Marking Disability Employment Awareness Month, Ector County ISD on Wednesday held tours of its 18+ Transition Living Center for students with disabilities.
Representatives from the city, county, state, community and district were given tours of the facility at 1111 W. 12th St. It serves about 35 students age 18 to 21 teaching them life skills like grocery shopping, social skills and going to job sites. They usually stay three years.
TLC has been in the 12th Street building for four years and the program has been going for six years, Dallas Kennedy, a transition facilitator with ECISD, said.
He stressed the importance of hiring people with special needs as their employment rate is 37 percent nationally. Kennedy added that improved job training also is needed.
“Everybody needs some people that are willing to work and I’m telling you we‘ve got a bunch of men and women in this town that want to work, that are willing to work, that are capable of work. They might need some reasonable accommodations, but they want to work and they’re willing to work,” Kennedy said.
He asked what local, state and national leaders could do to write laws and policies that encourage inclusive employment.
“We want to encourage businesses to come here, but when businesses ask for tax breaks, when they ask for limits on their valuations, can part of that evaluation be, hey, are you doing employment for everyone? What accommodations are you doing to employ everyone? What reasonable accommodation are you willing to put in place and what are you doing to encourage equitable hiring practices in our community?” Kennedy said.
The building, which is kind of hidden, includes classrooms and offices, but part of it is set up like a house with a washer and dryer, a bedroom, living room, recreation room and kitchen. It also features office equipment, a virtual reality room where students learn how to chop vegetables before they actually chop them and to cross the street, for example.
Kennedy said they have had students employed at restaurants, Albertsons, repairing lawn mowers and at the Ector County Election Office.
“We actually had one young man at the Ector County Election Board. They asked him to put some letters in an envelope and he noticed that they had the Election Day wrong on their letters, so he actually saved the county a whole lot of heartache because he caught that they had the wrong day on there,” Kennedy said.
He added that they have never had an employer who didn’t like the students.
“Our students are a delight and people love them. They’re hard workers. We’ve never had any issues with employers,” Kennedy said.
Anyone who graduates with an Individual Education Plan and still has skills they need to work on can be educated until they are 21.
“We see a lot of progress. We’ve got a lot of students that once they leave here they’re almost ready to live completely on their own. Others are able just to take care of themselves inside of their home,” Kennedy said.
Micah Pettigrew, ECISD special education supervisor, said the departments of autism, homebound and 18 plus that she oversees are all housed within the building.
Joseph Boyd was the emcee for Wednesday’s event. Josh Gomez talked about what he has learned at the Transition Learning Center and Jadon Talley led the Pledge of Allegiance.
Mayor Pro-Tem Mari Willis read a proclamation for Disability Employment Awareness Month.
State Sen.-elect Kevin Sparks, R-Midland, said it’s exciting to see the training going on at TLC.
“It’s just encouraging to see the community making provisions for those who need a little extra help. It’s kind of fun to see how excited they are,” Sparks said.
County Judge-elect Dustin Fawcett said he thinks it’s terrific that TLC is available to help students learn the skills they need to function in society.
“Oftentimes there are some things that we take for granted that they’re really helping them out with and especially to get them into the workforce. It’s a tremendous asset to the community,” Fawcett said. “It’s awesome.”
In April, the district announced it had been selected to receive a Innovative Services for Students with Autism grant from Texas Education Agency (TEA) in the amount of $2,253,140.
This project is a collaboration with Midland ISD and Big Spring ISD, who will receive funds to serve their district as well. ECISD has identified 334 students living with autism, while Midland ISD has 329 and Big Spring ISD reports 51 students with autism.
Kennedy said they also recently got a $10,000 grant from James Avery to start outdoor classroom.
“We’re going want to teach them outdoor skills, such as cooking and grilling outdoors, growing vegetables, being able to make healthy meals. We’re working on getting the other $50,000 get the rest of the equipment that we need. (We’ve) got the foundation going and it’s going to be wheelchair accessible,” Kennedy said.
