Special Populations Assistance

Special Populations are identified in the Strengthening Career and Technical Education for the 21st Century Act (Perkins V) as CTE students who are eligible for additional support and services to help ensure program accessibility and assist them in overcoming barriers that may limit their opportunities for success. Students who identify with one of the special populations listed below may encounter additional barriers as they navigate through college and prepare for their careers. The College’s Special Populations’ Advocates, Lisa Rudolph in the Testing Center (Cannon Hall, Room 103), J.R. Scruggs with the ICONIC (Prairie Hall), and Kellie McBride in Career Services (Cannon Hall, Room 213), assist our special populations students with identifying the barriers and developing strategies to overcome them.

Under Perkins V, the nine special populations include:

Students with Disabilities:
1. A physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities of such individual;
2. A record of such an impairment; or
3. Being regarded as having such an impairment.
Disadvantaged Students:
1. Economic Disadvantage: A student may be identified as economically disadvantaged on the basis of one of the following qualifications:
  1. An individual who receives a Pell Grant or comparable state program of need-based financial assistance;
  2. An individual whose annual income is at or less than the official poverty level;
  3. An individual who is a recipient of public assistance (or their parent is a recipient of public assistance); or
  4. An individual who is eligible to participate in programs assisted under WIOA.
2. Academic Disadvantage: A student may be identified as academically disadvantaged based on one of the following qualifications:
  1. An individual who performs at or below the 25th percentile on a standardized achievement or aptitude test in reading skills, writing skills, or math skills;
  2. An individual who receives a grade of D or below in a postsecondary class and needs support services to succeed in that class;
  3. An individual who receives remedial, developmental, ABE, or ASE instruction; or
  4. An individual who is on academic probation.
Students Preparing for Nontraditional Career Fields:
1. An individual entering an occupational or field of work for which that individual’s gender comprises less than 25% of those employed in said occupation or field of work.
  1. Examples in today’s workforce would be a female studying Automotive Technology or Welding and a male studying Early Childhood Education or Registered Nursing.
Single Parents/Single Pregnant Women:
1. An individual who is either a single pregnant woman or an individual who is unmarried or legally separated from a spouse and has a minor child or children for which the parent has either custody or joint custody.
Out-of-Workforce Individual:
1. An individual who is a displaced homemaker, as defined in section 3 of the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act; or
2. An individual who
  1. Has worked primarily without remuneration (pay) to care for a home and family, and for that reason has diminished marketable skills; or
  2. Is a parent whose youngest dependent child will become ineligible to receive assistance under part A of title IV of the Social Security Act not later than 2 years after the date of which the parent applies for assistance under such title; and
  3. Is unemployed or underemployed and is experiencing difficulty in obtaining or upgrading employment.
English Learners:
1. A secondary school student who is an English learner, as defined in section 8101 of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965.
2. An adult or an out-of-school youth who had limited ability in speaking, reading, writing, or understanding the English language and –
  1. An individual whose native language is a language other than English; or
  2. An individual who lives in a family environment or community in which a language other than English is the dominant language.
Homeless Students:
1. An individual who lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence; and
2. Includes –
  1. Children and youths who are sharing the housing of other persons due to loss of housing, economic hardship, or a similar reason; are living in motels, hotels, trailer parks, or camping grounds due to the lack of alternative adequate accommodations; are living in emergency or transitional shelters; are abandoned in hospitals; or are awaiting foster care placement;
  2. Children and youths who have a primary nighttime residence that is a public or private place not designed for or ordinarily used as a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings;
  3. Children and youths who are living in cars, parks, public spaces, abandoned buildings, substandard housing, bus or train stations, or similar settings; and
  4. Migratory children who qualify as homeless for the purposes of this subtitle because the children are living in circumstances described above.
Students Who are In or Have Aged Out of the Foster Care System:
1. A minor placed into an alternative living environment due to neglect or abuse by their legal guardian; or
2. An individual in foster care who has reached their 21^st birthday and aged-out of the system.
Youth with a Parent Who is a Member of the Armed Forces or Who is on Active Duty:

1. Is a member of the armed forces (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Space Force, or Coast Guard); and
2. Is on active duty (full-time duty in the military service of the United States).
3. Active duty includes full-time training duty, annual training duty, and attendance, while in the active military service, at a school designated as a service school by law or by the secretary of the military department concerned. Such term does not include full-time National Guard duty.

Specific definitions and resources are provided by ICSPS (Illinois Center for Specialized Professional Support) at https://icsps.illinoisstate.edu/cte/special-populations