How do people afford the Lab School?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get a better job

Not helpfuk

It is honest though. If a SN private is best option and you want it for your child, then you dramatically cut your expenses, increase your income witha new job that pays more or take on an additional job, and apply for financial aid.

If you don’t want to or can’t do those things, then you figure out how to make public school work for your kid.

It isn’t different than other financial decisions: buying a home, paying for college, or buying a new car. Sending your kid to private school is a luxury, be it a SN private or a non-SN private. Maybe that isn’t how it should work, but you have to work with our current reality.

It was not a luxury sending our child to private for a few years. We did a cheaper one we could afford but it was a necessity. We got a huge run around from the school system to enroll our child let alone get services and by the time we paid an attorney to fight it in terms of time and money we were better off paying for private services and school.

My husband did get a better job. Not much else to cut, especially housing.

If you are in the D.C. metro area, can you please share the schools you found that were cheaper. DC desperately needs to be in one of these schools but there's no way we can afford $40K/year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought most kids at the Lab were there with public funds via an IEP

DC funds about 20% of all Lab School students.

Not sure if any of the suburban districts pay for students to attend.

MoCo specializes in not providing an appropriate education AND not paying both.

Is some of the tuition deductible on your taxes as a medical expense if a doctor signs off that the child needs the special school ?

This is going to be our first year in trying this angle. We talked with our tax person and we're going to try and get DC's dyslexia tutoring deducted from our FSA (It is deductible with Dr's note and special form) and as a medical expense. Many SN schools say that the tuition can be deducted as a medical expense with a Dr's diagnosis, but when we ran the numbers with our tax person and the new tax laws (thanks IRS!), with our income, at most we would be getting back $3-4k. That's a bigggg pill to swallow if we didn't qualify or the school didn't give us any financial aid. Plus as with any private school (SN or not) tuition ALWAYS goes up, so it may be $40k now, but in 5ish years when DC is in high school or middle school, who knows how much the tuition would be. We can't save for college/living expenses/etc. AND send DC to a SN school, so we cobble what we can with tutors and public school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get a better job

Not helpfuk

It is honest though. If a SN private is best option and you want it for your child, then you dramatically cut your expenses, increase your income witha new job that pays more or take on an additional job, and apply for financial aid.

If you don’t want to or can’t do those things, then you figure out how to make public school work for your kid.

It isn’t different than other financial decisions: buying a home, paying for college, or buying a new car. Sending your kid to private school is a luxury, be it a SN private or a non-SN private. Maybe that isn’t how it should work, but you have to work with our current reality.

It was not a luxury sending our child to private for a few years. We did a cheaper one we could afford but it was a necessity. We got a huge run around from the school system to enroll our child let alone get services and by the time we paid an attorney to fight it in terms of time and money we were better off paying for private services and school.

My husband did get a better job. Not much else to cut, especially housing.

If you are in the D.C. metro area, can you please share the schools you found that were cheaper. DC desperately needs to be in one of these schools but there's no way we can afford $40K/year.

There are some SN schools in Mt. Airy and outside Baltimore (aka Glenwood Academy and Legacy school), and I think the Chelsea School and were a tad cheaper, but wayyy far from our house and the reviews are very mixed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought most kids at the Lab were there with public funds via an IEP

DC funds about 20% of all Lab School students.

Not sure if any of the suburban districts pay for students to attend.

MoCo specializes in not providing an appropriate education AND not paying both.

Is some of the tuition deductible on your taxes as a medical expense if a doctor signs off that the child needs the special school ?

This is going to be our first year in trying this angle. We talked with our tax person and we're going to try and get DC's dyslexia tutoring deducted from our FSA (It is deductible with Dr's note and special form) and as a medical expense. Many SN schools say that the tuition can be deducted as a medical expense with a Dr's diagnosis, but when we ran the numbers with our tax person and the new tax laws (thanks IRS!), with our income, at most we would be getting back $3-4k. That's a bigggg pill to swallow if we didn't qualify or the school didn't give us any financial aid. Plus as with any private school (SN or not) tuition ALWAYS goes up, so it may be $40k now, but in 5ish years when DC is in high school or middle school, who knows how much the tuition would be. We can't save for college/living expenses/etc. AND send DC to a SN school, so we cobble what we can with tutors and public school.

