ROUGHLY EDITED COPY

SBBC-FDLRS-EAST
COLLEGE AND MY IEP

DECEMBER 8, 2020

CART CAPTIONING PROVIDED BY:
ALTERNATIVE COMMUNICATION SERVICES, LLC

www.CaptionFamily.com

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This 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. 

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>> TERRY MATSON:  Good evening, everyone.  I have 6:00 o'clock.  It looks like everybody that was in the waiting room has been let in.  And we'll continue to monitor that.  Thank you for joining us this evening.  Can everybody hear me okay?  Most of the mics I see are muted and video is off.  You're joining us tonight for transition talks.  And we have Nichole Clement from Eastern Florida State College to talk about what happens at your IEP after graduation?  Last week, we hosted a session regarding graduation and the deferral process.  And this Thursday, December tenth, we'll host another evening with EFSC and transition program and what's offered there including last ProjectSEARCH and employee.
We hope you can join us for that.  And we'll wrap-up the sessions next Tuesday, December 15 with special guest from our CTE program, Rachel Rutledge will be here to talk to you about that.  If you have any questions the sessions, please feel free to ask us at the end this evening.  But what we want to do is get started this evening.
I'm just going to go over a view ins and outs of Zoom.  If everyone is familiar, if you hover your cursor over the bottom, you can access the chat room.  If you have a question at any time, feel free to put it in the chat room and we'll be monitoring that.  And Nichole would like to answer any of those questions at the end of the presentation.  Does anybody have questions before we get started this evening?  Okay.
What I'd like to do then is go ahead and introduce you to Nichole Clement.  Like I say, she's from Eastern Florida State College SAIL office.  And that is our Student Access for Improved Learning.  She's an access specialist, and she's here to talk to you about what happens to that IEP after graduation when you begin to enter postsecondary program such as eastern Florida or a state college.  Thank you, Nichole, for being here this evening.  And we'll monitor the chat room for you.  And we'll post questions about 20 minutes prior -- about 6:40 on end of your presentation.
>> NICHOLE CLEMENT:  Sounds good.  Awesome.  Thank you so much, Terry.  I'm Nichole Clement and I'm an access for Eastern Florida State College and Student Access for Improved Learning which known as SAIL.  On the Coco campus, and I also work with our e-learning students.  And I tend to work under the umbrella of disability services.  So not are we available to make sure accommodations are provided to our students, but SAIL is also available to support instructors and the EFSC community.  So we are available to provide any additional support to instructors regarding how to create accessible course material, and to remain in compliance with A.D.A.  So we answer a ton of questions about course related accessibility.  And also helping instructors with the transition to online courses and how accommodations can be implemented in the classroom or even in the online learning environment.
So outside of the classroom, SAIL has hosted accessibility awareness week.  And we couldn't get a chance to do it this past October because of COVID.  But it's our annual event.  And it occurs obviously on the month of October on each campus.  We invite students, faculty and staff, and they complete several simulation stations.  There's table top featuring different resources for individuals with disabilities.  We also had G resolution and presented series of workshop and mental awareness and coping skills.  And being able to collaborate with off campus and on campus agencies, our goal is to provide information that is going to help breakdown to fair and inclusive environment for all.  So each of our access specialist wear many, many different hats in the SAIL office, but our main function is to help students who have documented disability in classroom get accommodations.  So this can include students that might have had an IEP or 504 plan in high school, but just because the student didn't have either one of those doesn't mean they can't qualify for services at Eastern Florida.  So my goal throughout this presentation is to give you some more information about what exactly what happens with the IEP or 504 Plan once a student transitions to college.  We're also going to talk about the differences between high school and college as it relates to disability.
I'll give you some insight into our registration process so we can tie everything together and we'll round things out talking about the resources available for students who are transitioning to college and resources we have available at Eastern Florida for students to feel supported once they make the transition.
So I'm going to share my screen with you guys.  So just bear with me.
All right.  Okay.  So perfect.  Hopefully, you guys can see.  All right.
