Transformative Principal · Jethro Jones

Building Futures: Transition Services and Real-Life Skills with Joel Lavin

November 2, 2025·34 min·3 clips
Students with disabilities are often barred from CTE programs like construction or cooking due to rigid special education pathways.
Jethro Jones interviews Joel Lavin, an equity and inclusion administrator, about transforming transition services for high school students with disabilities. They discuss how traditional special education pathways often exclude students from career-focused programs and real-life skills, and explore solutions like integrating students into CTE courses, Unified Sports, and hands-on construction projects to build confidence and employability.

As heard by us

A practical case for earlier, more inclusive CTE access and cautious AI use.

Transition services come through here as part of a student's future, not a side program. The piece favors getting general education and special education staff into the same planning room, and it makes a practical case for bringing students impacted by disabilities into CTE…

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Why you'd press play

If you care about getting students with disabilities into CTE earlier, start here.

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