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Presenters
Lewis E. Kraus
InfoUse
2560 Ninth Street, Suite 216
Berkeley, CA 94710
Email: kraus@infouse.com
Robert Brostrom
National Collaborative on Workforce and Disability for Youth
6810 Creekview Court
Columbus, GA 31904
INTRODUCTION
High School/High Tech is an enrichment program for high school students with disabilities. It is designed to develop career opportunities and provide activities that will spark an interest in high technology fields, and to encourage students to pursue higher education. High School/High Tech programs have been established in numerous sites across the country. At the end of September 2001, there were 42 active High School/High Tech programs nationwide.
High School/High Tech aims to:
motivate students to explore their own interests and potential in the sciences, mathematics, and technology fields;
encourage those interested in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology-related careers to aim for college and a degree in their chosen field;
provide students with appropriate career planning, including counseling on colleges and degree programs;
help professionals in science, mathematics, engineering, and technology-related fields to understand better the uses of assistive technology and the accommodations and facility access needs of persons with disabilities; and
provide employers with a new source for qualified workers.
By the time young people reach the high school level, it is expected that they will be exposed to a curriculum that emphasizes the knowledge and skills youth need to become successful adults. Yet, even exposure to the highest quality curriculum available will still leave serious gaps in their preparation for life after high school. Experiences outside the classroom are needed to expose young people to career opportunities and post-secondary choices essential for their transition from the world of schooling into the world of adults. Many youth with disabilities are faced with additional hurdles that interfere with preparation for technology-based careers. First, many do not develop a solid education with the strong academic skills needed for these career. The second concern is the low expectations, and resultant low self-esteem, often encountered by youth with disabilities. To combat these factors youth with disabilities need opportunities to be in:
Helping high school students determine their future is a very challenging business. Often, students do not know how to plan for what will happen today, let alone after high school or college. The High School/High Tech program creatively exposes technology-focused career opportunities to youth with disabilities, helping them to better prepare for their futures in a technology-driven society.
HIGH SCHOOL/HIGH TECH PROGRAM DESIGN DEATURES:
Using school and work-based experiences, students build knowledge, self-esteem, improve communication skills, and plan for the future. High School/ High Tech provides students with the skills, experience, and guidance necessary to start a career.
A High School/High Tech program incorporates a mix of learning experiences that broadens the educational horizons of students with disabilities. Research has shown that four basic design features are youth need to succeed in the workplace ( as well as in life).
Features of HS/HT: Over the years core features of HS/HT have evolved. Currently underway is a "codification" of core design features for HS/HT sites and an initiation of a set of self-affiliation standards designed to improve the quality of programs and to help expand the programs due to the design features being based upon documented research of best practices. These features encompass:
Preparatory Experiences. These activities include career assessment; information about high-tech occupations such as education, entry requirements, and income potential; guest speakers from high-tech firms; work readiness skills such as knowledge of computers; and visiting and learning about post secondary education opportunities.
Work-Based Experiences. These activities include site visits; job shadowing; unpaid internships and paid internships.
Leadership Development These activities include mentoring; providing role models (persons with disabilities) through guest lectures; self-advocacy training; leadership and youth development activities; and community service and service learning.
Connecting and Collaborating Activities (Program Linkages). HS/HT programs cannot be stand-alone efforts. One of the key roles of the lead organization is to act as an intermediary or broker organization to tap into the necessary resources and services that others can provide.
High School/High Tech programs are based in a variety of organizations from schools to school districts to employment programs to non-profit agencies. For this reason, programs may serve more than one high school.
HIGHLIGHTS OF PROGRAM DATA COLLECTION FROM 2001
An annual voluntary data collection is conducted to determine charateristics of each High School/ High Tech program individually. The following bullets are results of the aggregation to the national level and represent 26 reporting sites.
Males participate in High School/High Tech at twice the frequency of females
Juniors and seniors in high school make up 64% of the students in these programs
Students in HS/HT have about the same distribution of disabilities as is found in all of Special Education through IDEA
More than 13 % of HS/HT students used assistive technology, with another 17.7% needing AT but not having it
23.1% of HS/HT students were clients of Vocational Rehabilitation
16.4% of HS/HT students were clients of Title- I- WIA Youth Programs
23.8% of companies that HS/HT programs worked with were in the Telecommunications industry
While the average wage a student intern was paid was $6.35, one-fifth of the sites paid the Federal minimum wage of $5.15.
Of the 317 seniors in the HS/HT program at the end of School Year 2000-2001, 46 were in post-secondary education and another 95 were employed after HS/HT.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
High School/ High Tech Program Report, October 1, 2000 - September 30, 2001. Office of Disability Employment Policy, U.S. Department of Labor, 2002.
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