At the Center: Supporting our Special Education Communities after K-12

Thank you for joining us At the Center! In today's episode, host Dean Constantopoulos speaks the Director of Disability Services at Joliet Junior College, Adam Wouk. We talk about the misconceptions around having a disability, transition programs for students who are looking to pursue higher education with supports, how we can support our special education communities by preparing them with applicable skills, and much more! Come and join Adam here, At the Center! 

Transcript

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Dean 0:01

Good morning, good afternoon, good evening, whatever time you're listening. The world of special education can seem a bit overwhelming. For families trying to support their kids to district leaders working to balance compliance, timelines, real student outcomes, the processes can seem daunting. But that's where we come in. This podcast, brought to you by the Center for Special Education Services, is here to help guide you through the special education landscape. So come and join us here at the center. Thank you all so much for tuning in. My name is Dean Constatopoulos, and you're listening to At the Center, your one-stop shop for all things special education. Today I'm joined with my guest, Adam Woke, who is the Director of Disability Services at Joliet Junior College. Adam, thanks so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it. Of course, absolutely. So let's hop right into it. Let's talk a little bit about your history just in the world of special education. So, how did you get started in this field and uh how has it been since?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

Well, you know, I think like most things, the journey is not what you thought it was in high school. You don't you didn't end up necessarily maybe where you thought you were going to. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but you know, coming out of high school, I went to Marist High School in the South Side. Um, and I I went to school out in Cleveland to become an economist for reasons that still befuddle me. Uh it's not my personality at all. And after just one year, I just wasn't really vibing for me. And so I came back home and decided to go to Moraine Valley for a year to figure out what I wanted to do. And I at that time had really fallen in love with psychology.

Dean 1:40

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Um, I was deeply interested in human development. And I had at the high school I was at, I had done a lot of volunteer work and worked with a lot of communities back then, more of because I thought that's what you needed in your high school transcript. And I think it uh it actually started to grab my interest. And then when I got into psychology, I was like, oh, I can actually do something with this. And I felt like it was a really good fit for my skill set. So I went to Marquette University, I transferred there and I got my bachelor's in psychology. Um, and my intention at that time was to work with zero to five. I had uh traveled and volunteered in some other countries during that time. I uh lived in Africa for three months and worked at an AIDS orphanage, uh teaching classes at night and doing some social work. Oh, that's incredible. And then I went to Peru for two months and I worked uh at a school for kids with autism zero to five. And so I was um all geared up. I was doing in-home therapy as well as a senior at Marquette for kids with autism with like a local agency where I was just doing like in-home pex boards and things like that. Yeah. And so I graduated, I was gonna go get my PhD in and become a school psychologist, and my alma mater, Marist High School, called me up and they had me out, and they were really interested in me coming out to teach social justice. And I had a lot of college debt. And so I was like, you know what, uh, let's do this because I also had an opportunity to run their volunteer department. Oh, very cool. So I I taught uh social justice for eight years, ran their volunteer department. We did trips across the world, and I was going to school at night to get my degree in school counseling. Oh, great. And so I did a lot of uh counseling at Marist as well. And so I was there for about eight years, and I really the counseling is really what I wanted to go into. The teaching was fun, it was never what I intended to do. I ended up falling in love with it earlier in my career. I really liked being in the classroom. I really liked traveling with students, that experiential learning part. Yeah, you know, to take them all over the world to meet communities that they otherwise would not have met. Absolutely. Um it really changed my sort of view and vantage point of the groups that I wanted to work with. And I really started to enjoy working with older populations rather than the zero to five that I started off with. So I uh decided to get into disability specific work. And I was shopping high schools at the time, but a job came up at Marine Valley uh as a counselor in their disability office. And I grabbed it and I I fell in love with it since. You know, I it is an area of work that I think is deeply overlooked in higher ed. Um typically, and this is not about any of the institutions that I worked at. Uh, this is what I have learned over the years. Right. You know, I've uh in working with a lot of other my colleagues at other colleges is that disability can be an afterthought in higher ed. Um, it's not something that is necessarily built to help students succeed, which I'm sure we'll go, we'll go more into as we go through this. And so I was at Mauraine for a while, really fell in love with it. Uh, wanted to be a director. So I went to Roosevelt University. I was the director of disabilities, tutoring, and peer mentoring. So oversaw all three departments. Um, enjoyed that, but I really wanted to get back to the community college. I love knowing my district, yeah, being able to touch base with my high schools, begin to really think through the pipeline that students K through 12 into higher ed, into adulthood, what that looks like. And the community college gave me a very interesting opportunity to connect in a way that I thought I could make a bigger difference. And so I really fell in love with it.

Dean 5:21

Well, that makes a lot of sense, especially if you are, if you're really passionate about what you're doing on the level of just working at one high school, for example. I feel like the community college is a great way to then, like you said, the entire community of high schools that you're looking at. What is it about the I don't know, the more the older population that like pulled you really towards them when you were when you were originally really going for the zero through five? Was there something about working with that older population that kind of clicked for you?