So we're going to start by talking a lot about accommodations.  And that's a word you're going to hear thrown a lot during this presentation.  But what exactly is an accommodation?  According to the U.S. Department of Education, reasonable accommodations are academic adjustments to the tasks, to the environment, or to the way that things are usually done that will enable an individual with a disability to have an equal opportunity to participate in an academic program.
So, at Eastern Florida, some examples of reasonable accommodation that we may provide for our student include things like the ability to audio record their class lectures.  Maybe receiving additional time on their test and quizzes.  And even sign language interpreting services.  So it's really, really important to note that these accommodations are put in place in the classroom, or the testing environment simply as a way to level the playing field.  So accommodations are never meant to give any one student unfair advantage over another student.
When it comes to the population of students that we serve, their diagnosis is going to fall under one or more of these specific categories.  So, for example, psychological or behavioral will entail diagnosis like ADHD.  Anxiety.  PTSD.  Various visual impairments like exophoria.  We have students who have cataracts.  Students who are Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing.  We deal with students who have physical disabilities such as pots, maybe fibromyalgia.  Dysgraphia, dyscalculia.
And we have students on the spectrum and students with traumatic brain injuries.  And so, it's important to note that those diagnosis that I mentioned are just examples, but they're probably more diagnosis that qualify student for services under each of those categories.
One question that we get asked very often is how much of the population of EFSC students have disabilities.  That's really a tough question to answer?  Because we may never have an accurate number to provide, because registration with our office is 100% voluntary.  I can bet there are a lot of students who have documented disabilities that just choose not to register with us, and that's perfectly fine, because again, it's not a requirement that students register with our office.
What I will say however is that the majority of our students will present with diagnoses in the psychological or behavioral category.  I can also imagine as we move forward into the spring semester, that number is going to go up.  So far, we've had a lot of our instructors who reported concerns about their student's mental health, the majority of our classes last semester have been online.  So for a lot of our students that transitioned into online learning has been stressful.  And of course COVID-19 has added that additional layer of not being able to feel that sense of connection to others.  To that's just something for our office to keep an eye out on as we move forward into the spring semester.
So, I'm going to briefly get into some differences between high school and college.  And we're going to talk about the laws.  So in both college and the K-12 system which we can consider for the presentation.  Section 504 of 1973 is going to protect against discrimination towards college students and K-12 students with disabilities.
For students enrolled in the K-12 school system, accommodations are going to be offered under IDEA which is individuals under Education Act.  This ensures a free appropriate education is going to be eligible to students with disabilities, and it's also going to ensure that any kind of special education and related services are going to be provided to those children.  Now, this doesn't include private school.  This is just for the public school arena.
In college, A.D.A. laws which is Americans with Disabilities Act, those are put in place to no otherwise qualified person with a disability will be denied access to or subjected to discrimination by any program or activity provided by public institution or entity.  Ooh, that's a mouthful.
So in general, what we say is in high school, accommodations are really meant to keep the focus on student's success.  Whereas in college, the focus is really on student access.
So we can approve all these great accommodations for students.  But that doesn't mean with those accommodations, they're going to be guaranteed to be successful in each of their classes.
So as part of our registration process, we do ask that our students provide us with some documentation regarding their disability.  And it's going to have to come from either a medical doctor, it could come from a psychiatrist, or licensed counselor.  Basically, someone who is going to be qualified to tell us about the student's diagnosis and some of the limitations the student would experience as a result.  There is a really, really common misconception that if you are a high school student with an IEP or a 504 Plan, your accommodations will automatically transfer over to college.  But that is not the case.
Especially, here at Eastern Florida, we can take a look at the IEP or the 504 Plan to see if we can get the student approved for some temporary accommodations, but if the student is hoping to receive anything permanent, we will need that updated documentation.
We don't do any testing in our office.  We don't do any evaluations.  We also don't cover the cost for students to get tested.  Which may be a lot different from high school in a sense homo, they may provide evaluations to students at no cost.  It's okay if we have students that come to us that don't necessarily know where or how they can get that evaluation or that documentation.  They can always contact me or any one of our access specialist to get suggestions.  And later on in the presentation, I'm going to give you some resources we also provide for students.  You know, so they can go out and find out where they can get at a supported documentation.
