Post-school outcomes for adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are exceedingly poor. The convergence of adolescence as a development period, the expression of ASD during adolescence, and the complicated logistic nature of high schools create a perfect storm of complexity that may pose challenges and establish barriers to…

Post-school outcomes for adolescents and young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) are exceedingly poor. The convergence of adolescence as a development period, the expression of ASD during adolescence, and the complicated logistic nature of high schools create a perfect storm of complexity that may pose challenges and establish barriers to…

Transition plans for students with special needs provide support for social and academic success while giving students an accurate picture of what to expect in high school. The Texas Comprehensive Center recommends that schools develop a comprehensive transition plan district-wide. This district plan must include the cooperation of staff from the…

This "snapshot" illustrates how one school is managing to make a positive difference for ninth graders. It describes the Ninth Grade Success Academy, a school-within-a-school at Thomas A. Edison High School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, which has a number of features specifically designed to help ninth-graders make successful…

Winters Mill High School is a typical comprehensive high school in most respects. Situated within the city of Westminster, Maryland, the school opened its doors to students in grades 9 and 10 in the fall of 2002. Historically, the Westminster area has had an agrarian culture that has coexisted comfortably with merchants and the McDaniel College…

In the early twentieth century, many American educators pinned their hopes for a revitalized nation on the character education of "youth," especially adolescent boys. Although the emphasis on student morality was far from novel--nineteenth-century common and secondary schools operated as bastions of Protestant republican virtue--new perceptions of…

An alternative high school program was evaluated. In 1990 the Program for Alternative Comprehensive Education (PACE) enrolled 40 students in grades 9 through 12 from 20 school districts in Nassau County (New York). Students had been assessed as being at risk for dropping out. The curriculum emphasized self-paced learning in an individualized,…

This report discusses the role that school health centers can play in providing comprehensive health care and health education services to adolescents and reviews the effectiveness of such health centers in three Chicago high schools. School-based health centers need to stress: (1) high-quality care; (2) parental, school, and community…

This publication describes four school health programs from the standpoint of young people who participate in them. Its purpose is to indicate how committed staff members in comprehensive school health programs can help students to succeed. The publication identifies four well-respected programs in diverse settings that are using innovative…

For more than a century, American educators and education policymakers have chosen sides in a great debate about the nature and function of American high schools. The origins of this long-running argument can be traced to 1893, when the influential Committee of Ten, a bluechip panel of educators, issued a report proposing that all public…

The Comprehensive Special Education Project (COSEP) is described as involving Indian Youth Advocates and Indian Youth Resource People trained to act as liaisons between Indian families and the schools in Northeastern Minnesota where COSEP goals are to: identify out of school Indian youth and arrange special in-school or out-of-school services for…

Designed to gather and analyze the information needed to develop a plan for a model comprehensive occupational education system (COES), this research project is reported in five chapters. Chapter 1 provides an overview of the project which was conducted in the Bronx borough of New York City because this area exemplifies the problems of urban…