Carole Clancy can get dismayed when she encounters former McCaskey High School life-skills students in the community.
The young adults, who have moderate to severe cognitive disabilities, are taught in school how to make their own meals, create a budget, shop for food, find a job and perform other tasks to prepare them for life after graduation.
But Clancy, coordinator of special education and health services for School District of Lancaster, said too few of the students successfully bridge the gap between the familiar routine of school and a productive independent life.
"I'm seeing that they're kind of aimless, meandering about their day without a lot of structure when they could be contributing members of our community," she said.
"Some students lose the structure of that school schedule and fall apart."
To give them a smoother transition to postgraduation life, Clancy wants the district to take older life-skills students out of the classroom and put them in an apartment during the day.
There, they could practice cooking, making appointments, arranging transportation to and from jobs, doing laundry and performing other everyday tasks — skills they're currently taught in the classroom — in a real-world setting.
Because students with cognitive delays have difficulty generalizing skills across environments, the apartment would allow them to hone their abilities in a setting that closely replicates post-high-school life.
Clancy has asked the district to establish the program, called Lancaster Living, with $110,000 in federal stimulus funds.
The money would pay for a teacher and an aide, plus rental fees on an apartment with at least one bedroom and enough open space to accommodate up to 15 students, Clancy said.
The program would serve life-skills students ages 18 to 21 who have completed 12 years of schooling. Under federal law, school districts must provide services to special-education students through age 21 until the goals of their individualized education programs, or IEPs, are met.
Instead of going to school, the students would meet at the apartment, which would serve as the "home base" from where they would plan their activities, Clancy said.
The apartment would not be used at night.
Clancy said the district could sustain the program using existing staff members after stimulus funds expire next year, but it would incur the added cost of rental fees, which she estimated at $1,000 a month.
The Lancaster Living proposal is based on a program started eight years ago in Pittsburgh's public schools called CITY Connect, which serves about 70 students a year.
"It's tremendously successful," Susan Wetzel, CITY Connect transition coordinator, said. "Students are actually doing real banking, shopping at real stores, engaging in real vocational experiences."
Of the 71 students in the program last year, 32 worked at paying jobs or received paid training, according to CITY Connect outcomes data. The remainder worked as volunteers, participated in workshops and/or received job training.
All the pupils used community services, such as the post office and library, and visited recreational sites, such as bowling alleys and health clubs.
"Their activities are mirroring their 18- to 21-year-old peers," Wetzel said. "They spend much of the day in the community instead of sitting in a high school."
Lancaster-Lebanon Intermediate Unit 13 started a similar program last year in the Friendship Community Old Mill Apartment complex in Ephrata.
Initially, only students enrolled in IU programs participated in the Community Based Apartment Project, but the agency has opened the program this year to school districts, which can rent the apartment for a full or half day.
Clancy said a Lancaster-based program would better serve the needs of McCaskey students.
At a meeting last week, SDL school board members said they want more feedback on CITY Connect and specific goals established for Lancaster Living before they can vote on the proposal.
They also urged Clancy to seek community agencies to partner with SDL on the project.
The proposal may come up for a vote next month, and the program could begin in the fall.