SPEAKER_00 5:52

It seems for me, and I think for anybody pursuing these fields, you don't really know what populations you want to work with until you're exposed to them. Okay, yeah, and I tell any student that's gonna want to be a psychiatrist, social work, I say, volunteer with every group of people that you can, especially the ones that make you the most uncomfortable. Right. Like if you don't have this is actually a story for me at Marquette. We had to in our religion classes, we had to do a volunteer thing. We had to volunteer that semester and write about it. Uh, there was a big fair. I was late to it. I like got there for the last 10 minutes. I saw this one thing that said counseling. I signed up, I put my name on it, and it had a bunch of letters. At the time, I was like, oh, I don't know what LTGBQ meant. Like I was like, oh, oh, oh, I'm counseling there. Okay. I have no experience with this community. I don't know anybody. Uh and I was deeply uncomfortable. And I and I went with it and fell in love. Like, I, and that I think is just an example of like we have to expose ourselves. And so as I started to get at Marist exposed to students that were in the high school level, I really enjoy the emotional growth that takes place from like 15 to 22. Yes. There are, we talk in high school all the time, like the difference between a freshman and a sophomore, and a sophomore and a junior and a junior to a senior is immense. Absolutely. It's just immense. And seeing that growth live and being part of it in that older group was just something that that spoke to me. I think with zero to five, what's hard is you are reading between the lines a lot more and you are are really trying to pull out from what you observe because zero to five is gonna have a hard time communicating. Right. They just don't have the skills yet. They don't have the skills, and neither does the the high school students either. But it was the their journey that I thought I that I really enjoyed.

Dean 7:47

Yeah, I love that. And there's just there's a lot more of that journey that you can follow, of course, with a high school student, because just from being around for longer, there's a lot more that you can follow. That's so interesting. So you so now you're the uh director of disabilities, uh disability services at Joliet Junior College. So what got you into Joliet?

SPEAKER_00 8:10

So I was when I was thinking about leaving Roosevelt. Um I I had either on my mind, I really actually I really just kind of only had a community college on my mind. Um, I don't know that I was necessarily Joliet was the one. It's hard. There's not a lot of these jobs, right? Right. There's only so many community colleges. I wanted to stay in the south side where my family was. Uh, and this one had happened to come up. Um, now I say that also too, not that I was just willing to work anywhere. I have now been in this long enough to also know that I want to be at an institution that is gonna get behind my vision. Right. Um, I do not think about disability higher ed, I think like most others do. I I push boundaries, I push programming. We are not gonna be an office that just simply looks at the American Disabilities Act and says, hey, as long as we're meeting that, we're good. Right. If we're only meeting the minimum of the law, we're doing a giant disservice to people with disabilities.

Dean 9:09

So let's let's hop right into that then, because so my I'm just unfamiliar with the a lot of the special education laws, especially when it pertains to students that are no longer in K through 12 or anything like that. So can I let me pick your brain a little bit from times that you were in K through 12 and what what the services and and the laws surrounding special education look like in the with that population versus what kind of is available and what it looks like in the current population that you work with.

SPEAKER_00 9:43

So at Meriste even as a private institution, we really followed IDEA. We did our best to make sure that we built that because it's it's a very well-written, maybe overly detailed law. Um, and provides a lot of guidance on how to make sure that not only you're just giving student services, but like you're you're meeting their legal rights. That these are legal rights that individuals have. And so, you know, the thing about the K through 12 system under IDEA law is that it's a law of success. It's a law that's really built to ensure that a school does everything in its power to ensure that a student is as successful as possible. Gotcha. That creates that just that small uh part of the law creates a whole different environment of engagement from family student in school. Oh, sure. Um, especially with families and students, they tend to be the drivers of the IEP. And that is good sometimes and that is bad sometimes. You know, there's never you're never gonna have anything that's perfect, right? There's gonna be pros and cons to all of it, but there are some times where parents push for over-accommodation. There are times where schools don't push back enough. And what you tend to see, and what I tend to see a lot of, is a lot of overaccommodation.

Dean 11:00

I see.

SPEAKER_00 11:01

You know, and and what's hard about that is that when you go to higher ed, we swing that pendulum all the way to the other side where we underaccommodate.

Dean 11:10

So what is it? So give me an example of an over-accommodation that you would see.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

