High school students have a lot to juggle in their day-to-day lives. Between attending classes and extracurricular activities, students with intellectual or developmental disabilities (I/DD) often don’t have the time to consider what they want life to look like after graduation. But having clear goals and support along the way is key to the long-term well-being of any young person.
That’s why the School-to-Work program supports students and their families by connecting them with employment services early,1-2 years before graduation.
A new report shows that more students are continuing into adult programs after School-to-Work than ever before. In 2024, 90% of graduating students continued into adult services, which is almost 10% higher than it was in 2020.
About School-to-Work
These services help students find a career they want to pursue while providing the skills and resources to get there. After graduation, students can choose to transition into adult programs through Individual Employment and/or Community Inclusion to continue their job search, receive job coaching supports, or engage in community activities outside of employment. Students who transition into these programs upon graduation see the greatest benefit by accessing all supports available to them.
What did King County learn from the data?
King County reviewed changes in transition rates over time and found that, in 2024, students who use the School-to-Work program transitioned to adult programs at a rate of 90%, which is the highest it has ever been. Transition rates experienced a small drop from 2019 to 2020 due to COVID-19 (from 84% to 81%), but the percent of students transitioning to adult programs has increase each year since 2020.
This increase could be positively influenced by the introduction of a new program policy allowing participants to receive both Community Inclusion and Independent Employment supports at the same time.
School staff, parents, and caregivers have indicated that this is likely because more students are accessing services, more outreach is happening, and improvements have been made to how the County, the State, provider agencies, and teachers collaborate.
However, King County still needs to do more to ensure equitable access to supports for students who are Black, Indigenous, or People of Color or who prefer to speak a language other than English. BIPOC and multilingual students continued into our adult programs less often than other students over the last several years. Though, this trend is improving in recent years for BIPOC students.
What did we learn from parents, caregivers, and school staff?
Parents, caregivers and school staff told us how job placement and strong relationships with job coaches and teachers positively impact student and family decisions to continue into adult services.
They also shared about the barriers that exist and how they impact decisions to transition into adult programs. Some of the challenges that came up included job coach availability, lower job outcomes, complex eligibility processes, transportation access, and language barriers.
“We feel this program is vital to job exploration and eventual success as a first job opportunity. Coming out of the COVID-19 Era it has been challenging to re-establish community business relationships with the goal of giving adult participants with I/DD “first job” experience. We hope the county will keep investing in [School-to-Work] while tweaking the program to find success…” said a Parent/Caregiver of a School-to-Work student
“When asked what challenges they’ve experienced in the transition process: “Slow processes for qualification, completing different applications…” said a School Staff Member supporting School-to-Work students
What are we doing with this information?
To ensure that programs have equitable access for all students and adults, one recommendation is to improve the cultural relevancy of programming. Cultural relevancy can look like improved language access supports, more intentional outreach with diverse community organizations, collaboration across agencies to learn more about how to center Equity, Race, and Social Justice in our work, and the creation of more feedback opportunities with the I/DD community.
In addition, it is also recommended that the School-to-Work team implement client surveys for both students and families to complete upon exiting the program. This will provide more information about student/family experiences as well as feedback to help improve the program.
To learn more about how DCHS is putting these recommendations into action, check out the full report here.
