Students with disabilities face multiple transitions through their school years: entry to kindergarten, moves between schools, promotion between levels, and ultimately exit from school. Each transition creates risk of support disruption. Information doesn't transfer. Services restart from scratch. Relationships that took years to build end. The gaps that open during transitions can set students back significantly. Smoothing transitions is essential for continuous support.
Transition Points
>School entry marks the first major educational transition. Moving from early intervention services or preschool into the school system involves shift between service systems with different structures, personnel, and approaches. What worked before may not continue; what's needed may take time to establish.
>Elementary to secondary transition changes everything: multiple teachers instead of one, larger schools, increased academic demands, different social dynamics. Students with disabilities who were known and supported in elementary settings may become anonymous in larger secondary schools.
>Transitions between schools—for family moves, school closures, or other reasons—disrupt services even when they don't involve level changes. Information may not transfer. New assessments may be required. Services don't automatically follow students.
>Exit from school—whether through graduation, aging out, or early leaving—represents transition to adult systems that work differently than education systems. The intensive support some students receive in school may have no equivalent in adult life.
Information Transfer
>Effective transitions require information transfer. What works for the student, what doesn't work, what supports are in place, what challenges persist—this accumulated knowledge should inform receiving environments.
>In practice, information transfer is often poor. Files are lost. Records are incomplete. What's written doesn't capture what people know. Receiving schools may start fresh rather than building on what's been learned.
>Privacy concerns complicate information sharing. Families must consent to transfer of student information. Concerns about stigma or prejudice may lead some families to prefer fresh starts even at cost of lost support. Balancing privacy with continuity isn't straightforward.
>Person-to-person communication transfers knowledge better than documents alone. When sending and receiving teachers talk, nuance transfers that paperwork misses. But such conversations require time that transitions may not allow.
Service Continuity
>Services established at one school may not continue at the next. Different schools have different resources. What was available may not be available. What was funded may no longer be funded. Service continuity can't be assumed.
>Re-establishing services takes time. New assessments may be required. New IEP processes must occur. New relationships must form. During this re-establishment period, students may go without support they need.
>Cross-system transitions—into school from early intervention, out of school to adult services—face even greater discontinuity. Different funding streams, different eligibility criteria, different service models create gaps that within-school transitions don't face.
Transition Planning
>Good transitions require planning. Starting early—a year or more before transition for major changes—allows time for preparation. Visiting receiving environments, meeting new staff, and gradually shifting supports smooth transitions that abrupt changes make jarring.
>Student and family involvement in transition planning is essential. They know what has worked and what's needed. Their preferences for new environments should inform choices. Their participation in meetings that plan transitions gives them voice in decisions affecting them.
>Transition meetings that bring together sending and receiving personnel enable direct communication. When people who know the student talk to people who will serve them, information transfers better than through documents alone.
>Graduated transitions—partial time in new settings before full transition, overlapping supports during change—ease adjustments that sudden switches make difficult. For students who struggle with change, gradual transitions reduce anxiety and disruption.
Post-School Transition
>Transition from school to adult life deserves particular attention. The structure, support, and daily purpose school provides end. What replaces them varies—employment, post-secondary education, day programs, nothing—but the transition is significant regardless of destination.
>Transition planning should start well before school exit—ideally by age 14 or 15 for students with significant disabilities. Building skills, exploring options, connecting with adult services, and preparing for independence take years, not months.
>The cliff from school services to adult services is steep for many. School provides extensive support; adult services may provide little. Eligibility for adult disability services isn't automatic. The gap between what school provided and what follows can be devastating.
>Connecting with adult service systems while still in school enables smoother transitions. Introducing students to adult agencies, beginning eligibility processes, and establishing relationships before school ends prevents the gap that waiting until exit creates.
Family Experience
>Transitions stress families as well as students. Familiar systems and relationships end. Unknown environments and people await. The work of establishing support restarts. Families carry the burden of managing transitions that systems don't manage well.
>Families who've developed expertise in one system must learn new systems. The knowledge accumulated about elementary school doesn't transfer to secondary school expertise. Each transition requires new learning about different structures.
>Post-school transition affects the whole family. Parents who've managed their child's education must recalibrate as children become adults. Siblings' roles may change. The family system reorganizes around the transition alongside the student's own adjustment.
Questions for Reflection
>Should receiving schools be required to maintain services established at sending schools, at least during transition periods? How would this be enforced?
>What information should automatically transfer with students, and what should require family consent? How should privacy and continuity be balanced?
>How can the cliff from school to adult services be reduced for students with disabilities who need ongoing support?