Yeah. So, you know, I'm gonna say this generally, not that this is never appropriate as an accommodation, but sometimes I feel like is a is is is a lot is is when you uh do test adaptations, right? When you go from four multiple choice to three multiple choice, when you say, okay, we're gonna talk about it rather than having to sit down and take a formal exam. Whereas in higher ed, you will never, ever, ever, ever be able to adapt a test. You will have to take the exact same exam as anyone else in that class. You have to meet every single learning benchmark as everyone as everyone else in the class. I cannot in higher ed create an accommodation that allows you to lower the bar on the learning benchmark that you have to hit. Higher ed is a much more rigid environment where you have to meet them because in higher ed, they function under the American Disabilities Act, which is a law of access, not a law of success. So the reality is my office, if we're just going by the law, and if our mission statement was just written by the law, we would be an office that is there to ensure that students have access. Okay. And that very much shrinks what that expectation can be from colleges, right? So if I'm a administration of a college, and I know this is what we have to do, there's not really a drive or an impetus for an institution to say, well, let's do more, right? If we're meeting the law, why are we doing more? I'm not saying that's necessarily how all higher ed institutions work. There are some that definitely do. And so that's so that pendulum swing. They're like, let's talk about calculators or notes. Notes is a great one. Right. In higher ed, I'm sorry, in K through 12, we tend to do uh, oh, I forgot the name of it, but like the teacher will put up a slide and they'll have like 75% of the notes up there, and then they'll have some blanks up there and you fill you fill in the blanks. Well, when you get to college, you can get a note-taker accommodation, but it is vastly different and in and very inferior in some senses. Because the the first part of it is if the teacher already has notes that are written, the teacher has to give it to the student. I've never in my career have ever seen a teacher that has it. And our office can't force a teacher to do that. So the next step is you get notes from somebody else in class. And our office would help mediate that. But here's the problem most students aren't actually very good at taking notes. You how accurate are those notes? How accurate you how do you identify a good note taker when you're week one in a college class or the teacher doesn't even know the students? And even let's say we find, we happen to find the greatest note-taker or or our office trains note takers and sends them out. The way I write things down for me in my brain are not how your brain operates. Absolutely. So this tends to be a real tough sticking point when they come from K through 12, and most notes are kind of handed to them and the skill isn't worked on enough. True success should be where the accommodation and skill building are happening simultaneously. Absolutely. And sometimes in some K through 12 systems, that isn't the case. And that could be for a variety of reasons. A family saying, No, I want more, I want more, I want more, I want more. Um, and then you get to higher ed, and now all of a sudden that's stripped back significantly, and we find ourselves in a position where we're training up the skill to help meet what is necessary to be successful in that rigid higher ed environment.

Dean 14:36

Gotcha. But if they haven't already had access to some of that skill building beforehand, it's a brand new skill that could take them however long it might take, which is which is not aimed at success in in the higher ed at all.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

And here's the thing, too, is like I'm 42. Uh, and I from when I went to college, from when my parents went to college, it hasn't like changed a lot. Right, right. Two semesters, 15, 16 weeks. We teach you half the book, you read half of the book, like there's more homework. Like it's the same credit setup, it's the same high-stakes, multiple choice tests. Like, there isn't a lot of evolution in pedagogy and assessment in higher ed. And so that's another part of this that I think is a really important factor when you're thinking about okay, what's a good fit for me as I move forward is, you know, is that is that a system that I can independently function in? Because higher ed requires a lot more independent function as an academic student than it does in K through 12.

Dean 15:43

Which is it and which is just so interesting considering how many accommodations that they'll set up in the K in K through 12 and how far they're willing, uh a lot of districts are willing to go to help support the success of these students. That that's it's kind of frustrating to hear. And and so I'm sure as somebody who was is very passionate about what they do, I'm sure this was very frustrating for you to come into the the higher education kind of field and then see this happening. So, what's something that district leaders or or leaders in a community college or in higher education like yourself, they kind of do you have to kind of advocate for your own programs and things like that?

SPEAKER_00 16:31

Fiercely. Fiercely. You really have to disability, if we just look at it socially, because I think what happens with groups socially leak into our institutions, and then our institutions have to figure out how to manage it and find a way to make it successful. And I think there are still a lot of people that have misconceptions about what a disability is and is not. That's the truth. I I I preach this everywhere I go to parents, families. I say disability is not a list of things you can't do, it's just an explanation of who you are. You are no less or no better than anybody else. We all have a list of strengths and weaknesses, and our weaknesses far outweigh our strengths as human beings. That's all of us, man. I'll tell you right now, my wife will tell you about all my weaknesses. It's a long list, and she'd be right about every single one of them. And that's okay. I think I what I what what's what's hard though is that we live in an economy that requires some sort of post-high school education. And that to circle this back to, you know, when you have a group of people that are tend to be viewed as less able and less capable, and then you have these higher ed institutions that like to say that we graduate the best nurses, we graduate the best economists, we graduate the best teachers, to them, they become gatekeepers of their field rather than educators of the human that's in front of them. Yes. This is a little bit, I would say, a larger part of the four-year institution and then the two-year. It still exists that mentality in a two-year institution. And so, you know, it becomes then our office, who really is focused on helping students to find good fits and good pathways and to be successful for us to have to have a lot of conversations with faculty. I mean, we are talking with faculty all the time about trying to figure out a way to help this student be successful. And it creates a lot of conflict. You know, we're the only office in higher ed that can tell a teacher what to do and they have to do it. I like that. Yeah, I like it too. Teachers don't always like it. I'm sure they don't. I don't like to play that card. That's not typically how I want to approach it. I want to approach it as a partner. There are times where I have to say, okay, well, we're doing this because this is what ADA law requires. I want to make sure that we are compliant with the law. So you are going to give this accommodation. I rarely do that. I do that when I really, really feel that, like at the very least, we're not meeting compliance, right? But it requires a ton of advocacy. And you have to create these partnerships with faculty and deans to try to help them understand the perspective of a population that has a very, very unique background and that may not fit the way you understand a traditional classroom in college and higher ed. And so you have to kind of push people to think outside of the box often. Yes.

Dean 19:30

Often. Well, and it's interesting you say that because I I imagine we you had just mentioned how a lot of these four-year universities and such, they've been around for a long time and they and their faculty has been around for a while, and they may be kind of stuck in their own ways and stuck in their way of thinking.

