Tomorrow, my recent high school graduate, now 19, will be picked up by a school bus for a regular school

length day and travel downtown and back at the end of the day. By federal law, students with disAbilities who do not graduate with a general education academic diploma have the option of attending school until age 22. We are excited about this phase of Grace's life and the program, CBTP, that she will be entering.

CBTP stands for Community Based Transition Program. Metro Nashville Public Schools (MNPS) Students are placed in programs according to their geographic location, school cluster of zone and their interests and skills. We had a couple of options according to those paramaters and I was very pleased we were chosen for the Downtown Library program.

Grace will go to a classroom/office location downtown for some lifeskills trainings and then along with her peers of up to 10 students with three or four paraprofessionals and an excellent teacher (I love her!) she will walk to one of five downtown locations, the library being one of them. We toured the classroom site and the library midMay before graduation. Grace has always been a natural for the library job as she's always loved stacking, shelving, organizing and good at it. (This summer was her fourth with GoodWill summer opportunities program and her second in a GoodWill retail store organizing clothing items.)

The library job is actually in the basement and Grace got a try at it. She did well. When a patron checks out a library book from another branch and then returns it, to whatever branch (if not the branch which shelves the volume,) the book returns to downtown where it is then shelved into a bin according to the branch where it has to be returned. Got that? Grace and her peers help with that task. I was very pleased to see one of Grace former classmates, who uses a wheelchair, as part of this program as well. She needs some assistance and that is provided by another peer. Too often disAbility programs overlook students who have less motor skills. As I have learned from Brightstone, nearly everyone can work. Yes!

Most likely, Grace will attend a different program her third year. If she had of graduated on time, at age 18, she could have attended the CBTP for four years, but she repeated kindergarten to give her more learning prep time before first grade and therefore, things are shortened on this end.

I am encouraging the district to make their newest CBTP program site one that emphasizes entrepreneurship, and that may happen. There were several reasons I wanted Grace to be in the library program. It is wholistic. An exercise aspect is built into the program. Grace loves to walk and she loves and is familiar with the streets of Nashville's wonderful downtown. The teacher is wonderful, is open and shares and respects our vision for Grace's art and may help us incorporate aspects of her art into the program. For this year I have requested that she simply do the program as any other student.

Stay tuned!