FCPS, Falls Church City Schools, or Arlington County for kindergartner with autism?

[Anonymous]

We’re relocating to the DC area and are trying to figure out where to live.

DS has an autism diagnosis and will be in a general education classroom. We’ll likely live in the area through at least middle school and probably through high school, so I’m hoping to learn suggestions about where to live to have access to the best schools for ASD-1? We’d love to live somewhere that we can really develop a sense of community. If you were moving to the area, where would you recommend we live?

[Anonymous]

You will get better answers from the special needs forum. And there is less noise there than here.

[Anonymous]

I got this info from the special needs forum and came here hoping for more answers from folks actually in the school district. 🤷‍♀️

[Anonymous]

I’ve heard that FCC is great for NT kids but not as great for special needs.

[Anonymous]

Arlington is more inclusive than FCPS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Arlington is more inclusive than FCPS.

What does that mean? Our FCPS school has autism classes and pushes the severely autistic kids into the general education classrooms every day. They participate in morning and afternoon meetings as well as some of the group projects. There was also an autistic child in my 6th grader's classroom who had an aide and was in the class full-time.

[Anonymous]

Fwiw, I know of several kids with autism in AAP, both of my kids as well as at least one other. And quite a number of kids with ADHD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Arlington is more inclusive than FCPS.

What does that mean? Our FCPS school has autism classes and pushes the severely autistic kids into the general education classrooms every day. They participate in morning and afternoon meetings as well as some of the group projects. There was also an autistic child in my 6th grader's classroom who had an aide and was in the class full-time.

That you think this is meaningful inclusion tells us everything we need to know.

[Anonymous]

I have a twice exceptional student in FCPS. It really just depends on the teacher and case manager and sometimes the administration. Some years are better than others. He’s in middle school now and the transition went well. From what I’ve read, there is not one particular district or school that is better than the others.

[Anonymous]

I am a FCPS kindergarten gen ed teacher but have been the classroom with students with autism with a variety of hours of support

Do you have a current IEP in place now from SPED pre-k? If so then it might depend on what current services are and if your child needs an autism center or can receive services in a non-categorical class at base school.

SPED is extremely short staffed right now so the SPED teachers in base school programs could have large case loads and there might be 1 IA with many students all day so no on gets 1:1 support. And if a student has extreme behaviors the IA will mostly focused on them. If you’re in an autism center you’ll get small ratios.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a twice exceptional student in FCPS. It really just depends on the teacher and case manager and sometimes the administration. Some years are better than others. He’s in middle school now and the transition went well. From what I’ve read, there is not one particular district or school that is better than the others.

I could have written the same thing. Sometimes the non-special ed trained teacher is even better than the sped teacher, you just never know. We had one teacher who was amazing for our kid and it turned out she had a nephew on the spectrum she adored and our son reminded her of him. It truly depends most on the teacher, but then you need supportive admin. The admin brought in to focus on sped at our son's elementary was just a puppet for the principal and it wasn't until she retired that she took me aside during her last week when I saw her at a school function. She told me she was secretly cheering me on, but could have lost her job if she didn't play along with the principal. Let me tell you this woman was a complete jerk before that and I pride myself on being polite and professional no matter what BS comes my way. Meanwhile another AP who had no sped training, was much better at meetings because she had basic common sense and a strong moral code. There have been sped teachers in team taught we will remember forever because of the difference they made and there are clearly in the wrong profession.