SPEAKER_00 19:48

Think about this, they don't necessarily have the training. I mean, a higher ad professor is not a trained teacher, they're just an expert in their field of expertise, whereas K through 12, they're trained classroom managers. They're trained to understand the depths of education. And that is the huge difference of like being a teacher in K through 12 and working with other teachers who are certified and are in those areas. They have a wildly different approach to the way they see the classroom and compared to college. You know, in community college, you can have a master's in your field. But again, like so I've got a master's in psych, I can go teach psych, but I don't have a teaching credential. Like I learned how to teach. I got to work at the private school because they didn't require that. And I learned it on the fly and I learned to love it and all of that. But the reality is, is I'm really no different than those college teachers. And that's a huge difference because, especially for populations with people with disabilities, when you're in that K through 12 setting, disability or not, and you're getting trained and you're being educated to think about the thinker. You're thinking about your design of your curriculum in a way that's completely different than higher ed. And you are much more intrusive in K through 12. I don't mean that in a negative word, but like you are. You are hands-on in it. Yeah, you are in it with those kids. Like you are deep in the trench. College, just the way that the environment is set up, you're not as in the trench with the students. Again, that independent learning environment is a bigger part of it. And so not only would I say like to what you were saying before, like, yeah, we definitely have an aging population when it comes to all teachers, K through 12 or higher ed, but there's a training factor to this. That's just a reality of the environment.

Dean 21:28

That's that's a really good point. And you know what? That is a really good point. I that I didn't really think of because you're so right. Well, there's so much training that goes into being in K through 12, especially with uh with higher needs students and and any kind of student that has any sort of needs. You get a lot of training, no matter what kind of teacher you are, about accommodations and asking for help if there's something that you don't understand. And and that makes a lot of sense in higher education that they wouldn't have that because you're coming in for your exercise. Amount of hours that you're teaching your class, and then you're done for the day. So so what do we so what do we do then in in a situation where we're in college and we've got kiddos who, well, young adults, no longer kiddos, who need this help and they need some sort of accommodation. They need um, they still want to have the college experience, they want to get their degree, uh, which is just what like a lot of our students want. And that's not any different from the other students, but the perception, I feel like, might be different. So, how do we fix that perception?

SPEAKER_00 22:38

I'd say a couple of things. One, and this is not in any order of importance, this is just what's coming to my head. Yeah, I think the first thing is that in the K through 12 system, families, students, and schools have got to get a little bit more real about what is a career fit and what is not. We still far too often have students that come in and say that they want to be doctors, that they want to be FBI agents, that they want to be marine biologists. And that's just not a fit for their skill set. Now, we get a lot of people who come in and say, well, we can do anything just like people with disabilities can do anything just like anybody else. Yes. But they are also limited like everybody else because we all are. Yes, right. Like, there's a lot of things that I wanted to do. I wanted to be a basketball player. Dean, you saw me walk in. I'm barely five five. Like, it ain't gonna work. It ain't gonna work. Like, there was things that, you know, even like I said, I wanted to be an economist. Like, I'm actually not great at numbers. No idea why I thought I was chasing money. Like, right, I was making decisions that were not around my skill set. We tend to be afraid to give people the truth about what a good fit is out of fear of making somebody feel less than. And I think as long as you couch it in a way to saying, hey, this is not about you not being able to be a marine biologist. This is about how do we take what you love, what you like, and what you're good at, and marry those two concepts to find something that's a good fit. Because I think that's the starting point is finding the appropriate fit. And you could how you could say this for people without disabilities. This is actually a general conversation that we're having. We're not having a conversation that's specific to disabilities. It just tends to get exasperated with disabilities because so many, there is that negative social context that's out there. And so, what people who are there to help and support the community, again, we go to a pendulum swing. You can do anything. You don't listen to those people. And yes, I don't want them to listen to those people either, but we all have to be realistic, all of us. Yes, like anybody can't just do anything. Exactly. And so, like finding that fit or having at least healthy conversations about what it means to look for fit is really important because that's gonna then really help families start to think about what is a good institution to go to. Families with students with disabilities need to shop disability offices. We are all not built the same. There are a lot of schools that choose not to invest. I spent six, seven years on the board for uh Ilowa Ahead. Ahead is the national agency for college disability offices, and then they have regional chapters. And we have an Illinois Iowa one. I was a president for two years, and then I was on it five years as a board member at large. And I got to know a lot of colleges across that region and even more nationally, as I, you know, you get very involved, so you get to meet all these colleges. And there are a lot of colleges that are not investing time into this, that are not putting people in these offices, that are not giving latitude to build out programming and do those types of things. And there's some that are. Like, don't get me wrong, there are some schools that are doing it, but this is why I say shop. There are schools that have programs that are specific for some populations. I know Southern Illinois had a really good program. It was like $1,000 a year. Last I had saw for specifically students with learning disabilities, ADD, ADHD. That's great. They provided some extra support. Barquette, my alma mater. They have a program called uh On the Mark, which is an autism program that's specifically for them, right? And so here at JJC, we have an autism program that's built in helping with career identity. We're starting a new transition program for students with intellectual disabilities to have an inclusive college experience, along with finding some targeted employment opportunities to build skill beyond just entry level. And and there's, and as an example of some schools that invest and some that don't, there's only 4% of colleges across the country that have programming like this. And so this is what I'm talking about when I say like there is a, you know, you have to shop. You know, you find the match of what you really might think, or even if you don't necessarily know exactly what it is you want to do, shop even your community colleges. Yeah, you may have to pay out a district to go to community college A, because it's outside of it. But when you actually look at the overall cost and price, it's not the end of the world, you know, and and you have state agencies like the Department of Rehabilitation Services that help pay for students' college in the state of Illinois. Um, and so there's there's some opportunity, but you really have to shop disability offices and programming to make sure you find a fit. So I think those would be the two things I'd say for those families that are beginning to navigate is is, you know, don't just go on the tour because, you know, they might show you the tutoring office, but that doesn't mean that the tutoring office is equipped to help people with disabilities. You know, like unless you have a disability office that's purposely making a relationship with that office so that you can help be in uh a partner, that's not the case everywhere.

