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Creative Education and Programming in SOS

Whether because of disability, socioeconomic background, or other cultural factors, some students just don't fulfill their potential in a standard classroom. SOS offers a clear alternative: a different environment, a different approach to learning, different relationships with adults, and a completely different daily routine and range of experiences.

The most visible difference is the SOS internship, in which students spend a portion of their day in paid employment at a participating company. But setting up an SOS program typically leads to a ripple of other changes in the way students learn and prepare for adulthood. It tends to change the way disability-related curriculum is delivered. It draws other public agencies, beyond the schools, into a significantly wider role in students' education. And the model can incorporate a transition curriculum that starts as early as the ninth grade, encompassing a wide range of issues relevant to students with disabilities.

These are the steps that lead to the greatest benefits in learning and programming in SOS:

Stage 1

Set up a program in a single high school, with a single business host.

We suggest starting with 12 interns from junior and senior years. Twelve students normally justify devoting one full-time teacher to the project.

Devote the first semester to planning. Internships start in the second semester.

Start introducing transition-specific curricular elements in the first semester.

In Year two and beyond, internships last two semesters.

Stage 1, Step-by-Step:

Step 1: Identify an SOS Project Coordinator. Create a budget, incorporating these factors:

Note: 12 students typically justify the time of one teacher and possibly one aide. Consider how the teacher's role will need to change — taking education outside the classroom, teaching at the worksite, interacting with employers, integrating skills training and education — to make the most of the internship project.

Step 2: Identify an SOS Project Coordinator

Step 3: Create a budget, including a fiscal agent, internal or external, to receive external support and pay students

Step 4: Identify support staff

Step 5: Develop criteria for selecting students, including:

Step 6: Develop a Transportation Plan, potentially involving:

Step 7: Develop a student orientation curriculum, potentially involving:

Step 8: Design a curriculum for the part of the students' day not spent in the internship

The curriculum isn't solely academic — it should support the internship and transition, as well as accomplishing students' academic requirements and goals.

Step 9: Develop an Outcome Tracking System that generates annual reports — preferably a system that reflects the priorities of potential funders

Consider aligning the project's performance measures to those of public agencies. Demonstrating that the project achieves their goals will strengthen your case for funding in later years. The tracking system should include:

Step 10: Hold a Recognition Ceremony in the spring for SOS students who successfully complete a full year

Step 11: Create and maintain an SOS resource manual with all relevant forms, training curricula, assessments, etc.

Stage 2

Strengthen the internship program and introduce a basic transition curriculum.

Establish transition-specific curriculum and programming.

Expand the availability of career-preparation activities.

Gradually add schools and businesses as you become able to sustain them.

Stage 2, Step-by-Step:

Step 1: Based on the Stage 1 orientation and half-day academic curricula, begin to design and introduce a transition curriculum

Step 2: Enhance the students' transportation plan to incorporate more students and to prepare each student for transportation independence

Step 3: Create a training regimen for Internship Support Staff, emphasizing job coaching and development skills.

Step 4: Begin to explore opportunities for internships and employment preparation for students who need a greater degree of job-customization. For example:

Step 5: Explore community-based activities and curricula that address a wide range of career-related needs, where students with disabilities can be served alongside those of students with other barriers to career success, like socioeconomic factors or lack of mentors.

The goal is to group and serve children based on similar needs, rather than solely on similar demographics or diagnosis.

Stage 3

Finalize the Transition Curriculum

Fully institute the transition-related curriculum for the 9th through 12th grades, including a variety of community- and career-based activities.

Begin to offer the benefits of customized and creative curricula and community-based activities to students beyond Special Education, based on their perceived need for such services.

Stage 3, Step-by-Step:

Step 1: Complete the establishment of a comprehensive transition-related curriculum, beginning in the 9th grade, for all students with an Individual Education Plan. Include curriculum on:

Step 2: Ensure that curricula emphasizing community-based activities, work, and education are available to all students regardless of disability status

Step 3: Offer students a variety of internship and community-employment trial options, including the core SOS model as well as others

Highly flexible or customized options, including self-employment or negotiated or carved internship roles, should be available where necessary and appropriate.

Step 4: Serve students with and without disabilities in a way that de-emphasizes disability wherever possible regardless of the administrative need for diagnoses and other eligibility identifiers