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Congratulations to our RISE Scholarship Recipients! | As you're aware, the RISE Scholarships have been awarded to High School High Tech students across the state. We are incredibly impressed by the goals, determination, and plans these students have for their futures, and we're excited that these scholarships can help support them as they take the next step in their journey. | |
The RISE Scholarship program reflects the talent and potential of High School High Tech students throughout Florida. Whether they are pursuing postsecondary education, career training, or other pathways to employment and independence, these students have demonstrated perseverance, leadership, and a commitment to their future success.
Thank you to our HSHT site coordinators for your partnership throughout the RISE Scholarship process. Your commitment to supporting students and families helped ensure that this year's scholarship recipients were celebrated for their accomplishments and prepared for their next steps.
Click the button below to visit the RISE Scholarship Photos and Reflections webpage to meet our 2025 RISE scholars.
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Thank you to everyone who has sent us graduation photos of their seniors. We are excited to share these photos as we celebrate this important milestone in their lives.
Keep them coming!
Please forward individual or group photos to pics@abletrust.org and we'll be sure to highlight them during our special graduation campaign!
| Resiliency Florida Characteristic of the Month - Empathy | |
The Resiliency Florida initiative was launched in 2021 to emphasize 11 Resiliency characteristics to empower students to persevere and overcome life’s inevitable challenges.
The resiliency characteristic of the month is Empathy, which refers to understanding others’ thoughts, feelings and actions. CLICK HERE for parent and teacher resources.
| | | RISE Scholarship Presentations | |
Thank you to the HSHT coordinators who helped coordinate recognition opportunities in their communities! Below are a few photos of these opportunities to meet the RISE recipients and present them with a scholarship certificate.
Congratulations to all of the 2026 RISE Scholarship recipients!
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Guidepost Highlights:
Career Preparation and Work-Based Experiences
Connecting Activities
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The Guideposts for Success is used as the framework for the HSHT program and provides guidelines for developing HSHT programming. Guidepost 2: Career Preparation and Work-Based Experiences is focused on helping students explore, prepare for, and successfully transition into careers and further education, and can include entrepreneurial activities, exposure to post-secondary education, industry site visits, internships, and work readiness skill development.
Guidepost 4: Connecting Activities can include training or coaching in various life skills, financial literacy education, access to other services appropriate to one's needs, post-program supports and tutoring.
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Broward County High School High Tech
During a recent visit, Broward County HSHT students had the opportunity to learn about Broward College's Seahawk NEST (Navigating Education for Student Transition) Academy. This three-year program supports students with intellectual disabilities as they prepare for employment, offering individualized career plans with tailored academic, occupational, and workforce goals, along with a range of supportive resources.
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Sarasota County High School High Tech
The manufacturing industry boasts a wide range of careers that are ideal for jobseekers with a variety of skill sets. Recently, Sarasota High School High Tech students got the opportunity to explore many of these manufacturing career options during a tour at PGT Innovations.
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When a group of students from the Pasco County High School High Tech program visited Pasco-Hernando State College (PHSC) recently, first-year PHSC student and Hillsborough County HSHT alumnus Jethiel Morales stepped forward confidently to share his experience at the college and answer their questions.
To his mother, Berlitz Davila, this was another example of just how far her son has come since his early childhood.
“Jethiel was completely nonverbal until he was six years old,” explained Davila. “He experienced a lot of tantrums just because he wasn’t able to communicate. We did the therapies, and nothing worked.”
For the full story of how HSHT helped Jethiel find his path to college, CLICK HERE.
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High School High Tech has given me major confidence in taking the initiative and pursuing my goals.
Jethiel, Hillsborough HSHT alumnus
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The Jan La Belle Scholarship Program
The Jan La Belle Scholarship supports Florida students with disabilities who are pursuing their dreams in higher education. One or more Jan La Belle Scholarship winners are selected annually for a total possible non-renewable award. Award amounts are based on several factors, including available funds and number of eligible applicants. To learn more, CLICK HERE.
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Think College
Think College is a national technical assistance, research, and evaluation center dedicated to developing, expanding, and improving IPSE options for students with intellectual disability. Think College provides resources, technical assistance, and training related to college options for students with intellectual disability, and manages the only national listing of college programs for students with intellectual disability in the United States. CLICK HERE.
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BEESS (Bureau of Exceptional Education and Student Services)
The BEESS Weekly Memo provides current action and informational items related to trainings, jobs, conferences, resources and other information relevant to students with disabilities. CLICK HERE.
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FloridaShines
FloridaShines partners with Florida’s public colleges and universities, K-12 school districts, technical colleges, and other educational organizations to develop tools that support students, parents, and educators. FloridaShines provides profiles of Florida's public colleges and universities, information about Career and Technical Centers, courses required for specific programs, admissions requirements and deadlines, information on how to pay for college and more. All resources are provided to students at no cost. CLICK HERE.
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CTE Guide for Students with Disabilities
A new resource from the Florida Department of Education’s Get There initiative is now available The Educator’s Guide to Career & Technical Education (CTE) for Students with Disabilities is a toolkit designed to support educators, counselors, and transition coordinators in introducing CTE as a postsecondary option. CLICK HERE to access the toolkit.
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AT&T Achievery
A free and safe online learning platform created by AT&T to provide K-12 students with engaging and entertaining videos paired with educational activities. CLICK HERE.
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NTACT Self Advocacy
Instruction in self-advocacy is one of the five required Pre-Employment Transition Services and supports the Youth Leadership and Development Guidepost. To download resources including Guiding Questions, Activities, Progress and Outcome Indicators, CLICK HERE.
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Project 10: Transition Education Network
Project 10 is Florida’s statewide IDEA-funded state project supporting the secondary transition of youth with disabilities. Project 10 assists school districts in providing transition services and programs to assist youth with disabilities in their transition to adulthood. To learn more, CLICK HERE.
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Florida Center for Students with Unique Abilities
The Florida Center for Students with Unique Abilities at the University of Central Florida serves as the state coordinating center to establish and support quality comprehensive transition and postsecondary programs for students with intellectual disabilities in collaborating with universities, state and technical colleges, with the goal of increasing independent living and competitive integrated employment. For more information, CLICK HERE.
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