Transition Academy

Newington Public Schools' Transition Academy is a comprehensive, community-based program which serves students with intellectual and other disabilities, ages 18 - 21, in an age-appropriate, 21st century learning environment. The Academy's focus is to help students to learn adult-life and work skills to help our students become independent, contributing members of the Newington community.

The Transition Academy program's instruction includes:

  • Prevocational and Vocational Employability

  • Personal Health Care

  • Personal Safety

  • Communication Skills

  • Interpersonal Skills

  • Daily Living Skills

  • Basic Home Care Skills

  • Community Access to Recreational Activities

  • Human Growth and Development

  • Consumer Education

  • Person-Centered Planning

  • Job Exploration

  • Self-Advocacy


The program serves as a bridge between school and adult life by involving students in a variety of vocational, social, cultural, recreational, and community-based activities. The Transition Academy invests in each student's future and allows individually-tailored activities and education plans for each student.

Activities & Internships

A typical day at the Transition Academy involves practicing skills such as laundry, cooking and other life skills. Students are taught to use 21st century tools in the workplace. This practice helps students to succeed at the local internships that they take buses to in the afternoons, where they gain work experience as well as put to use the vocational skills they have gained at the Academy. A few internships that students currently participate in include: Hartford Hospital, Eleanor Buck Wolf Nature Center, Veterans' Hospital, Bob's Clothing Store, Newington Senior Center, Town Hall Mailroom, and more. In addition to preparing special needs students for independence, the teachers at the Transition Academy work hard to provide students with the opportunity to socialize. They have taken field trips to a variety of local hot-spots, including the bowling alley and the Beardsley Zoo.