statewide employment rate for our graduates is 83%. And so, we're very proud of our employment outcomes and proud of our universities who are creating employment, not just employment internships, but at Ohio State,

the university is one of our best employment partners and in fact, our HR department developed a customized employment position that students can apply for once they successfully worked an internship that's a good match for them.

This -->> Margo? I don't mean to interrupt you. It's Rebecca,

maybe you could try to speak up a little bit. It is a little bit quieter than the previous presenter.

>> Okay...I'd be happy to.>> Thank you.>> Is this better? Can you hear me now? >> It doesn't sound that much different to me.>> Okay....>> There we go -- great.>> Okay...so the Ohio State University has a lend program.

We had students participate as lend trainees in lend activities. This past year, we have a young adult who really wanted to come to our TOPS program but didn't have the financial resources. She began to explore what financial opportunities are available across Ohio as well as in other states. This woman is very politically savvy. She has working relationships with a number of state legislators. So...this year, she became one of our lend trainees and we have a lend policy committee that developed a policy brief outlining some of the various state initiatives that we've just heard about.

Also...took a look at the Florida legislation that passed, that had three levels of funding. A coordinating center at the University of Central Florida that issues and processes scholarship applications for students who apply for programs across Florida. And also enhancement grants that go out to other institutions across Florida.

We've been sharing this information with legislators across Ohio and...each of our partner institutions in the Ohio state-wide consortium are working with their Government Affairs colleagues at their universities as well as with their local senators and representatives from their local area. We now have support from Youngstown and Cincinnati and Marietta College and University of Toledo and Kent State. We share information about opportunities of Postsecondary Education of students with intellectual disabilities.

We had a policy meeting in October that was standing room only. During that one-our session, we had employers talk about how they partnered with our programs to recruit qualified individuals to work in our universities and our neighborhood businesses. We have talked about what this opportunity meant for

their sons and daughters. We are now continuing working with our agency partners and...our parents and students across the state to help them become more aware of policy issues like Georgia and Florida and Texas and California and Colorado have passed.

>> That is great, Margo. I'm sorry, go ahead.>> That's all right. So...we are having a conference April

12th and 13th. We have a Multiple Perspectives Conference at Ohio State University. All of our partners will be at that conference and we're continuing to education and advocate for more programs and more funding for Postsecondary Education for students with ID.

>> I want to ask you one question. Would your effort, unlike Georgia's effort, do you feel like it was a [indiscernible] around the TPSID support. Was that the catalyst?

>> In Ohio, the TPSID initiative and the TPSID grant provided us with the resources to develop model demonstration programs across the state to demonstrate that these programs are paths to employment and then to advocate and educate our parents and our state legislators about this opportunity and the need for further funding.

>> Great. Wonderful. Paula's not been able to join us yet?

>> No...but I can -- see.>> It's not a problem. What I can do is just alert the

audience to Florida's efforts. A piece of legislation that was passed and created this coordinating effort that, that Margo actually alluded to.

Rebecca, we actually have a copy of that legislation available for people, right? So...this is, this is an image of the first page of the copy, but you can get this particular piece of legislation and I pointed out for one very specific reason. It's probably, if not the most comprehensive, one of the most comprehensive pieces of legislation regarding Postsecondary Education for students with intellectual disabilities in the country.

Don't be, don't be alarmed though, when you get into this, if you find some early childhood language, because the piece of legislation actually does two things. One is establish an early childhood initiative and the other is to address Postsecondary Education for students with intellectual disabilities.

But...if you're thinking about moving forward with legislation, it's a great piece to look at and again, we would be happy to help you through that. We can flip back, now...I know we've got a couple of questions in the queue and I want to leave

time for some questions as well. Margo, can you hang out? Or do you need to get moving?

>> Paula just joined us.>> Great, I want to leave time for questions, but do you

want to speak about your side of things now? >> Sure, I will talk very fast. The act is about one year

old, as a matter of fact. It was signed by the governor, last January 21st and basically does kind of four fundamental things. So...it established the center, the Florida Center for Students with Unique Abilities at UCF and charged the center to implement the legislation. In creating the center, created these huge opportunities and resources within the state. The first one actually established the Florida postsecondary comprehensive transition program. And identified the elements of those programs. Now...that's pretty much parallel to federal comprehensive transition program criteria. That's good. It does require you to submit a federal application to be an approved Florida program. Again, because that opens up resources to students through federal Financial Aid. It's up to our center to identify and create an application process. We've done that and would be happy to share that application packet with anyone that wants to shoot me an e-mail.

Then...too, it established scholarships for students to attend those approved programs. And right now, the scholarship level is set up at -- annual $7,000 scholarship. And so...we work with the institutions once waves proved their programs to, for them to submit a request for scholarships. This first year, we think it'll move into the second year, is allowed us to do some of the funding that's established through the act to provide grants to institutions to start up their programs or to enhance existing programs. There are several other programs in the state that serve students with intellectual disabilities, but...they, they don't meet the criteria, or the parameters to become an approved program. These grants allow them to bring on additional staff or create more opportunities, just how do you build your programs so it's leading to meaningful credentials, industry certifications, something that's going to end up, most-likely leading to employment for your students. And right now, we're able to give out grants up to $300,000. We put out an RSP, right at the beginning of December, we had a due date, three weeks later and we actually received four applications for that funding. We're in the process of reviewing and awarding this now. That's very exciting and then we sent another due date to allow people to submit grants, proposals, that could begin funding on July 1.

