Mainstream private MS for ASD

[Anonymous]

Templeton might be a good fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hard to get a spot for 6th anywhere. You could try McLean School of Maryland. The accommodate learning differences, but tend to have kids with very mild issues only and they are considered more of a hybrid between mainstream and very mild SN.

Y’all need to stop recommending schools like McLean and Siena for autistic children. They actively discriminate against these kids. They will not accept them. I know this first hand. ASD is tough.

Check out Diener. They’re expanding this year with a new building so may still have room.

“Actively discriminate”?

So you would use those same words for Sidwell and GDS and Holton and others who do not feel they are set up to handle autistic kids and thus reject such applicants?

Those schools do admit ASD kids. Contrast that with McLean, which expressly states that it does not serve ASD kids. Look at its website and ask Admissions. We only applied to mainstream privates for HS and submitted a neuropsych that included DC's ASD-1 diagnosis. DC was accepted at one school, waitlisted at another, and not accepted at the third. All three schools rejected neurotypical kids this year. But McLean would not have even interviewed DC.

McLean and Commonwealth are special needs schools because they have built-in executive functioning supports that you would not find at mainstream privates. But there is a stigma attached to ASD. McLean and Commonwealth cater to parents of ADHD kids who want to believe that their kids do not have special needs, so not admitting ASD kids helps them live that fiction. The reality is that some ASD kids need fewer classroom supports than kids with ADHD, dyslexia, etc., which is why you find ASD kids in all of the privates, including Sidwell, GDS, etc. In other words, kids with ASD do not categorically have needs that a mainstream school cannot provide. That's why when McLean states that it is not designed to serve ASD kids, it is discriminating. Admitting ASD kids will scare off the parents of the ADHD kids. (By the way, ADHD and ASD are often co-morbid). It's also why the first-tier and second-tier mainstream privates take ASD kids. They have more than enough applicants and will take an ASD kid who is nerdy but likely to be admitted to a very selective college or university.