Self-advocacy.  This is really, really a big piece to the puzzle.  So, at the college, we talk a lot about personal responsibility as being the key to success and how that has a lot to do with student accessibility to advocate.  We expect students to understand their disability, to understand the impact that it has on their academics, because in college, it's really the student's responsibility to request reasonable accommodations through our office.  And this is probably going to be the majority of the Disability Services Offices that you see at colleges and universities.
So they will have to locate our office.  They will have to self-disclose they have a disability.  And they will need to go through the registration steps.  So through our interactive process, the SAIL office will really encourage students to identify their strengths, their needs, what works for them, so it's important that students are prepared to talk about those aspects.  Registration with SAIL is completely confidential, we don't share any kind of registration status with anyone.  This is not going to show up on the student's transcript.  It's not going to go on their diploma.  We will not even let their instructors know they have approved accommodations unless they give us written permission to do so.  And the same can be said for parents.  We're not able to share any information about a student's grades, or about their accommodations, unless we receive written consent through something called a FERPA form.  So that tends to be a lot different than high school as well.
So ten self-advocacy tips for students with disabilities.  I came across this video on YouTube.  And it details some really great tips for students who are in high school.  And they may have plans to go to college or maybe even join the workforce.  So these are some concrete steps that students can start to implement.  Maybe even earlier than high school.  It could be early as middle or junior high school.
So let's take a look.  [Video Clip]
>> IEP meeting is about you.  [Audio fading in and out]
>> I had the transcription plan early.  And I asked about it.  Just in case nobody ever mentions it to you, yours supposed to have a transition plan at an early age.
>> People like myself who have had advocates like a parent or guardian, they're not going to be there with you for the rest of your life of so it's important to take notice of what you need, so when they step away, you can take the ball and keep it rolling.
>> They can advocate themselves by reaching out to their school support team to see what each staff members have to offer for them.
>> Before, students who do go to school with able-bodied peers around them.  You can think of programs or activities that include both populations in that you guys can feed off each other and learn from each other.
>> But I would like to see them interact with other employees that tonight have disabilities.  And it doesn't just have to be disability employed place.
>> You should be really engaged, really open.  Don't be afraid to talk to somebody and you won't know what new capabilities you have.
>> Never be ashamed of your disability.  I really feel that everyone has differences.
>> Disability gives you the voice, a difference perspective on life that people may take for granted.  So use disability as a tool to teach others.  Make sure you're a key player and make sure you’re active, make sure you're telling people, no I also this is how this should be.  This work best this way or I need this service.
>> We have labels as people with disabilities.  And if we follow-through with the labels, then we'll never get anything done.
>> The future is not limited to anyone.  And don't let your disability stop you.  And all these things that you're doing now is going to help you on the path to a better life and more inclusive life and give you the freedom you wanted to do the things you want to do.
>> NICHOLE CLEMENT:  Awesome.  So self-advocacy can be a really challenging aspect to, I guess engagement for some of our students.  But I think that those tips and those steps are really the foundation for successful engagement in college.  I also think that it's helpful to hear these things directly from a student's perspective.  So I just thought that was pretty neat.  All right.
So how does all of this information kind of fit within our process?  So, the way our registration kind of works is the first step is the student is going to have to complete an application.  And they can get one of our applications either by downloading a copy online, or they can schedule an appointment to come talk to any of our access specialist.  So in addition to the application, we are going to asking for that supportive documentation.  And once we collect that, we can receive that via their email address.  We have a digital student Dropbox.  We have fax.  So there's many different ways they can submit that application and that documentation.  But once we get it, then we schedule what's called interactive intake interview.  Where the student is able to discuss some of their challenges, some of their academic concerns, and even maybe some of their needs.  So we have a SAIL review after that.  We meet with the entire team.  We take a look at all the information that's presented.  And then once we're able to get the student approved for accommodations, we will schedule that final meeting where we talk about how that accommodation is going to be implemented either in the classroom or the testing environment.  We also talk about how they notify their instructors.  And what, anything else they may need to be successful when they transition over to Eastern Florida.  And the K-12 school system, teachers are the ability to modify assignments and what's taught in the classroom.  But here in college, curriculum cannot be modified.  So, for example, we've seen a lot of students who come to us with their IEPs or 504 Plans.  And they will be approved for an accommodation like extra time on their assignments.
