Waukegan, Illinois – As school districts across the United States confront persistent gaps in postsecondary employment outcomes for students with disabilities, Illinois-based special education professional Kaye Gwyn Llanto is emerging as a leading voice in redefining how transition planning under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) can translate into real-world workforce success.
Through two recently published white papers—Scaling Disability-Inclusive Transition-to-Employment Pathways for Students with Disabilities in Underserved U.S. School Districts and From Compliance to Outcomes: Redefining Transition Planning Quality Under IDEA—Llanto presents a data-informed, practice-driven framework that challenges the nation’s overreliance on procedural compliance and calls for a measurable, outcome-oriented approach to transition services.
Together, the publications offer school districts, state education agencies, policymakers, nonprofit organizations, and workforce partners a cohesive roadmap for addressing one of the most entrenched equity challenges in American education: the failure of transition systems to prepare students with disabilities for meaningful employment and postsecondary participation.
Addressing a National Challenge with Systemic Solutions
Despite decades of federal mandates, students with disabilities continue to experience disproportionately low rates of competitive employment and post-secondary education participation after leaving high school. While most districts demonstrate high compliance with IDEA’s transition planning requirements, national data indicate that procedural adherence alone has not led to equitable outcomes.
Llanto’s work directly addresses this disconnect. Her first paper, Scaling Disability-Inclusive Transition-to-Employment Pathways, examines the national urgency of improving transition systems, particularly in underserved districts affected by poverty, staffing shortages, and limited access to adult services. The paper outlines a scalable model centered on inclusive transition planning, instructional and behavioral supports, employer partnerships, and data-driven accountability.
Her second paper, From Compliance to Outcomes, builds on this foundation by interrogating why transition plans that meet compliance standards often fail to improve post-school results. Anchored in federal accountability mechanisms—specifically the Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) Indicators 13 and 14—the paper reframes transition planning quality as a workforce development and equity imperative rather than a procedural obligation.
“High compliance rates can create a false sense of success,” Llanto explains. “What ultimately matters is whether students leave school with the skills, supports, and connections necessary to participate fully in the workforce and their communities.”
Practitioner Expertise Grounded in Global and U.S. Experience
Llanto’s national perspective is rooted in more than a decade of frontline professional experience across diverse educational systems. She currently serves as a Diverse Learner Teacher at Jack Benny Middle School in Waukegan, Illinois, where she works with students in low-incidence and structured teaching programs. In this role, she leads IEP development and compliance, implements behavior intervention plans, integrates Universal Design for Learning (UDL) strategies, and collaborates with families, therapists, and general education teachers to promote inclusive access to instruction.
Before relocating to the United States, Llanto served as a Transition Program Coordinator and job coach at La Sagesse Rehabilitation and Development Center in the Philippines, where she designed and implemented vocational training programs for adolescents and young adults with disabilities. Her work included teaching computer skills, food and beverage services, clerical skills, and directly supporting students as they pursue employment in community settings.
This dual-context experience—working in both resource-limited international environments and U.S. public schools—has shaped Llanto’s emphasis on scalability, adaptability, and equity. Her proposed frameworks are intentionally designed to function across varied district capacities, allowing implementation in urban, rural, and high-poverty contexts without imposing unsustainable demands.
From Compliance to Quality: A Shift in National Conversation
A central contribution of Llanto’s work is her critique of compliance-driven transition planning. Under IDEA, districts are required to document measurable postsecondary goals and coordinated transition services beginning no later than age 16. OSEP Indicator 13 monitors whether these components are present, while Indicator 14 tracks post-school outcomes one year after exit.
Llanto’s analysis highlights a critical reality: many districts demonstrate near-perfect compliance with Indicator 13 while reporting weak outcomes under Indicator 14. This pattern, she argues, reflects a systemic focus on documentation rather than implementation quality.
Her framework calls for districts and states to use Indicators 13 and 14 as a continuous improvement cycle, leveraging IEP quality reviews, disaggregated outcome data, and interagency coordination to refine practice and address inequities. Rather than treating Indicator 14 as a retrospective reporting requirement, Llanto advocates its use as a diagnostic tool that informs instruction, staffing, and resource allocation.