Dean 28:05

So a lot of the so I imagine be due to the laws, um, all these colleges and higher education organizations have to have some sort of um special education office or disabilities office or something like that. But what you're saying is is that not all of them really invest into that. Why, why do you think that is? If you could speculate.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Yeah, no, I love speculating, of course. So I absolutely speculate. Um, you know, higher ed institutions, you know, I I've talked about them being a bit archaic, right? Maybe in classroom and environment, but they're also political, you know, institutions. Um, they have a lot of masters that they're trying to serve, especially in a community college. Like your administration is connected with people at Springfield. They're a national institutes. They're we're a 15,000 student school. You know, we are also trying to meet the local needs of uh employers, you know, like they serve a lot of masters. And, you know, I think sometimes disability isn't sexy enough to rise to the top of the priority list if you don't have a fierce advocate to sell it. Like that's sad to think about. It is. And I I've, you know, I've had to come to terms, as I think many of us had in special education, where we hit those real, I've had more failures in trying to get programs off the ground than I've had successes in my life. And there are times where you sit there and you're like, Am I just banging my head against the wall? And it was a point in my career where I was like, I have to accept the politics and play them, um, or I'm really gonna lose my mind. And so um I think schools have to see the economic advantage of it because there are a lot of families out there that are looking for programs. And I think that sometimes colleges who are already struggling financially to put the resources into a disability office to provide the additional therapies support. Like if you really want to go all out and create a robust office, right? You know, think about the services that are built around a student in a K through 12 system. Right. Then they come to college and all they have is their case manager. There's no speech, there's no occupational, there's no specific amounts of time that you're working on this and working on math and spending time on like you're not doing any of that. Like it's just not built and structured that way. That's what I when I talk about that pendulum swing, right? And so I I think that it is a large investment that higher ed tends to be hesitant to make because it may not necessarily see the ROI. Um, where I think people like me in my position need to show them that there is an ROI. And and there's may and and to now take the responsibility off of the institution because there's no one um there's no one group of people that have created this. You know, I'm not blaming people at Joliet or Rosa Lula Lorraine. I'm talking about the larger environment here. But the other reality is that uh these offices are deeply understaffed, disability offices, and you know, there's no direct line to my job. Like there's no pathway in college to become a disability support person in college. It's all directed to be certified in K through 12. Like you don't even have to be like to be one of the case managers that work in my team, like a bachelor's is really the minimum. You don't now listen, I want more than that. I want expertise, but the that that's usually like you bring in people who either A are not as trained or maybe didn't like the K through 12 system and didn't want to deal with parents anymore, you get some read shreds. Like, I didn't even have a direct path to this job. Like I had to learn to be a very fierce advocate. Um, that I had to speak up often, that I had to be good with data. Um, because if you don't sell it to the school, they're definitely not going to just naturally pick it up on their own.

Dean 32:20

Right. Which is just it's mind-boggling to me that that this is the case. And and it really kind of highlights what you were talking about before about how when you're shopping for these places, you need to shop for the department themselves because you need to find someone like yourself who is really going to advocate for the kids and advocate for the program. Uh so speaking of that program, we have other other schools who may be struggling with their special education programs. But it sounds like Joliet Junior College, it sounds like you've really like helped to build a more robust uh special services program for them over there. So tell me a little bit about what Juliet Jr. College has to offer for if there are any parents listening, they've got kids that are about to graduate high school or and are looking for an opportunity outside of school. They want to that maybe they don't know what they want to pursue yet, but they know that they want to get their degree in something. Uh tell me a little bit about what's uh some of the programs that you have to offer there.