A little beside the point, but you shouldn't be blaming the IRS, but instead Congress and the president. IRS just implements the laws that are passed.

[Anonymous]

OP, have you looked at Commonwealth? I don't know what their FA is like, but I have heard amazing things about this school. May be more practical for you than focusing so much on just LAB. Frankly, LAB is great, but maybe a little overhyped.
https://www.ca-empowers.org/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Get a better job

Not helpfuk

It is honest though. If a SN private is best option and you want it for your child, then you dramatically cut your expenses, increase your income witha new job that pays more or take on an additional job, and apply for financial aid.

If you don’t want to or can’t do those things, then you figure out how to make public school work for your kid.

It isn’t different than other financial decisions: buying a home, paying for college, or buying a new car. Sending your kid to private school is a luxury, be it a SN private or a non-SN private. Maybe that isn’t how it should work, but you have to work with our current reality.

It was not a luxury sending our child to private for a few years. We did a cheaper one we could afford but it was a necessity. We got a huge run around from the school system to enroll our child let alone get services and by the time we paid an attorney to fight it in terms of time and money we were better off paying for private services and school.

My husband did get a better job. Not much else to cut, especially housing.

If you are in the D.C. metro area, can you please share the schools you found that were cheaper. DC desperately needs to be in one of these schools but there's no way we can afford $40K/year.

Its only for little ones and they wouldn't take behavioral or LD or anything beyond very mild ASD and I wouldn't recommend as they've had staffing changes and all the good staff are gone. If you are ok with religion, I looked at a few Catholic schools and some said they had resource teachers and seemed supportive. Others were not supportive at all but it really depends your child's needs and behavior. If you are looking at Lab, none of the smaller privates would probably be able to handle the needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought most kids at the Lab were there with public funds via an IEP

DC funds about 20% of all Lab School students.

Not sure if any of the suburban districts pay for students to attend.

MoCo specializes in not providing an appropriate education AND not paying both.

Is some of the tuition deductible on your taxes as a medical expense if a doctor signs off that the child needs the special school ?

This is going to be our first year in trying this angle. We talked with our tax person and we're going to try and get DC's dyslexia tutoring deducted from our FSA (It is deductible with Dr's note and special form) and as a medical expense. Many SN schools say that the tuition can be deducted as a medical expense with a Dr's diagnosis, but when we ran the numbers with our tax person and the new tax laws (thanks IRS!), with our income, at most we would be getting back $3-4k. That's a bigggg pill to swallow if we didn't qualify or the school didn't give us any financial aid. Plus as with any private school (SN or not) tuition ALWAYS goes up, so it may be $40k now, but in 5ish years when DC is in high school or middle school, who knows how much the tuition would be. We can't save for college/living expenses/etc. AND send DC to a SN school, so we cobble what we can with tutors and public school.

If we were not able to take our SN school tuition as a medical deduction (paid $3K for private assessment and have the recommendation), we would have had to pay $6K in taxes this year due to the SALT deduction. With the tens of thousands of dollars of medical expenses, we are getting a whopping $1500 back. Medical expenses also have to be at least 7.5-10% of your AGI to qualify for deduction, so taking off tutoring or just therapy services is probably not going to get a lot of NoVans there.

Another option to consider is that you may now be able to use 529 money for private school. Virginia lets you contribute up to $4000/account/year, and they assign a different account per investment type in their state 529 InVEST plan (so, the age-based plan, all-stock, FDIC-insured, etc. options each generate a separate account, not a consolidated profile with multiple investments). We do not do this, but it may be possible to start maxing out 529 to use for private school tuition, if needed. If OP's kid is only in preschool, I'd recommend giving public school a chance for K - that gives a few years to save. (*Not a tax professional, consult your own before going at this strategy.)