Is a "top" school district really the right choice for special needs kids?
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Anonymous
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Also, while I value chess dad's advice, there's always stuff left out of the story like their child had a lot of outbursts at this supposedly great charter and they also spent a year at Auburn where their child did not do well at all.
I bring this up to you OP because things don't always go in one direction. With those diagnoses it's sometimes one step forward two steps back. I've been happy to hear chess dad's child is doing well at the mainstream private. |
Anonymous
OP here. No reality check needed. We don’t plan for 1:1 in public. The 1:1 aide is only a recommendation made to us if we stay in a mainstream private. And I always know it’s mostly self-funded (or partially by insurance if lucky). If you know any private that would allow 1:1 aide (for social skills, not for physical disability), please let me know. To my knowledge most PK-2 or PK-3 places are probably OK with it during the preschool program, and it becomes an issue once the kid enters K. |
Anonymous
It’s mom not dad this time. DS had a bad 1/2 year in second grade before his ADHD was diagnosed. Also, DS did not get along with his Sp Ed teacher in second grade and she was replaced. So much for out bursts in elementary school. Overall, our charter was great for prek-2 and ok for 3-5. DS went to Auburn for a year. A huge waste of time and money. He certainly did not learn anything that year and I got more phone calls than I ever did at the charter. DS’s behavior was awful that year too. Terrible fit. |
Anonymous
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DS went to Auburn for 6 grade since our charter was prek-5. This was at the advice of our neuropsych - but I think he did not have current info.
My kid has had 1 psycho Ed eval and 2 neuropsych evals. But I think for all the useful info in neuropsych evals, school recommendations tend to be the weakest: it’s hard to keep up with current info…. Something to keep in mind going forward, OP. |
Anonymous
I'm not in any way implying that, nor do I want this thread to focus on that. For FCPS/MCPS, the SN resources are at the county level, so they are not very relevant to this thread. In many other places, the SN resources are at the school district level, so "top" school district will also have "top" SN resources too, which is the dilemma this thread is trying to discuss. Please don't turn this thread into "who is the best school district" type of discussion ... thousands of thanks. |
Anonymous
Good to know. Thank you so much! |
Anonymous
NP here. "W district" is an imperfect DCUM shorthand for MCPS high school clusters in many of the wealthiest areas. The schools are suburban, they skew more white than the county overall. In context of Special Ed, many families are highly educated and have the means for private testing, therapies, tutors. W school families who don't have a good experience account for much of the enrollment at private schools such as Lab, Siena, McLean, or for children with milder disabilities, the more mainstream privates. |
Anonymous
OP here. Understood. In any case I learned a ton from all the previous posters and I thank all of them. I know it's always some step forward and some step back ... but's it's good to know it eventually could lead to something great. A lot of things happen by luck or by chance (like you happen to be in a charter school that's good for SN; or you happen to have a good SN teacher, etc), but we as parents still need to do our best to increase the odds for our SN kid 
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Anonymous
OP here. Where did you go from Auburn? I'm very interested in that because I heard that once the kid is in a SN private like Auburn/KTS, it's relatively hard to transfer him/her to a mainstream private since the mainstream may not want to take a chance on a student from SN private. |
Anonymous
An eval from a developmental pediatrician is more like a psycho eval (than a neuropsych eval), right? Should we get a neuropsych eval? Thanks for any input. |
Anonymous
We went to Fusion which my DS loved as opposed to Auburn. Fusion was great! We were able to catch DS up in English: vocabulary, grammar and writing. The main reason we hated Auburn was bc the English teacher was illiterate judging by all his grammatical errors on progress reports. He also assigned Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein to 6 graders 
Back on point. Then Fusion went to virtual learning for 1/2 the year. After Fusion, I hired private tutors for a year to fill out DS’s holes in English and Math. DS did great at Fusion, all As, great recommendations from his English, Math, Science and HOS which is why DS is at the school he is now. Took the SSAT. We applied to a bunch of mainstream private schools and he got into all and goes to his first choice. COVID was actually great because we had DS all caught up. He is an academic rock star  . Excels in his top math class and is an excellent writer. Very self motivated, neat, well organized with good time management.
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Anonymous
Neuropsych evals are usually done when the child is 7, mainly because they want kids to take the WISC not the WIPPSI. So wait. My DS had the psycho Ed eval at 4 then neuropsych evals at 7 and 10. It’s usually recommended that neuropsych evals are done every 3 years but we didn’t do another at 13, mainly because DS isn’t having any issues and doesn’t need an IEP. A developmental pediatrician evaluation isn’t a psychoed eval. Our dev ped wanted to see the results of our kid’s psych Ed eval. I would recommend that your child get a psych Ed eval if you want to send her to public school with IEP or you can ask the public school do it as part of the IEP process. |
Anonymous
Thank you so much. I only remotely heard about Fusion and I thought they are mainly a collection of regional offices providing 1:1 tutors? It is there actually a school, a class and a head of school at each location? For your DS to reach a point that he “Excels in his top math class and is an excellent writer. Very self motivated, neat, well organized with good time management”, do you think it’s mainly due to the one year at Fusion? Or it’s also related to the years he spend at the charter school? |
Anonymous
Noted. Thanks a lot |
Anonymous
Fusion is an accredited school, usually grades 7-12. Each branch has a head of school and yes, each one is a school w/HOS. It was started in Solano Beach, CA which is near La Jolla. Their teaching model is 1:1. They have schools all over the country. DS attended the DC branch. When he was there, there were kids like him with ASD and/or ADHD and lots of others who needed a flexible schedule, like a girl who modeled, a ballerina, a kid who had a significant following on social media, a competitive kayaker, etc… Several kids who attended Auburn but left. DS plays tournament chess and the flexible schedule worked well for us. I think the reason he is doing well now is due to several things: He has a very high IQ, very fast processing and very superior working memory. We had his neuropsych come to an IEP meeting after DS got his first neuropsych eval and the gist of that meeting was that academically, DS can learn anything and expectations were always high. His executive functioning was always well supported by his charter school. The teachers did a very good job helping him with things like organizing his backpack, his folders, work assignments, etc. this included using timers especially in the early grades. Starting in third grade, DS always showed a preference to get his homework done at school in aftercare and I’ve always let him. He’s been pretty much homework independent since then. DS has a dysgraphia and a learning disability in written expression found when he was in 2nd grade. The most helpful was putting him on a laptop for writing starting in second grade. The school started working with him in writing in second grade but the main thing that was helpful was getting him to type on a laptop. Fusion cleared up his grammar and punctuation and we did a lot of vocabulary work after Fusion. Fusion has 2 classes for English, one for reading and comprehension and another for grammar and parts of sentences - this was much better than anything he learned at the charter. DS always tested 2-3 grades ahead in reading when he was at the charter. DS’s current English teacher is always telling us what a talented and creative writer he is so whatever it was, it worked. We discovered that there were huge holes in his knowledge of math facts during COVID. DS has always had a preference for doing math in his head and not showing his work. So we fixed those bad habits by getting him a tutor, a family friend who is a professor of biostatistics at a university. DS loves math so it makes it even more fun. Chess helped too. DS is no longer into it but he’s always had very intense interests so whatever it is, we support him in it. It brings him a lot of joy and happiness so why not
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