A $3 million federal grant will go towards efforts to improve the career and college readiness of special needs students at nine Kentucky high schools.
The four-year grant awarded to the Green River Regional Educational Cooperative will model a program currently in place at Franklin-Simpson High School. That program matches educators and disabled students for an hour a week, with the educator focusing on ways to help the student achieve success in the classroom.
“So she might help him to catch up on homework, she might work on his study skills, she might arrange for him to do an internship down the road at a business or an industry,” said Johna Rogers, with the GRREC.
Rodgers says the idea is to provide consistent, one-on-one guidance that will help special-needs students reach their educational and career goals. Each student in the program will have what’s known as an Individual Career Plan, tailored to the individual’s aspirations and abilities.
“And I think that is one of the key strategies—identifying chunks of time where teachers, who are specially trained to work on college-career readiness, are able to move that child forward from wherever he is, to where he wants to be.”
The nine schools included in the grant are:
- Breckinridge County High School
- Clinton County High School
- Cumberland County High School
- Edmonson County High School
- Marion County High School
- Muhlenberg County High School
- Ohio County High School
- Russellville Junior/Senior High School
- Webster County High School
