When a state quietly changes a law, most people never hear about it. For students with disabilities and their families in Washington, one of those “quiet lines” just shifted the ground under all of us.
Washington now allows students to receive special education services through the end of the school year in which they turn 22, instead of cutting them off at 21. That extra year is not just twelve more months on a calendar. It is time. It is options. It is another chance to get the transition right instead of just getting a diploma printed.
For anyone doing honest work in special education, transition, and community-based programs, this is a pivot point.
What Actually Changed
Under the new law, students who qualify for special education services can stay in school until the end of the school year when they turn 22. Before this, many students were essentially “timed out” at 21. That meant:
- Services could stop in the middle of a transition plan
- School funding stopped tracking them
- Families were thrown into adult systems that were not ready to receive them
Now, IEP teams must look at a student who will turn 22 during the year and ask a different question:
Not “How do we exit this student?”
Instead: “What do we do with this extra year so it actually matters?”
More Time Without A Better Plan Is Just Delay
Extra time only matters if it is used with intention.
If the IEP is weak, if goals are vague, if transition services are just worksheets and checklists with no lived practice, then an extra year is just one more rotation in the same broken cycle.
The shift to 22 forces schools and programs to make a choice:
- Continue to treat age 18–22 like storage,
- Or treat it like a launch.
For students close to aging out, this extra year should not feel like “remedial high school.” It should feel like:
- Community inclusion
- Work-based learning
- Travel training
- Real conversations about housing, money, healthcare, and support
This is where programs like ARISE, PATH, LEAP, and other community-based models become essential, not optional. Schools cannot do everything alone. The law just made that even more apparent.
What IEP Teams Need To Do Right Now
If you sit at IEP tables, chair meetings, or run programs, there are some moves that need to happen immediately.
- Identify your 21–22 group
- Look at students who will turn 22 during the upcoming school year. Those students are now eligible to be served for the whole school year. Their IEPs cannot be copy-paste versions of last year.
- Rebuild transition plans with the finish line in mind.
- A real transition plan must answer some basic questions with clarity, not vague hope.
- Where will this student be during the day after they leave us?
- How will they move through their community?
- Who is paying for what they need?
- Who is responsible for supporting them on Tuesday mornings at 10:15 when something goes wrong?
- Tighten alignment with adult systems.
- If DVR, DDA, housing, and healthcare are not already part of the conversation, that is the red flag. This extra year is the time to build warm handoffs instead of cold referrals.
- Use data, not vibes
- Age 22 should not be the reason to exit. Lack of need should be. If a student still needs special education and transition services to make progress toward post-school goals, they are not “done” simply because the calendar flipped.
Why This Matters For Black, Brown, And Disabled Youth
This is not just a technical adjustment to a funding formula. It lives right in the middle of racial equity, disability rights, and economic survival.
Black and Brown students with disabilities are more likely to:
- Be over-identified in certain categories.
- Be educated in segregated settings.
- Be pushed toward compliance instead of leadership.
When these same students reach 18–21, they are often the ones with the thinnest transition plans and the weakest community connections. Extending services to 22 gives us a chance to correct some of that failure, but only if we admit that those patterns exist and build something different on purpose.
The extra year should not be used to keep young people trapped in school buildings that have not worked for them since elementary school. It should be used to:
- Bring them into community spaces
- Connect them to mentors and employers
- Teach them how to navigate systems that were not built for them, while we fight to change those systems
What Districts And Programs Should Be Asking Themselves
If you are a superintendent, director, principal, or program lead, this is the moment to step back and ask some uncomfortable questions.
- Do our 18–22 programs look like holding tanks or launch pads?
- Are our students learning how to work, travel, and advocate, or are they just being supervised?
- Are we partnering with community organizations that actually know transition, or are we doing this in isolation?
- Do we see our 21-year-old students as fully capable emerging adults, or as “big kids” we are still trying to manage?
If the honest answer to these questions makes you uncomfortable, that is the work.
The Opportunity For Community-Based Programs
For community-based organizations, this law is also an invitation.
There is now:
- A more apparent reason for districts to contract with community partners for transition-focused services
- A longer window to do deeper work with students who need more than just one final “senior year”
- A stronger case to build programs that blend school, work, and community learning
Programs that focus on:
- Independent living skills
- Leadership development
- Outdoor education and stewardship
- Entrepreneurship and financial literacy
- Cultural grounding and community connection
are not “nice extras.” They are exactly what this extra year was made for.
This Is A Policy Change And A Values Test
On paper, the law gives students one more year of services. In practice, it is testing our values.
Do we really believe that disabled young people deserve:
- Time to grow
- Support to transition
- Access to meaningful adult lives
Or do we believe they only deserve whatever the system can squeeze in before the funding clock runs out?
The extension to 22 gives us time. What we choose to build inside that time will say everything about who we are.
Thoughts Processed 