Educational consultants -- cost, services?

[Anonymous]

I have 2 kids who have very different needs and we are increasingly realizing that we will probably need to leave public schools for them in pursuit of smaller class sizes and more attention. We are not obsessed with having the 2 kids at the same school as 1 has some special needs (that could probably be handled in a "normal" environment, but we would also be open to a special ed school if that were the best placement). I know there are educational consultants out there who can help with these sort of issues. Does anyone have any recs? Also, how much does something like that cost? We are not necessarily thinking of moving either kid immediately (process is mostly done for next year anyway) and just want to generally look for the future and/or use a consultant during the normal process. Do they have a la carte plans or is it only a package? Each kid might end up needing different levels of consulting. Just looking to figure out a general cost plan so that we can factor that into our projections. Also, any comments on how the groups handle kids who have special needs vs a "typical" applicant would be great. TIA!

[Anonymous]

Spodak Stefano does a lot of work with the special needs schools and other "typical" schools as well. We used them for both dcs (one at a special needs private, one at a different private). I believe that they charge about $250/hour for consultations. The Wisc and Woodcock Johnson cost about $700 (which I think is comparable to other testers in the area). For my special needs dc, they recommended that we do the full battery of tests and that ran about $3,000. We just did the Wisc and Woodcock Johnson with dc#2. The $3,000 did include an appointment to discuss the results and school recommendations. They also discuss this on the phone if you have follow up questions (not sure if there is a charge for this after a certain amount of minutes). The office manager, Margaret, is very knowledgeable as well and gives good advice regarding the schools.

[Anonymous]

Bass Educational Services works with families of K-12 students to find appropriate schools for them. Generally fees range from $350 for a consultation to $1500 for a full service package, which involves visiting schools, setting up appointments, working with the families to find the best fit for each student.

[Anonymous]

I explored using a consultant for my child with some special needs. I'm not in DC, but in another NE city. The consultant I was referred to charged on an hourly basis, something like $200/hr, and while she was willing to negotiate which services she performed, she expected to meet my child, interview us, review his records, send him for testing (to a psychologist she worked with), visit schools with him in mind, and advise us on appropriate choices to apply to. In the end I did not use her as I could not imagine turning over the school visits to someone who had only met my child once briefly. When we got right down to it, there simply weren't that many school possibilities out there and I felt like I was the best judge of which would be most suitable for my child. This consultant was reputed to be knowledgeable, but my sense is that she worked mostly in terms of schools’ “reputations,” which is information that you can often get for free from teachers and other parents. I don’t think she had particularly current or indepth knowledge of, say, the structure of second grade classrooms at different schools, nor do I think it is realistic it is to expect someone to keep up at that level. That is not to dissuade you from using a consultant, but just to inquire about their expertise and consider whether what they provide is what you need.

[Anonymous]

18:28 again. I totally see the pp's point about the value of a consultant (or lack thereof) That's why I recommended Spodak, Stefano since they actually do the testing and learn about your child through that process. Then they will recommend schools to you based on your child's scores (for example, they told me my dc's scores were too low to apply to a certain school so I didn't bother). As I said, this is part of the testing process and I didn't pay to have them do school visits or anything like that. I do agree with the pp, that especially for special needs schools, there are a limited number and it is easy to visit all that appeal to you on your own so you can develop your own impressions. There are several threads on the special needs forum dealing with the various schools in the area.

[Anonymous]

We used Spodak Stefano for testing and advocacy at IEP meetings. The testing was fine but the advocacy was lacking. She hardly spoke at the meeting at all and there were no changes to the IEP despite the testing results. A waste of $$ for us. I know other people who have found consultants very helpful though so keep geting advice.

[Anonymous]

We were referred by our attorney to Leigh Ann Cahill and her group. It worked out really well because we got both Leigh Ann and her partner Cathy Biern as a team to help us when DC was in crisis. We started with the hourly at $175 but switched to the full placement which was $2700.

DC is all signed up for school and ready for September. What a relief.