Learning Links School

Practical Academics and Community Education

Our Mission

The PACE program is designed to teach individuals the social, functional, and occupational skills needed to be productive members of their community and allowing them to pursue independent and fulfilling lives. Through a strong partnership between home, school and community, we can meet the educational needs of our students and ensure a positive transition into adulthood.

Program

As educators, one of our most important goals is to prepare students to become fully participating members of their communities. For students with disabilities, the life skills education and training they acquire in school may be the only resources they receive to help them transition from being students to life as productive adults. The sequence of learning activities has been written for the three levels of career education learning: career awareness, career exploration and preparation.

Learning Links School has created the PACE program for students in 9th through 12th grade. Our PACE program is designed to give our students entering high school the opportunity to continue to work on academic skills in addition to applying their academic knowledge in practical ways. The skills classroom will be uniquely designed to give students an opportunity to use practical academic skills that will help them gain independence and learn skills for the work force. In addition to the skills classroom, students in PACE will participate in electives including, home economics, keyboarding, personal training, and broadcasting just to name a few. Additionally, the PACE program plans to build a strong community-based instructional component that facilitates the generalization of academic and social skills into a natural community environment.

Academics

The most widely used transition curriculum in the United States is Life Centered Career Education (LCCE) Curriculum which is used to utilize the following core subject areas:

• Language Arts – critical thinking, collaboration, communication, information literacy, self-direction and global awareness
• Math – problem-solving, understanding patterns, finding meaning and making use of structure, business math skills
• Social Science – hygiene and health education
• Social Studies – life skills, vocational skills

The academic skills in this model connect with the three domains that govern this curriculum:

• Daily Living Skills – skills required for managing their home, family, and finances as effectively as possible
• Personal-Social Skills – skills promoting independence, self-confidence, socially acceptable behavior, and the maintenance of their relationships.
•  Occupational Skills – skills necessary to achieve a successful outcome in: occupational awareness activities, work evaluation, vocation education, job training, job placement, and competency follow-ups.