In college, that's not really an accommodation that we can provide for anyone.  We do have a comparable accommodation, but it's generally going to be up to the instructor to determine if they're going to accept late work or give any kind of extensions on assignments.
So these are some additional differences between high school and colleges that relates to grades and maybe testing.  So, again, we're just reiterating the fact that modifications to the forms or format of the exams, grades, or even the format of assignments can't be available.  Even what's expected of college studies skills and how it's going to be different than high school.  And on average, students should be studying between 3 to 4 hours outside of class for every instruction they have.  The amount of reading out of class is going to increase and students are going to be responsible for manage are their own time and completing their own assignments independently.
If students are having any kind of challenges in their classes, it's going to be up to them to be able to communicate their concerns to the instructors.  So that's where that self-advocacy piece really comes in.  The students can also contact us to talk about some strategies that can be implemented.  Maybe some different support resources or even adding additional accommodation to their approved list.  But the earlier we know what's going on, the better that we can be able to assist them.
Another difference between high school and college is that in college, tutoring is not going to fall under disability services.  It's not considered an accommodation or an academic adjustment.  So students who have disabilities are going to have to seek out tutoring resources or any academic support resources, because those are going to be available to all students.
So here at Eastern Florida, we do have some great resources available to all students.  Academic advising.  So all first-year students are going to be assigned an academic advisor.  Who's really going to be the go-to for all questions and concerns relating to the student's degree progress, their programs, their courses or any kind of registration.
TRiO is another student support program.  The eligibility requirements say the student either has to be first-generation college student.  Has to be a student with maybe some economic challenges or student with a disability.  TRiO will offer free science and math tutoring.  Other activities to increase student retention.  We have academic success center which is located on each campus.  And they offer tutoring in several subject areas and even writing assistance.  Because we moved to offering more virtual courses since the start of the pandemic, the academic success center is also offering their services virtually.  And, again, all of these are free and no charge to students that attend Eastern Florida.
So, the Career Center is also located on each campus.  They do, okay, there we are.  They do a lot of career inventories and every semester they hold job fairs for students either on campus or I know last semester they did one virtually.
Success coaching is something I would recommend to all first-year students.  So success coaches work with students on transitioning to college.  They work with students on transitioning to the online learning environment.  As well as some of those soft skills that our students really need to be successful in college and beyond.
EFSCare is going to be our free confidential student assistance program where students can receive free counseling sessions when presenting problems.  If EFSCares is not able to help, they will reach out to other organizations that can help.
Now, these are some of the transition resources that we may provide for students who are looking for updated evaluation.  Or for services that can help to make that transition to college a little bit easier.  So we do have a relationship with vocational rehabilitation.  A lot of our students are also voc rehab clients.  And so voc rehab is great in a sense they work to assist students with disabilities to get, to advance in, or keep their jobs.  And some cases, they will also do evaluations which we're able to use for supportive documentation, which is really good.
DBS.  They work to help blind and visually-impaired students.  But it's more of a specialized services.  And then we have 211 Brevard which is a community resource that some students may use if they need any kind of help in the ideas of housing, mental health, substance abuse.  They have some Veterans resources.  So students can go to the website.  It's 211Brevard.org or they can call 211 for more information.  Can they so the Scott center for autism treatment.  That's located on the FIT campus.  They work with students and families of students on the spectrum.  They also have a community-based mental health outpatient facility within the main Scott Center.
The psychology today website is also another resource for students.  It has directly mental health professionals and some facilities they're all organized by zip code.  And it's just another great resource for students who may need updated documentation.  Uh-oh.  There we go.  It's just a great resource for students with that might need updated documentation or maybe information about where they can get an evaluation completed.
