Raising Awareness and Providing Alternative Means of Expression for Students with Disabilities to Meet Graduation Requirements
Graduating with a diploma communicates a student’s preparedness for life beyond K-12 education. It lets colleges and employers know the skills and readiness that the diploma holder has for life outside of high school.
Students with disabilities and their families are frequently unaware that they have options in how students are assessed. And educators often feel they lack the support and resources to know how to organically embed these options within instruction without sacrificing the rigor of the standards and California’s adopted content frameworks.
The Inclusive Access to a Diploma: Reimagining Proficiency for Students with Disabilities initiative was designed to improve outcomes for students with disabilities by equipping educators, education leaders, and families with knowledge of how to increase student access to alternative means of expression to completing key coursework requirements.
This website
- Helps raise awareness among educators and families about California’s current strategy for providing students with disabilities alternative means of expression when showing proficiency in graduation-based coursework
- Provides educators in California with tailored, concrete options aligned with the state’s current strategy
- Gives California’s education community opportunities to offer feedback, ask questions, and practice using these tools across various content areas needed for graduation
These supports will not result in modification of requirements in any way. They do provide alternative means for students to show learning.
These targeted interventions help to promote equity by ensuring that every student, regardless of their unique learning needs, can achieve the milestone of graduating with a diploma and can confidently embark on their chosen college and career trajectories.
Who was involved in building this initiative?
The California Department of Education: Special Education Division and WestEd supported the initiative planning and strategy development of the Inclusive Access to a Diploma: Reimaging Proficiency for Students with Disabilities initiative in partnership with the California Department of Education (CDE)’s Career and College Transition Division, Curriculum Frameworks and Instructional Resources Division, as well as with State Board of Education representatives.