SPEAKER_00 33:21

Yeah, I think the first thing is we need to talk about sort of our case management model. I think that's a really important part. I really push I touch. Um we have a coaching program, we call it, that students can sign up for where they get to meet with their case manager once a week for 30 minutes to an hour. And we see that students that stay in that program, if you have uh if you in one semester meet over six times, we see that those students have up close to a three GPA. And the students that meet from zero to two times have around a 2.0 GPA. So it makes a significant difference. We see significant differences when you are really bought into it. Um, we see higher cross-term retention. So what happens is students with disabilities who fail in their first semester are five times more likely to drop out than any other cohort of people. And so students who are in our program, we help them even if they're struggling, we get them to withdraw from a class, right? Like we, you know, and withdrawals are good, like not the end of the world, right? It doesn't count against your GPA, it doesn't really crush you and your financial aid. It's a slight mark. But when we avoid those failures, we can help build the success and the identity in the individual to say, hey, I can do this. And so we, and and mind you, uh, this is another big difference in high school college that like we have to sell is that, you know, when I was a guidance counselor and I told Johnny that you got to come see me, period three, and you didn't show up period three. Guess who's gonna be at your period four classroom telling you get your butt in my office right now because we're having a conversation. That's right. I can't make you see me in college. I can't, I'm not, I can't chase you down. I can't force you to come down to my office. Engagement is a choice. And so we do a lot on the front end. We have a five-hour orientation program two weeks before the school starts. Um, we have, I was able to create a position for a high school transition coordinator. She's in our top 12 features once a month, giving presentations to juniors with disabilities about the differences in the laws, the differences in what it's going to be like. This conversation that we're having, this is what we we try to deliver to them as juniors. And then she does case management with them as seniors to help them start to think through what those next steps are so that we're starting to get the students in the mindset of what college is like as an individual with a disability, their junior year. Yeah. So that by the time they get to us, it's not necessarily as shocking. It's not. And so we educate our community that comes in. We then try to create a lot of high touch with our coaching. I also uh trained my coaches in universal design and mind brain education, um, especially mind brain education. I'm a huge fan of that teaching pedagogy. Um, it's really taking what we know from neuroscience and applying it to how people learn. And so we have a very different way of approaching studying. We are just as a country, we're horrible at teaching students on what learning is and how to study. We've been doing the same. Find a quiet place, bring your notes, bring your textbook, make sure you have water, make sure you're in a, you know, all the make sure there's good lighting, right? Like that's not how we all do stuff. That's different for everybody. That's not how we learn. You and I could right now probably talk about how we studied in college and find that vastly different in a way. We have to start giving kids more diverse students more diverse ways to engage with content. And so our office will create a whole different way that you approach your studying where it's we're bringing in all the senses. That's really what mind brain education is is that we know we've learned that um we cannot just focus in on audio learning or visual, visual learning or kinesthetic learning. You know, those learning styles were a negative when we did those in the 90s and 2000s, like because the reality is that you have five input centers, right? You have five different ways that information comes through your body in the five senses. The more of them that you can engage, the more parts of your brain that you're engaging, right? So it's not that just I'm seeing something and activating my occipital lobe, but when I hear something, I'm activating my temporal lobe. And now I'm creating a more diverse understanding of something. So we teach students how to engage with information from multiple vantage points so that they can create their own learning environment that's more diverse. Now, listen, I try to do that with teachers too, and you're gonna get some buy-in and you're gonna get some people be like, you're yeah, you're crazy. What are you talking about? Get out of here. And so you control what you can control there, but I can control who's in front of me. And so we put a giant emphasis on high-touch coaching, especially early. We like to see students get success in year one and then need us less in year two, because I also recognize that if especially those that are gonna transfer to a four-year isn't gonna have an office like ours, so we teach to independence, like that's a big thing. We teach to independence, like that is gigantic for us. Because even if you're not going to a four-year, but maybe you get a working certificate and you're gonna go to work after two years, like you still are making a transition into another area of life that's only gonna require more independence of you. Absolutely. And so our coaching program has been insanely successful, and we put a lot of time and energy into that. We have um, I talked about the high school program. We also tried to get there early. We're very involved with our schools and our special ed teachers and the social workers and the psychiatrists, like psychologists, all of them. We have, I've spent the last five years working really hard with our transition coordinator. She's amazing. She's done incredible work, but now we have really good, we have good um relationships. And we we host like a yearly summit where they come in and we talk at the end of the year, like what worked, what didn't, what are you seeing, what are your trends? This alignment really helps all of us start to think beyond just what we're gonna do in the two years there, but what the scope of that journey is gonna look like. No, some other things that we do, some other programming that we have, we've we worked a lot with math and having um some specific additional time built into developmental math for people with disabilities that we definitely found a lot of success in. Um, we've had to kind of pull it a little bit because math is changing, the state's changing a lot of the laws and what that looks like. And so we're implementing math is implementing a new program this year. We're watching that, and then we're gonna kind of jump back in next year and see what that partnership is going to be. See how it goes, and then we're gonna mold it accordingly. It's kind of hard to build a program into a whole new math pathway that you know we don't have any past data or evidence on, right? Like let's see what first works in their program and then build something new that will work with it. And so we're very active in that because math can be a huge barrier to so many different working fields and sometimes what I would consider unnecessary ways, but that's just an opinion of Adam. So um not necessarily something we have to take to the bank. We um we've we've had a program actually transitioning this program into something bigger, but that uh pre-show you and I talked about uh after 22 population. So the students that age out at 22 and space the specific population, those are the really severe disabilities who are likely not gonna work, who probably have a parent who is staying home and taking care of you, and and and the state's providing some support, right? That group, that cohort of individuals doesn't have a community. And we do a really bad job in the state of Illinois. I I read that we're 49th in the country in funding for this particular cohort after the age of 22. So everyone, regardless of ability, deserves community. Like at the at the core of who we are as a species, we are a social we're a social animal. Yeah, we're a social animal. We require, even your introverts in the world still require some level of human connection and meaning. And so we created for a couple of years, I had a donor who helped me out. Uh, we had just a variety of cooking classes, business and uh our like entrepreneurship and art. Uh, and we had a couple of aides in the class and we were able to cover the costs for them. And we had, you know, we probably ran 15 students a year for a couple of years, but I wanted to really think bigger than that because it wasn't the most economically friendly model. And so we actually uh just gotten into an agreement with the brand new YMCA in Shorewood that was built. Um, and we were in the process and building a community program with them. We thought that would be the perfect partnership with our partnerships with the high schools and the families that we've gotten to know, the families that we've said no to because we don't have anything. That like that kills me. But I'd have to tell a family no. We don't have something that like I'm like, I'd put that on my long-term list as something that I don't want to say no to again. And so the YMCA is a place that's just built perfectly. So we're in the process, actually, we've been having a couple meetings already where we're gonna build some programs out so that we can build a community center for them. That's what the YMCA is, right? It's a community center, and they have so many recreation opportunities with a building that is, you know, really universally designed. And so we're really looking forward to that. We've had an autism program now for a couple of years that is really focused in on social skills. Autism or not, students' social skills are on the decline. Um, we are seeing way more isolation. We're seeing um much more dependence on socializing via technology that has a we could do a whole other podcast on that, Dane. We could do a, we could, we could probably start a whole show that's just based on that. That's the tier. And um, and so we developed this program by also inviting some others who might be, who may not have an autism diagnosis, but struggle in that way. And so uh there we have a small group. So we kind of have this tiered system and and we're growing it again this next year, but uh we have these two tiers. One week is a closed group for those who really feel like they need kind of an education on the development of those skills. So we have like a curriculum once a week, and then every other week we have um do we have this uh it's called a bridge, it's just like kind of a social area, and we just have some time on the bridge that's uh a welcoming place for all neurodiverse students. We're like me or I actually my staff, not me. My staff is like there, but like in the wings. Like we're not we're trying to create as much of a natural place just to be and hang. Just a little hangout spot. Because at the end of the day, you're not gonna just like any skill, if you know, like golf, I'm a big golfer, right? The longer I don't golf, the more I suck at golf. Like you have to keep up on a skill, you gotta continue to refine, refine. Fine. And there's just no other way with social skills outside of putting them in that environment. And so creating social opportunity that people with disabilities know is safe. Yeah. Know is supported too. That if I'm having a meltdown, like we're right there, you can flag us, let's go have a walk and let's get back in it. Right. Like, um, and now next year we're adding uh the career services office who's gonna do uh quarterly career identity and career training, uh, which is really gonna help start to think about what it looks like in an employment world. You know, what are my rights as an individual with a disability or with autism? Like what can and and what advocacy do I need to think about for myself in those environments?

