EGHS providing opportunity for students with impairements/disabilities

It’s 6 a.m. and your alarm clock is beeping. You turn it off, perhaps reluctantly, and get out of bed to start your day. What are you preparing to do? If you’re at least five years old, that might mean getting dressed for school. If your an adult, that might mean getting ready to go to work. But what if you are (or almost are) an adult with an impairment or health-related disability? Where do you go? What do you do? Thanks to The Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIOA), signed into law in 2014, these members of our communities could also be headed to work in a job that offers them Competitive Integrated Employment (CIE). This means they are entitled to secure jobs that will not only provide them with at least a minimum wage or higher pay, but one that is paid at a rate comparable to a non-disabled worker performing the same task.

Eagle Grove High school has recognized that there are local students who can and will benefit from the WIOA, and therefore created a position this year for a teacher to specifically work with them in developing their interviewing and employable skills.

Geri Winge of Fort Dodge is excited to hold that new position as the Special Education Career to Work Coordinator. She has defined her mission as helping “level 2 and 3” kids get out in the workforce.

Read the full story in the October 5 edition.