UMD Team Receives $10M to Help Students with Disabilities Thrive After High School

While the transition from high school to adulthood is a challenging phase for everyone, it can be particularly daunting for young people with disabilities—many of whom face a unique set of barriers that make the shift from school to employment or college especially difficult. Despite advancements in special education pedagogy and disability policy, many of these individuals often struggle to succeed after graduation.

A University of Maryland team recently received $10 million from the U.S. Department of Education to tackle this issue. The funding, from the department’s Disability Innovation Fund, will support the development of a data analytic tool—called the Transition Linkage Tool (TLT)—aimed at integrating unique identifiers and other information from multiple agencies tasked with assisting young people with disabilities.

Kelli Thuli Crane and Christy H. Stuart, both assistant research professors in the university’s Department of Counseling, Higher Education, and Special Education, are leading the project.

Crane and Stuart are co-directors of the Maryland Center for Transition and Career Innovation in the College of Education. They are joined on the project by Derek Yarnell, the director of computing facilities for the University of Maryland Institute for Advanced Computer Studies (UMIACS) who is tasked with overseeing the tool’s software development.

The UMD team envisions TLT as a web-based data management system that will collect and share data on students with disabilities from across the state of Maryland, while simultaneously connecting them to government agencies at both the state and county level that can offer support in a way that’s more targeted and efficient.

By law, students with cognitive or physical disabilities—from emotional and learning disabilities to those with hearing, vision or mobility impairments—are entitled to support services in high school that include individualized education programs and specialized accessibility options.

But when these same students leave high school, they often lose the support structure provided by these programs, says Crane. While adult programs are available, they are often fragmented, and families must wade through a complex web of state agencies, all with different eligibility requirements and criteria.

“It’s important to us that there's not a sudden drop off a cliff when they exit school, but that they stay connected with resources and are introduced to new opportunities,” Crane says.

Officials working across systems also struggle to collaborate since there is no existing framework for sharing data on youth with disabilities across government agencies.

A young person may be receiving services from multiple agencies, but these agencies may not be aware of each other’s activities and the services being provided, leading to gaps in information.

The TLT project aims to tackle this “chaos and complexity,” as Crane puts it, streamlining services and integrating data from multiple sources, like local education agencies and the state’s Division of Rehabilitation Services.

“Ultimately, through these efficiencies, we hope to see better outcomes for these students, with more leaving school connected with something—whether it’s a job or higher education or vocational training,” says Crane.

Anchored by the team’s strong conviction that students with disabilities deserve an equal chance of succeeding after graduation as their peers, the researchers hope that insights from this data can help policymakers evaluate what works and what doesn’t.

“The state of Maryland does not have a good handle—from a data science standpoint—on how these students are faring post-graduation,” says Yarnell. “And if you can't measure it, you can't change it.”

Facilitated by UMIACS’ advanced computing resources, the TLT is being developed with software engineering techniques focused on security, reliability and scalability.

“We want to build something that can stand the test of time and be achievable in other constituencies,” Yarnell says.

It's an ambitious project—with researchers aiming to launch a pilot test of the system across all 24 of Maryland’s school districts in late 2025—and one that comes with several challenges.

“As different agencies use their own student information systems, aligning these disparate datasets can be quite complex,” acknowledges Yarnell. “And establishing data-sharing agreements between agencies is challenging—there is a lot of friction against that.”

Despite bureaucratic and institutional hurdles, the team has already overcome some tough challenges and is optimistic they’ll be able to tackle future ones. With much of the foundational work on the software already done, Yarnell is confident that the project is headed “in the right direction.”

“We've been at this for a little while, and it's had some starts and stops because of how complex it is,” says Crane, recalling how the pandemic and issues with securing data sharing agreements with major stakeholders delayed their progress.

“But this new grant provides the resources we really need,” Crane says. “We can now work with UMIACS to fully develop the software and collaborate with various agencies to bring everything together. This is the first time we’ve had the backing to really get this project going.”

The project also has the support of Jade Gingrich, the director of employment policy at the Maryland Department of Disabilities, and from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, which is acting as a neutral evaluator.

The excitement among the team is clear—especially given the potential for the project to be scaled up nationally.

“If the project is successful in Maryland, we believe it will have significant national reach,” says Crane. “We’re excited to get this off the ground and see the impact it can have across the state of Maryland and beyond.”

—Story by Aleena Haroon, UMIACS communications group