Dean 44:37

Wow. And will those and for those meetings, would that be available to like families as well so that they could get more information or is this more geared just towards the student?

SPEAKER_00 44:46

This is everything I've said is geared towards more the student. You know, one of the other really big differences in high school and college is that if your mom calls me, I'm hanging up on her. It's illegal for me to talk to her. Because you are an adult, and as an adult, your information is private and private to you only, right? So students now come to college having to navigate their own advocacy as an individual with a disability after having how many years with your parents at an IEP meeting and eight teachers around the table and everybody talking about you and saying all the things that they've measured, and now you're the only one at the table, with one of my case managers having to be that advocate. So, you know, that's why some of these additional programs are really important, is because not only is the system different, but students really need help learning the independent skill because it's never become more important in their life. Self-advocacy is something students hear about in K through 12 ad nauseum, but never becomes more real than when they become an adult. Absolutely. And they have to then are forced to have to develop that skill in a way that maybe we would have blown it off in high school, you know. And that's not that's just all of us in high school where I was an idiot. Like I blew off all sorts of stuff that I wish I would I paid attention to, that I paid attention to back then, right? And so I think that's a big difference. Now, with a comprehensive transition program that's specifically for students with intellectual disabilities, we recently got that designation from the Department of Education and we're recognized by the state of Illinois, which means this whole program is funded, is paid for for students.

Dean 46:14

Congratulations.

SPEAKER_00 46:15

Uh, thank you. Yeah, we're very excited. We're launching in the spring. Um, we're we got a lot of work ahead of us. Um, it's been a lot of work just to get here. We toured schools, uh, we met with over 10 different schools across the country. We learned a lot about their programming. I think we built what I think is a really good program to start, and it'll get better only over time. But in that program, it's different because, you know, when we have a student apply, the application is long, then you then have to come to a meeting with our team and the parents come because it's really important that the parents, our program, and the student are aligned in goals. Yes. Because when that alignment is off, is when you begin to see a deterioration of that success moving forward. But when we're all aligned, so we actually in that particular program do include the parents. Students in that program will audit two college level classes so they'll get an experience to be in a college level class and then have two foundational courses. So in year one, that'll focus in on job identity, focus in on personal identity, uh, independent living. And then in year two, no, and also in year one, you'll have an internship, might be on campus, might be off campus. But in that year one, we're really gonna identify uh what it is that you want to do and build sort of what we're calling micro credentials. You know, higher ed won't build a program unless it's high skill, high wage. So any in general, like we're not gonna just build pro, but like that, unfortunately to me is not how we should think as a society. Of course. Um, because we have people with such a wide variety of ability and an economy that is really desperate for people to do all sorts of niche jobs. Right. Um, we have an opportunity to partner with our local community members, say, what are your niches? What are your holes? What are the areas? And then build those, you know, they might not be state recognized credentials, but they're recognized within at least that job, that industry, that place. Because otherwise, what are we doing? I mean, listen, we I hate to be so crass about it, but when you look at people with intellectual disabilities in the state of Illinois, they're either bagging your groceries at Jewel or they're cleaning up after you at Portillos. And we can do better. I'm not saying those jobs are bad, and there are some that those jobs are a fit for. But there are a lot of people in those jobs that with a little bit of training can move up, even just a little bit. Even if I can move you up to logistics at Jewel where you're just looking at what products are coming in and coming out, I've increased your wage. Even if it's a couple dollars, that's huge, right? I've increased your quality of life, I've increased your experience on being able to, and so and confidence as well, right? Exactly. So we look at the development of these individuals in ways that like we're really it's very person-centered, right? And that is what we're aiming for to help just lift, even if it's a little bit, we have to do better. And the state of Illinois, we also have an impetus. I think every community college needs, should be required to build these programs right now, because we've recently passed law that got rid of sheltered workshops, which were terrible places. That's you know, these sheltered workplaces were awful environments. But that means there's now a gap. And if you don't have programs like this, filling these gaps, we are going to get rid of something bad without replacing it with something good. We're just creating a new problem.