And next up we've got names and contact.  So no matter what the campus student attends, there's going to be an access specialist to help.  Even if the student is approved for accommodations and they're taking classes on multiple campuses, that's perfectly fine.  Their accommodations are going to transition to each campus.  One question that I get asked often is whether we have deadlines for applications to be turned in.  We don't.  But earlier in the term that students send in want application the better.  Some accommodations on our end may take longer to pair for things like sign language interpreting.  But in my eyes, start transition as early as beginning of senior year.  Students can start contacting vocational rehab.  And all students who have disability in high school do that.  They can find out more about their services and whether or not they qualify.  They can go through the process of gathering documentation that they have from doctor's visits and therapist visits.  And so the more effort that we tell students they put upfront, the less they will have to worry about once college classes start.
And then these are just links to the SAIL webpage that's going to take you directly to our application.  Our documentation form.  And it will give you an overview of the steps that a student will need to take to register with our office.
If you all have any questions, you can feel free to ask.  If it's something that you feel is more personal in nature, you can give me a call.  I can clarify or I can answer any questions you might all have.
And that's pretty much what I've got on my end.  So if you guys have any questions, feel free to ask.  And I am more than happy to answer.
>> TERRY MATSON:  Anyone out there has a question, it's a great opportunity to speak to our SAIL expert here who is willing to navigate and share some information this evening on preparation for exiting the public school system and entering the second postsecondary.
>> We've got a quiet group out there.  If you feel more comfortable typing in the chat box, that's fine.  Transition talks are recorded.  So if you know anyone who's missed something or you need to go back and see it, it will be posted on the BPS transition website shortly.
>> NICHOLE CLEMENT:  And I'll put my contact information in the chat.  If later on down the line, if any of you have any questions, or maybe a student who might need assistance with completing an application and they have questions, feel free to call or email me.  I'll be more than happy to help them out.
>> TERRY MATSON:  We also have a link there in the chat room if you can please take a moment and complete our survey.  Just give us some feedback on the sessions were offered.  If you've joined us on other ones, please make sure you leave us some input so we can begin planning and providing some information that you might be looking for.  Nichole has posted her contact information in the chat room.  Not only her phone number, but her email address.  If something comes up down the road, I'm sure she'd be glad to answer any questions you might have.
>> NICHOLE CLEMENT:  Absolutely.
>> TERRY MATSON:  Okay, then.  Well, if we don't have any questions, I know it's 6:30.  We've reserved until 7.  Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions regarding the last two sessions that are scheduled for this Thursday December 10.  And then last one is scheduled for Tuesday December 15.  Both at 6:00 p.m. in the evening.
All right.  I think that is it.  Nichole, thank you so much for joining us this evening and sharing that valuable information.
>> NICHOLE CLEMENT:  Thank you, Terry.  Thank you.
>> TERRY MATSON:  I also wanted to mention Nichole is member of the inner agency counsel and has been involved in the community outreach and things we're doing through that program.  So again, please feel free to reach out.  And I thank everyone for joining us this evening.  And have a great night!
>> NICHOLE CLEMENT:  Thank you.  And I'll hang around just in case anyone has any lingering questions.
>> Great job, everyone.  Is that PowerPoint going to be available to anybody, Terry or Nichole?  Are you going to post it anywhere?
>> TERRY MATSON:  It will be available.  It's all recorded and we're going to post all that in the transition website.
>> Beautiful.  All righty.  Thank you.
>> TERRY MATSON:  Awesome.
>> Yeah, I was working on cleaning up the transcript from the first one.  And I'll be able to post the video and I'll do that for both sessions.  Gentleman thank you, Nichole.
>> TERRY MATSON:  Thank you so much for your time this evening.  I appreciate it.
>> NICHOLE CLEMENT:  No problem.  I hope it wasn't too short.
>> TERRY MATSON:  No, it was perfect.  We get a lot of questions and that is a huge understanding for a lot of our families, what happens.  So thank you for your support and putting all that together in your time.
>> NICHOLE CLEMENT:  No problem.  We'll get that a lot too.  A lot of parents will call with the IEP and 504 Plans how it can transition over.  So I hope they got the information they needed.
>> TERRY MATSON:  Very good, I'm sure.  Excellent, if I don't see you before the holiday break, enjoy.
>> NICHOLE CLEMENT:  You too.  You guys have a wonderful holiday.  Thanks so much.  Bye-bye.