Starting at age 14 students set their own transition goals and create a plan for life after high school within the four broad areas of transition:
- Employment
- Post-secondary Education and Training
- Independent Living
- Community Participation.
All students work with the Transition Department during the year to talk about their goals and their progress towards those goals. Students take a variety of interest inventories over the years to help them engage in and guide career decision-making. Some of the tools used are the COPS-PIC (picture inventory of careers), the RFVII (reading free vocational interest inventory by Becker), and the CDM (Career Decision Making by Harrington-O'Shea).
All freshmen take a Career Exploration and Consumer Education class and begin to develop their portfolio. The portfolio is part of the new proficiency based graduation requirements here in RI. Other activities a student may engage in are tours of local business and industry, individualized Informational Interviews, hands-on assessments, Community Based Work Experiences and Community Service.
If a student is involved with the technical program at East Providence Career and Technical Center or has been involved in multiple Community Based Work Experiences he/she will do an Internship during the senior year. The internship is designed to provide the student with a skill set that makes him/her more marketable upon graduation. It has occasionally led to a full time job, and at a minimum becomes a resume building experience for the student as well as opening the door for other students at that company.
The results of all these activities are shared at the annual IEP meetings and the information obtained is used to design the student's educational services. In a sense - the transition plan becomes the IEP.