Five Strategies for Raising Graduation Rates for Students with Disabilities

Recent data shows that high school graduation rates in the United States are higher than in any other time in history. According to the 2017 Building a Grad Nation Report by Civic Enterprises and the Everyone Graduates Center at the School of Education at Johns Hopkins University, in 2015, “about half of all states reported high school graduation rates of 85 percent or more.” By 2020 those states are poised to graduate 90 percent of their high school seniors.  

But sadly, the data on students with disabilities tells a very different story. The same Grad Nation report also found that “Thirty-three states reported high school graduation rates for special education students below 70 percent, and nearly half of those 33 had graduation rates for students with disabilities below 60 percent.  Four states—South Carolina, Louisiana, Mississippi and Nevada—graduated half of their special education students.” Unless the graduation rates of students with disabilities, poor and minority students improve, the Grad Nation report concludes that the country won’t meet the 90 percent graduation mark.

In an article for Nonprofit Quarterly, Noreen Ohlrich, calls the gap in graduation rates between those with disabilities and without them “scandalously wide.” So, what if anything can be done to level the playing field? Here’s what some of the experts recommend.

Five Tips for Accessible Gardening

Though it happens every year, the arrival of spring is always a source of joy. For many of us, spring is the time for tending lawns, planting flowers, and beautifying decks, patios and window sills. The benefits of being out in nature are well known but bear repeating. According to the Greater Good Science Center at University of California, Berkeley, spending time out of doors in natural spaces reduces stress … makes you happier … relieves attention fatigue, increases creativity … may help you to be kinder and more generous and make you feel more alive.”

Like everyone else, people with disabilities reap tremendous benefits from experiencing nature. Yet, they may face greater challenges when it comes to creating and maintaining their outdoor spaces. Thanks to adaptive gardening tools, and thoughtful landscaping design, the challenges are surmountable. Here are some tips for making gardening accessible to all.

1. Make room for a wheelchair

Make sure paths are flat, hard, and at least three feet wide to accommodate a wheelchair. Paved paths are ideal for wheelchair users but if that’s not possible in your garden, keep grass well-mowed and dirt paths even and well-maintained. If there are stairs in your garden, replace them with a ramp.

Happy Mother's Day - Take a Break!

With Mother’s Day just around the corner, many of us are buying cards or gifts and planning meals or excursions to pay tribute to the mothers in our lives. Those of us who are mothers ourselves may be contemplating the joys of motherhood, while also looking forward to some TLC from our children, spouses or partners. Despite our love for our families, sometimes Mother’s Day TLC means getting away from the people we love most. Like the old TV commercial with the mom in the bath tub who asks her Calgon bath oil to “take her away,” sometimes mom just needs a break, some time to herself, and a chance to let go of both personal and professional responsibilities.

Getting away from it all is hard enough when your child doesn’t have significant disabilities. It’s a whole lot more complicated when your child has special emotional, behavioral or physical needs. It can also be even more essential to your health, the health of your family and ultimately, the health of your special needs child.

Finding care for a child with special needs is not as simple as calling the teenager down the street, or asking a grandparent to pitch in. When a child has complicated health issues, it’s essential that whomever is in charge, has the skills or training to keep them safe and contented.

Enabling Devices Book Shelf

A year has passed since we last surveyed some of the newest books on topics related to disabilities. As the weather warms, and many of us look forward to reading by the pool, on the porch, or while on summer vacations, we’ve compiled a list of five notable books published or released in paperback or E-book within the past year.

“Rosemary: The Hidden Kennedy Daughter” by Kate Clifford Larson

Being a Kennedy has always meant being in the public eye. Yet, due to the intellectual and physical disabilities she sustained during her birth, Rosemary Kennedy, the third child of Joe and Rose Kennedy, was kept out of the limelight. In this 2015 biography, now available in paperback, Kate Clifford Larson explores Rosemary’s tragic life.

Despite her vivacious personality and beauty, Rosemary’s parents were ashamed of her limitations and feared that the family’s image and social status would be diminished, if those outside the Kennedy clan knew about Rosemary’s disabilities. Thus, they pushed Rosemary beyond her capabilities, sent her away to schools and tried all sorts of questionable therapies including a traumatic and debilitating lobotomy in her 20s, in ill-fated attempts to “cure” her.