Dean 49:42

People are just going to fall by the wayside in that way. Exactly. And I I cannot stress this enough uh for anybody listening, but like it sounds like the reason that you have these programs is because you and your team have advocated extremely hard to have these programs. Uh, and you guys are the ones fighting for these. And it's not necessarily something that the colleges would be doing themselves if it wasn't for the team who's busting their butts for it.

SPEAKER_00 50:09

Yeah, yeah, right. Like I'll say this about JGC, they support what I do, but they don't set the course of what we're doing. Right. Like they don't have the expertise or the point of view to necessarily know about these holes. I've got to fight to fill them. I mean, I'm still a long way to go. I've raised more money than I've been able to actually get. That's not, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that that are not just related to the college budget lines, but just the reality of, you know, there's a lot of people, there's a lot of mouths to feed when you're uh an administration at a school. There's a lot of people who need stuff. I want all of our offices to be successful. It's just as important to me that advising functions really well as it does that disabilities does. Like, because my students are using that office and they're using that office. Like, I want us all to do well, right? So there's a, you know, a fight of scarcity of funds that happens all the time. So you have to kind of find creative ways to build through that. But yeah, I mean, like we fight for a lot that is beyond, I think, what typically schools would ask or expect. And it kind of goes back to that's what saying before, you got to shop your places. Like, I have an incredible team. I cannot say enough how incredible these women are that work in this office. They are they're heroes to me. I mean, they're unbelievable. Uh, we've got years and years and years of experience in that office, uh, people who bust their butt and care so much. And that's that's part of being able to do some of this, you know, like not having as a director to necessarily have to be in on every case because I know I've got super capable case managers. They come to me, don't get me wrong in the last course. But like, I know that I can come here and record this podcast today in the office is just fine. Um, and that is really great because it allows me to think beyond just what we're doing in our day-to-day and start to look at what the needs are of the larger community.

Dean 52:03

That's amazing. And that that truly seems to be a testament, again, to you and your team and just and like how well you're able to work together and how passionately you guys feel about the community that you're serving. So this is a ton of amazing information for anybody that's listening, especially when it comes to people that are maybe working to have their kids go to that next level of education. There, we've got people who, I mean, it's summertime right now, so folks are starting to get into their next school year. A lot of these kids are going into their senior year of high school down, so they're starting to think about all these things. Adam, I've got one last question for you. If anybody is listening and they're really interested in hearing more about what Joliet Junior College has to offer or picking your brain a little bit more about just your experience in the field, is there a way that folks could uh reach out to you or get in touch with you?

SPEAKER_00 52:57

Absolutely. Um, my email at JJC is a W O U K at JJC.edu, and my phone number is 815-280-2788. I say this everywhere I go. I'm an advocate for people with disabilities before I'm an employee at JJC. And whether you are coming to our school or not, I am happy to help give you some direction or some idea of where it is that might be a good fit for you. JJC, it's you know, I'm not about recruiting students to JJC. I'm about helping students find the right pathway and fit. And there are other institutions that are going to be a better fit for other students. This is not about us. Uh, and so anything that I can ever do, come speak to families. Uh, we are always out there. We do a lot of presentations to families, especially in the high school. I try to really get in front of freshman parents. Um, and that's a group of people that I think really benefit to know that like you should start thinking about less accommodation over four years and what skill development next to accommodation looks like. It changes their perspective because families get really nervous about what success looks like, right? Got to go to college, gotta go to college, gotta go to college. So I gotta get that grade, I gotta get that grade, I gotta get that grid. And sometimes we got to pull back from that and say, how do we just help this individual develop regardless of this like rigid grade system and conveyor belt that we tend to be in in school. So always happy to partner with anybody.

Dean 54:18

And thank you so much, Adam, for joining us today. And for everybody listening, stay tuned for next time. Thank you so much for joining us at the center. If you're looking for more information about the Center for Special Education Services and what we can provide, head over to our website at www.csesgroup.com to learn more. Thank you so much, and we'll catch you next time.