So...that's exciting and next step is we're planning four workshops around the state. Those will be the week of February 6th. We're coordinating those and aligning those with workshops that are being held by Project Ten, which works in transition in Florida at the secondary level.

So...by having these workshops together, we'll have the secondary people there, doing their thing. We'll have postsecondary people at our workshop and then, we'll have a networking lunch so that within those regions, they can connect with each other.

But...our agenda will include information about the center, the scholarships, the grant awards and the application packets and then, Vocational Rehabilitation will be part of the program to talk about how they can support students in these programs. ABLE Trust is going to be there. They'll provide some information about setting up internships and those kinds of things. That can be a really important part of your curriculum. The threats in our legislation, as you can see and we'll have representatives from the programs that have them approved to talk about things they've run into, either in distributing the Financial Aid or applying for their comprehensive transition program, through their Financial Aid portals. Those sorts of things. It'll be a real applied, we want to create applied programs in the state and see demand for those programs increase. That's what we're doing right now.

>> Yeah...thanks -- it sounds like there's a ton of activities. Thanks for blazing through that. We really appreciate it. There were a couple questions earlier and Danny from Virginia had asked if other states and I wonder if, I wonder if the three folks that we have on the, on the phone, can answer this. If other states have disability commissions, like Virginia does, do any of your states have a disability-specific commission?

>> I -- this is Margo. And...in Ohio, the State Department VD has had strategic planning commissions, but I do not believe we have disability commission, however...we do have a very strong employment-first, multiagency task force that has representation from all the major state agencies.

>> This is Susanna, we had a study commission that was out of our House of Representatives that led into -- it was joint commission for employment first and inclusive Postsecondary Ed, which led into a group like Margo said that they have on employment first that would be chaired by our Georgia Vocational Rehabilitation and...we were kind of a side note in that, so that's where we're at in regards to that.

>> Gotcha. I do want to point out that Margo, you were nice

enough to put up Paula's e-mail address there in the chat box. Anybody that would want to reach out to Paula, thank you for doing that.

We're, we're pretty close to the top of the hour, but I want to go back to just one question that's been answered a little bit in the chat box, but...hear from you all...one of the things that, that Dana had asked was if Georgia DOR supports the students who are in Susanna's programs there. I'd actually open that up to Florida and Ohio as well. Can you guys comment on the work that you're doing with VRs in your states?

>> I'll give our quick one and then, I'll let let Ohio talk. In Georgia we have a two-prong relationship with our VR. First and foremost, they're working with our state Department of Education to have teachers pay for their VR and DOE funds and their state DOE funds. Not federal DOE funds. Two of our teachers are actually on here right now. We're really excited to have them on here.

So, we have that going on, then, as far as student support, if an IPSC program is a comprehensive transition program, a student is on inclusive Postsecondary Ed in their plan, a means to scale, they will pay for inclusive Postsecondary Ed programs like they'd pay for a transition program and they will pay a fraction, up to a full bill for tuition, fees, room and board, books, and such. But...it's, it's a complicated scale.

>> In Florida, I know, in this workshop I'm in, that we're doing, four of them around the state, VR will also be talking about how they are supporting students. You know, believe it or not, there are a couple approved programs that haven't requested scholarships because VR has been funding the tuition and some of the other costs for their students attending these programs. What we're trying to do and we hope would be helpful in this conversation, maybe by the end of next year is to really be able to show a sustainable model of this program, of these kinds of programs and so, how does, would VR support, DD Council support, the scholarships that students can bring and/or Financial Aid that they can draw down. The supports provided by universities and colleges. What is a sustainable program look like? I think it takes all of those partners working together to be able to do that. But...VR is an important role in that.

>> And in Ohio, we've been working with Mike Kenny, who is on this webinar and...developing a fact sheet to outline for families and...VR counselors. How to collaborate with these programs. So, that work is still in process.

>> Great...thanks so much. We were going to talk a little about what comes next, but we're going to, I think...we did our discussion, and we're right at -- we're a little after 4:00. I

want to thank all the participants. Recca, I know we got an evaluation coming up, right?

>> Yes...I just wanted to thank you all and thank all the people who have attended today and let you know we have these versions to download. The presentation is here with everyone's names. I'm not sure we put the e-mail addresses, but easy enough to find. There's a webinar evaluation, we'd appreciate you doing it here in the web links box. There's also opportunities to sign up for future webinars and our mailing list. Captions are here and we'll be e-mailing out the recording of this webinar as soon as it's available. So...thanks, everyone for coming today, appreciate you staying late, Michael, Margo, Paula, Siddarth and Susanna, really appreciate it.

>> Our pleasure, thank you, everybody who was on the call. Take care.

[Call concluded at 4:03 p.m. ET].

"This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings."