Located in:
- Program-specific Requirements for Adult, Dislocated Worker, and Youth Activities under Title I-B
The Unified or Combined State Plan must include the following with respect to activities carried out under subtitle B—
- c. With respect to youth workforce investment activities authorized in section 129 of WIOA—
With respect to youth workforce investment activities authorized in section 129 of WIOA—
- c. With respect to youth workforce investment activities authorized in section 129 of WIOA—
c. 5. Include the State definition, as defined in law, for not attending school and attending school as specified in WIOA Section 129(a)(1)(B)(i) and Section 129(a)(1)(C)(i). If State law does not define “not attending school” or “attending school,” indicate that is the case and provide the state policy for determining whether a youth is attending or not attending school.
Current Narrative:
Per DWD’s Youth Eligibility Policy issued in 2017, the following definition of Compulsory School Attendance/Not Attending School is: Under the WIOA Youth eligibility requirements, the term “school” refers to both secondary and postsecondary school (credit-bearing courses only). Therefore, an individual attending either secondary or postsecondary is considered ISY.
WIOA added an additional provision for determining eligibility for an out-of-school youth (aged 16-24). This criterion is listed as “a youth who is within the age of compulsory school attendance, but has not attended school for at least the most recent complete school year calendar quarter. School year calendar quarter is based on how a local school district defines its school year quarters.” Indiana’s definition of Compulsory School Age per Indiana Code 20-33-2-6, includes all youth who, beginning of the fall school term for the school year in which the student becomes seven years of age, until the date on which the student:
- Graduates;
- Becomes eighteen (18) years of age; or
- Becomes sixteen (16) years of age but is less than eighteen (18) years of age and the requirements under section 9 concerning an exit interview are met enabling the student to withdraw from school before graduation.
Indiana has also defined its academic school year as “for each school year, a school corporation shall conduct at least one hundred eighty (180) student instructional days,” per Indiana Code, 20-30-2-3. While there may be extenuating circumstances that a school district may request a waiver of these 180 days, which could include weather-related cancellations, the Indiana Department of Workforce Development would consider 180 student instructional days as the “school year.”
For the purposes of out-of-school youth eligibility calculations, a “school calendar quarter” would be defined as 45 student instructional days. Weekends, holidays, or cancelled days in which school was closed would not count towards the 45 student instructional days. Some school corporations may define these 45 days as a “semester,” but calculations for accuracy of total instructional days should still be verified by the case manager at the time of application and enrollment.