Centering Work-Based Learning and Employer Partnerships
Another hallmark of Llanto’s approach is her emphasis on authentic work-based learning as a predictor of post-secondary success. Research consistently shows that paid employment during high school significantly increases the likelihood of adult employment for individuals with disabilities. Yet access to such opportunities remains uneven, particularly in underserved districts.
Both white papers outline strategies for embedding work-based learning into transition systems through employer partnerships, job coaching, and interagency collaboration. Llanto argues that employers should be viewed not as peripheral stakeholders, but as active partners in workforce development.
“Transition planning cannot end at the classroom door,” she notes. “Students need exposure to real work environments, and employers need structured support to engage meaningfully in inclusive hiring practices.”
Equity at the Center of Transition Reform
Equity is a unifying and foundational theme across Kaye Gwyn Llanto’s published work. In her white papers, Scaling Disability-Inclusive Transition-to-Employment Pathways for Students with Disabilities in Underserved U.S. School Districts and From Compliance to Outcomes: Redefining Transition Planning Quality Under IDEA, Llanto underscores that students with disabilities in underserved communities face compounded, systemic barriers that extend far beyond individual needs.
Her analysis highlights persistent challenges such as limited staffing capacity, fragmented adult service systems, transportation constraints, and reduced access to employer partnerships, factors that disproportionately affect high-poverty, rural, and historically marginalized districts. Without intentional, outcome-driven reform, Llanto argues, transition systems risk reinforcing structural inequities rather than dismantling them, leaving compliance intact while opportunity remains uneven.
Across both publications, Llanto calls on state education agencies to align monitoring practices, technical assistance, and funding incentives with measurable post-school outcomes, particularly in districts demonstrating persistent gaps in employment and postsecondary participation. She emphasizes the strategic use of federal accountability mechanisms—notably OSEP Indicators 13 and 14—as tools for continuous improvement rather than procedural reporting alone. At the district level, her work advocates for elevating transition outcomes to core performance metrics, positioning employment and postsecondary readiness alongside graduation rates and academic achievement as central indicators of educational success.
Together, these publications advance a cohesive, equity-centered framework that reframes transition planning as a workforce development and civil rights imperative—one that demands coordinated leadership, accountability, and sustained investment to ensure students with disabilities are prepared to participate fully in the nation’s economic and civic life.
National Relevance and Future Impact
By bridging practitioner insight with policy analysis, Llanto’s work contributes to a growing national movement to reimagine transition services as a critical component of workforce development and social equity. Her frameworks are already resonating with educators, administrators, and advocates seeking practical solutions that move beyond compliance checklists.
As states continue to refine their IDEA monitoring systems and districts confront workforce shortages and accountability pressures, Llanto’s publications provide timely guidance on aligning transition planning with measurable, equitable outcomes.
“These papers are not theoretical exercises,” she emphasizes. “They are grounded in what educators and students experience every day and in what our systems must do better if we are serious about inclusion.”
About the Author
Kaye Gwyn Llanto, M.A.Ed., is a U.S.-licensed Special Education and Learning Behavior Specialist based in Illinois. She holds a Master of Arts in Education with a specialization in Special Education and has more than ten years of experience serving students with disabilities in the United States and the Philippines. Her professional expertise spans IEP development, transition planning, Universal Design for Learning, behavioral supports, job coaching, and family–community collaboration. Through her research and practice, Llanto advances scalable, equity-centered approaches to improving postsecondary outcomes for students with disabilities.
Media & Professional Inquiries
Kaye Gwyn Llanto welcomes opportunities to collaborate with school districts, state and local education agencies, professional associations, nonprofit organizations, and academic institutions committed to advancing equitable, inclusive, and outcome-driven transition systems for students with disabilities. Through her professional consultancy and thought leadership, she offers customized professional development, keynote presentations, and capacity-building workshops focused on inclusive instructional design, evidence-based transition planning, workforce readiness, and data-informed educational leadership.
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