Creative Minds for pk3/pk4?
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Anonymous
Every school must serve special needs kids in the regular classroom. It is the law. Floortime helps some children with autism. But there is no evidence that it will help a child with dyslexia learn to read, teach a child with an expressive speech disorder to speak or improve phonemic awareness, or remediate dysgraphia etc. As a public school CMI must meet all the needs of all the kids — including the NT ones. |
Anonymous
| CMI has been our first choice before the lottery and it still is after we attended for a few years. We had to leave because of a move abroad and we miss CMI every day. It's such a nurturing place for children and, most importantly, the teachers have so much freedom to work the way they feel fits the classroom and each individual child. Despite low pay, teachers teach to stay at CMI (some have been there since school opened) because they don't want the rigidness of DCPS. Love love CMI. Do apply and I hope you get in! |
Anonymous
| I’m curious how many teachers have been there 5+ years? |
Anonymous
Any published data to support this? |
Anonymous
Yes look it up on PubMed. |
Anonymous
PP here. I looked up a few references provided on the Greenspan website. I don't see any compelling evidence for the efficacy of this approach, unless there are studies I'm missing. For example, this recent pilot study does not have a control arm, and it involves only 11 families. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24865120 Ditto here--single-arm pilot study. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21690083 It seems that all the studies I saw of Floortime are small, open-label, single-arm studies. Are there any studies that have compared Floortime to other treatments? Otherwise you run the risk of not being able to rule out placebo effects in the Floortime group. Which basically means it's unclear whether Floortime works for children with autims, or whether they are improving due to something not directly related to Floortime, such as merely extra attention being paid to these kids. This matters because when you're going to put stock in a particular treatment and require teachers to be trained in it, etc., there should be clear evidence from rigorous studies that it's effective. Not sure if that evidence exists, in this case--again, unless there's some evidence I've missed. |
Anonymous
The teachers do NOT have freedom to work the way they feel fits the classroom. The teachers must use Responsive Classroom, they must implement the IPC and they must also implement CMI's behavioral curriculum/program, Love and Logic. Not to mention that they must make sure that they are following the Common Core curriculum on the correct timetable so that students can be ready for PARCC. I sometimes wondered how the teachers had time to actually teach in light of all the requirements. If you attended for a few years, and left when your kid was in, say, first or second grade, you can't possibly speak with authority on the school. There is a BIG difference between PK3 and 2nd or 3rd grade. Teachers (and staff, for that matter) do NOT stay. Look at the data. This is public information. |
Anonymous
No, that is not the law. Every local education agency (usually the school district, in DC, each charter is it's own LEA) must serve SN kids in the least restrictive environment where they can get an appropriate education. For many, this will be the regular classroom. But kids with more severe SN get pushed into segregated rooms with all SN kids because the LEA/charter/school district argues that the child cannot get an appropriate education in the regular classroom. (Of course, some SN needs kids are not "pushed" into these programs; many parents want such specialized programs!) CMI is unique -- as far as I can tell -- because their philosophy is that SN kids -- even kids with severe special needs and related behavior problems -- get educated in the regular classrooms. Other charter schools which don't have special ed classrooms will pay for the kids to be placed in another LEA (or, more likely, pressure the family out of the school, but they can't admit to that because it is illegal). |
Anonymous
What you find admirable does not necessarily work for all children. One size fits all is not the point of IDEA. Meeting every student's educational needs is the point. CMI may work for students who fit their model, but they haven't yet figured out how to teach all children. |
Anonymous
Most schools haven’t figured out how to teach ALL children...thus the gap. |
Anonymous
That’s like saying, we give antibiotics to everyone. Great. But if you don’t have an infection, so what? |
Anonymous
They haven’t figured out most kids. CMI does Autism. That’s it. All other kids must fit into this model. |
Anonymous
| can a parent tell us if they feel like their typical kid is short changed because the teachers are overwhelmed by the SN kids? |
Anonymous
Hi, not at all the case with our kindergartner. We've had a very easy, good few years there since our child started CMI in PK3. Zero major disruptions in the classroom that we're aware of. Children with high needs, in our classroom experiences, have a one-on-one aide all day with them. Again, just what we've observed in our child's classes--I don't know if or how this shifts in older grades. And to get back to OP's question--we find CMI to be a really nice place for our child. I suspect DC would be just fine in a number of other schools, but have enjoyed the arts emphasis and have had GREAT teachers each year there. The campus is a major pro in our book as well, just a beautiful space and we love the interactions with the residents of the Soldier's Home and proximity to Lincoln's Cottage. |
Anonymous
Parent who has left CMI, notice most of the parents weighing in are K and below. Once your child gets into 2nd or 3rd grade and behavior starts being more of an issue the NT fade into the background and fall behind. |