TCA Program Prepares Students Receiving Special Education Services for Workforce
Lincoln, Neb. (KLKN) — A program at The Career Academy is helping students receiving special education services gain hands-on experience and prepare for employment after high school, with plans to expand the program into additional career pathways.
The program began in The Career Academy’s Early Childhood Education pathway and combines classroom instruction with experience at child-care centers in the Lincoln community.
Makayla Watson, a special education teacher at The Career Academy, said the program was developed in part to address a gap some students can face after leaving high school.
“When they leave high school, they’ve maybe received some sort of modified programming in high school,” Watson said. “And then they leave and they don’t necessarily qualify for other supports that LPS has, like Independence Academy. So we found that they leave and there’s nothing.”
Students in the program spend part of their week in the classroom and part at practicum sites in the community. They are also working toward their Child Development Associate credential.
Josh Jones, director of The Career Academy, said the program also teaches workplace skills like professionalism and time management.
“The 16 students that we started with this program all had a goal of working in childcare when they graduated,” Jones said.
Of those students, Jones said four are now working in the early childhood field. Some students who graduated last year returned for a fifth year of high school to complete the program.
Autumn Brown is one of the students who has turned her training into employment. She was hired at the child-care center where she completed her practicum.
“I got a job at my practicum site,” Brown said. “It’s been an experience that I actually love to do.”
Watson said students are gaining confidence and developing their skills through hands-on experience. She said working inside actual child-care settings also gives students practice responding to situations that cannot always be recreated in a classroom.
The program is now in its second year, with 11 students returning.
This week, the Lincoln Board of Education approved applying for a $10,000 grant to support the program. The grant application says funding would help cover costs including first-aid training, transportation for field trips and practicums, and uniforms.
The Career Academy is also looking to expand the program into other career pathways, including construction and culinary.
Jones said TCA is starting small, but could eventually expand the program into even more career pathways.
For Brown, the experience has already shaped what she would tell another student considering the program.
“Take the leap,” Brown said. “I took it and it was the best thing I could have done. It was a little bit scary, but do it scared.”
