POWAY —— With their son Elias' 21st birthday coming up in February, Jo and Remy Arazi are starting to think about setting him up in apartment. The step would be a major milestone for the family, which has known Elias was autistic since he was a young child.

Living on his own is something Elias is ready for, Jo Arazi said last week, due in large part to the skills he's learned in a program for disabled young adults offered by the Poway Unified School District.

"Out of all my kids, he's the one that's independent," Arazi said. "My other kids are almost 19 and 15. But he's the one who's got clean clothes on every day, his sheets are washed, he has everything under control."

She credits much of that self-sufficiency to the district's Transition program based in three classrooms at Abraxas High School, the district's continuation high school. The Transition program, which is open to special education students ages 18 to 22 who did not get their high school diploma or pass the state's high school exit exam.

Participants learn how to cook, handle money and do their own banking, use public transportation, interact with other people and other life skills that can lead to independence.

"It's a fabulous program," said Arazi. "I'm very, very happy with it."

Special needs vary

Split up among three classrooms at the high school, which has a year-round schedule, the program maintains a traditional school calendar. The program, which is free to participants as part of the public school district's services, may have anywhere from 25 to 38 participants at a given time, and students typically stay with the same teacher all four years, school officials said.

John Collins, associate superintendent for Poway Unified, said the district spends about $450,000 a year on the program, with the money coming out of funds for special education from the state and federal governments as well as regular school money from the state. The program's cost amounts to about one-fifth of 1 percent of the district's $227 million annual budget, he said.

Young adults who enroll in Transition spend some time learning and practicing basic skills at the school. Community learning —— during which students head out individually with program aides or in groups for bus trips, volunteer work, grocery store visits and entertainment outings —— gets heavy emphasis, though.

Many Transition participants also have part-time jobs lined up with the help of job developers for the program. Participating employers include Hollywood Video, the Poway Senior Center, Carl's Jr. and HomeGoods, which hired Elias Arazi to work at its Poway store.

Dean Weese has been a Transition teacher for 11 years. He said confidentiality laws prohibited him from discussing the specific situations of program participants.

At any given time, though, young adults with Down syndrome, neurological conditions such as autism, emotional disturbances, physical disabilities that limit a person's ability to talk and move about, or any number of other difficulties are among the special-needs students who may be enrolled, Weese said.

Lots of planning, repetition

A visit to Abraxas last week found two Transition students manning a metal cart that serves as a "student store" for students enrolled in the campus's regular high school program. A steady line of hungry but polite teens kept Adriana Pamatz, 20, and Daniel Denigris, 21, busy as their customers selected bottles of juice or water, cereal bars, candy and other snacks from the cart, then waited while the Transition students mentally tallied the purchases, accepted payments and made change.

Running the store teaches the special-needs students some of the things they will need to know to get jobs in the community, Weese said.

"We're working on their customer service skills —— smiling, making eye contact, counting money," said Weese, who watched closely from a few feet away. "They also stock the cart and count up what they sold afterward."

When a bell sent Abraxas students back to class, Denigris and Pamatz headed to their own room to make English muffin pizzas for lunch. Weese said his class of 10 typically plans a week's worth of meals every Monday.

Once they decide their personal menus, students figure out the ingredients they will need, look up food prices on a grocery store Web site, and check individual budget folders to see if money they earned from a job or brought from home will cover the expense, the teacher said.

The rest of the week is filled with speech and socialization skill practices, grocery store visits, bus trips, community volunteer work and fun outings, Weese said.

"There's a lot of planning involved," he said. "A lot of times at home they've had a lot of things done for them. But we try to get them to be as independent as possible and do as many things on their own as possible. And a lot of these guys, they've really gotten a lot of confidence as their skills go up.

"It's really neat to see the progress —— to see a first-year student and how much they grow from that year to a fourth-year student. There's a lot of maturing going on."

Venturing out alone

Waiting for her mini-pizzas to bake, Pamatz said running the student store was easy work.

"It's fun," she said with a quick grin. "I like giving change back and ordering. And they're (Abraxas students are) nice."

Across the room, Elias Arazi concentrated on copying a weekly schedule written on a chalkboard. A large young man whose reluctance to make eye contact while speaking was one of the few obvious signs of his disability, he said he dreams of working in the animation industry and spends his free time drawing and honing his impressions of famous people.

"Super characters, robots, monsters, anything," he said, describing what he likes to draw. "I plan on showing it to (movie) studios someday."

In the meantime, Arazi said, he enjoys taking the bus on his own to HomeGoods, where he assembles lamps.

Blake Thompson, 20, is also in Weese's class. Thompson's mother, Christina Grant, said her son spent all his school years in Poway Unified's special education classes because he has Down syndrome.

The oldest of four children, Thompson entered Transition after high school and is now in his third year with the program, which helped him land a job at Hollywood Video, Grant said.

Describing the program as "a marvelous godsend," she said it reinforces things Transition students' parents try to teach their children at home.

"Blake is low-functioning; he's like a 6-year-old," Grant said. "But yeah, we've seen progress. He's matured, they work on his speech, they help him learn cursive writing."

Letting go

The program also provides its participants with an important link, Grant said.

"I think special needs kids, especially when they're out of high school per se, the families tend to hang onto them, and they don't get as much contact with each other," she said. "And I think he knows he's different. But it just helps to be around people who are like you."

Jo Arazi said the parents of special-needs children are sometimes so intent on protecting them that it is hard to allow them to be independent. She also said she has run into people who were hesitant to enroll their special-needs children in the Transition program because it is based at Abraxas.

The alternative high school's students includes some who fell behind academically at Poway Unified's four traditional high schools; other students choose to attend the alternative high school for a variety of reasons.

Arazi said she tells people there is no reason to worry.

"I wouldn't keep my son there if (there was)," she said. "You're so intent on protecting them from all of the mean people out there (that) it takes a few moments to realize that everybody grows up. Let them go out and take their chances out there in the world. And (Weese) is so good about that —— making sure that everything is safe out there before anybody goes out there."

Contact staff writer Andrea Moss at (760) 739-6654 or amoss@nctimes.com.