Effective Preparedness for the West Mifflin Area Life Skills Program to Optimize Post-Secondary Success

As our society moves toward enriching every individual, educators need to drive each student to excel in the college/career ready world. Schools are forced to mimic today's business model that strives to be the most efficient and effective as possible, while staying budget friendly. Schools have to comply with this model as prices are soaring for responsibilities such as, facilities, healthcare and salaries. The purpose of this capstone is to determine whether the traditional (academic) curriculum or transitional (functional) curriculum is the best educational direction for the life skills student and program. Considering special education costs are on the rise, districts must make quality educational data driven decisions. To ensure this, the study researched what items are key components to a transitional life skills school to work program. Most importantly, to find out if there are improved employment outcomes due to effective transition programming. Also, what data can teachers and staff provide that can improve the life skills curriculum. Forty-one administrators and high school staff participated in the questionnaire aimed at what direction the curriculum should move toward and focus on in the next few years. The data collection reveals that the participants' strongly believed that a transitional curriculum is more effective for high school life skills students in gaining skill sets than an academic curriculum. Additionally, the study indicated that an academic curriculum is important for the foundation of necessities of an education, however, a functional curriculum aids in future employability.