Making the Case for Hiring People with Disabilities

Bruce Ellison is a Teacher of Community Based Instruction for the Antioch School District, Bruce and I discuss how employers can attract and accommodate candidates with disabilities. Watch the entire video interview here.

Jocelyn: Tell us about the work you do and how your path led you to that work.

Bruce: I am part of what they call Community Based Instruction. That is 18 to 22 year olds who graduate high school but they actually don't graduate with a diploma and instead they graduate with a certificate of completion. That means we continue to educate them until they’re 22. It’s called a transition program. We have grown, three years ago, we had 20 students. We now have 65. Transition programs are one of the largest growing segments in education because disabilities are becoming more identified.

How I got here, how many days do we have here? You know, I was in the restaurant business for a long, long time. And people go, “how do you jump from there to special education?” The thing is in restaurants, you learn a lot. You learn about managing people, communicating with people, dealing with the public. You have a very wide range of things you do and a lot of that goes along with education. I was in charge of a management training program that helped me manage people. Plus you're talking all the time in public to the public. For all you people out there that are afraid of getting up in front of people go to the restaurant business, you'll be on top of the world. 

My son, he wasn't born deaf, he went deaf at two, and he got a cochlear implant at about two and a half. And I could talk about that for days but it allows him to hear, he hears better than I do. Which is a plus and a minus because we were in the car one day when he first got it and I was singing, and he pulled it off so he couldn’t hear me because he didn't like the way I was singing. So when a deaf child tells you your singing is bad. It's time to quit singing. 

I knew sign language. So the school asked me to be an aide and paired me with a student who was hearing impaired, not deaf, but he used sign language. I would interpret for him, for the teacher, and for the teacher back to him. And I was doing that and working in a restaurant at the same time. Then I decided, why don't I get a teaching credential? So I was going to school, working two jobs, and then I did that for about two years to get my credential. Then I became a teacher. 

I got snatched up right away. I was doing mod severe (moderate to severe special education), for the first year. And then this position came open and they said, “Hey, for three months, can you come do this?” And six years later, I'm still here. That's because it's grown so much. They're identifying more students and the programs are growing as people need more and more services. 

Jocelyn: When we say disability, that is such an encompassing word and can mean so many things, what does that look like with the adults that you work with? 

IDEA defines disabilities in the following categories: physical development; cognitive development; communication; social or emotional development; or adaptive [behavioral] development.

Bruce: By the time I get a student, they have to be 18 to be in the program. For education level, I have students that are pre-Kindergarten and I have students that are pre-algebra. So the people that are pre-algebra, you may ask why are they there? There are physical disabilities, social disabilities, cognitive disabilities. When you talk about disabilities, the range is wide. I would say about 90% of the students are definitely employable.

And that's because they are socially very adept at what they're doing. They want to be out there as much as anybody wants them to be out there and they will do anything, to make sure that it works. My students are great. I've had some students that are tough but I've been very fortunate that I have some great students in the program.

Jocelyn: What are some of the daily challenges your students face relating to their disabilities? Especially, in the workplace, but just in general as well.

Bruce: The daily challenges, it's the foundation. Sometimes parents think that their student is broken somehow. So there's this feeling that me or a teacher is going to fix all that. First of all, they're not broken. So there's nothing to fix. We bring out the best in them and we show them examples of what it's going to be like when they get out in the community. That's why it's called community based instruction. 

Some of the things we do is we have computer labs, we go shopping for food, we cook the food, we go out in the community a lot. We have job sites. Round Table Pizza, Walgreens, PetSmart, Safeway, Subway, and Ace Hardware are some of the companies we work with. Before the pandemic we had jobs on campus we had a coffee shop, and the department of rehab will pay the students to train on campus.

The hardest part on a day-to-day basis is getting them out in the community and giving them that self-esteem and confidence to go out there and do it. For so many years, they've been in special ed. I wish we'd get rid of that term because you have this kind of stigma and you have to get rid of that.

Jocelyn: What are the advantages to an employer working with students in your program? 

Bruce: A high percentage of the employers we work with, realize a couple of things. 

1. They get a tax break. 

2. We have a training program

We send a trainer with them and that's usually through workability, which is the County. One of my aides will go with them and actually work with them. The person at the site actually trains the trainer and you have this person for a hundred hours.

Also, the department rehab gives a class once a week, online now. They have to go eight weeks and after they get through that eight week course, then we get them to an employer. 

We also have an occupational toolkit through the County, which is self paced online. Again, they have to complete that to go out into the job market. So there's a lot of prerequisites they have to get done before they get out there. 

3. The Salary is supplemented for 100 hours 

If you like them, you can hire them. 

4. Our students are honest, ethical, and hardworking 

These students want to be out there and have a job just like everyone else.

5. We place our students fast 

We get them out there pretty fast because we have people that are ready and the support is pretty extensive.

The hardest part is getting them in there but once they get in, once they get their foot in the door, they sell themselves.

Jocelyn: And if a company was like reading this or listening to this and said, I'm interested in finding out about that program. How would they get connected? 

Bruce:

They can connect me: BruceEllison@antiochschools.net or one of the programs.

Department of Rehabilitation

Workability

Jocelyn: Depending on what state or county you live in, look for similar programs in your area.

Jocelyn: What can an employer do to make their application process and interview process more accommodating for people with disabilities? What's a standard interview process where employers could accommodate or make it easier for applicants?

Bruce: Since you have to ask the same questions to the same people every time, they may not understand the questions. You could have somebody from the Department of Rehab or somebody from the Regional Center with them in the interview. Also, when you ask the question, you may have to phrase it a little bit differently. 

Some of the applications now are extremely difficult for our students, the psychological profiles where you have 65 questions you have to answer online Those are tough, tough questions. 

The virtual interviews now are great for our students because they seem to be a little bit more comfortable with that. Sometimes our students get a little bit uncomfortable with being in person, unless there's somebody there with them. We push them a lot harder in the transition program because we want to get them out there. We got to give them that self confidence and that self-esteem, and we model that as well to get them out there. 

Jocelyn: You’ve talked a little bit about the companies that your program works with to get students jobs, but what types of jobs are the students you work with looking to do? 

Bruce: They would like to learn a trade, or they want to work in a warehouse situation where they're loading trucks, putting stuff away or on hangers, they're sizing things or putting security tags on shoes. The students are very visual. If you show them, they'll get it down.

Jocelyn: Anything else you’d like to add?

Bruce: Our students are very willing, hardworking, honest, ethical, and really want to be out there with everybody else. If you have a chance to interview a student with disabilities, give them a chance, you will not be disappointed at all.

Check out a few other resources for hiring employees with Disabilities:

Delivering Jobs creates pathways to employment and leadership opportunities, and partners with SHRM.

Harvard Business Review Case for Improving Work for People with Disabilities