Question about DC EIP vs DC School Public System after 3 year old

[Anonymous]

All,
Sorry if this has been discussed before but I could not find it.

Our son (26 months) is currently in the DC EIP (Early Intervention Program) and we have been pleased with the results so far as it helped him with the production of more signals, words, and sentences.
We understand that when he reaches the 3-year-old mark and if he is found to be eligible, there is an opportunity to continue this program with 2 different formats:
- One option is to extend the DC EIP for one more year and continue the weekly meetings with the speech therapist at home.
- The other option is to go through the DC Public School System where the service will be provided on-school premises directly. We understand this provides at the age of 3 a guaranteed spot, at a school potentially close to our place in the NW.
Both are free options and look interesting to us. The DC EIP people are leaving the decision with us although their comparison table slightly favors the extension of their own program.

Has any of you tried the DC Public School option? If so, I'd love to hear any positive and negatives insights, especially as I am sure there are aspects we have not considered.

Thanks in advance for all your help.
Looking forward to discussing with you.
Have a good Sunday.
Pierre

[Anonymous]

If he's 26 months old now, he turns 3 in the spring, right? So the classroom he will be in will have mostly 4 year olds by the time he starts. I would be reluctant to have a speech delayed new 3 year old be the youngest kid, by a lot, and start so close to the end of the year. Also, does staying in EIP make it easier to continue services over the summer?

[Anonymous]

I assume he is currently with Strong Start, has it qualified already with Early Stage? We are in a similar situation with our speech delayed twins, if they qualify for the program, we will probably put the in DCPS school, but they are a few month older than yours...

[Anonymous]

OP here--Thank you both. The age differential could be a factor. He will be at a maternal school this coming year so hopefully, we can observe how he handles it.
He has not been found eligible for Early Stage yet but our annual review this week with DC EIP let us believe he will probably be.

Another concern is: in order for him to be eligible for either option, we need to give our consent to the DCPS system to access his files. Will it create any issue later in his education life? Could this "mark" somehow be detrimental to him if we were to send him to a private school, etc...?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here--Thank you both. The age differential could be a factor. He will be at a maternal school this coming year so hopefully, we can observe how he handles it.
He has not been found eligible for Early Stage yet but our annual review this week with DC EIP let us believe he will probably be.

Another concern is: in order for him to be eligible for either option, we need to give our consent to the DCPS system to access his files. Will it create any issue later in his education life? Could this "mark" somehow be detrimental to him if we were to send him to a private school, etc...?

FWIW OP If your child is given an early stages placement at a DCPS, he will be in a PK3 class, with all 3 year olds (a few schools have mixed age preschool classes, but most do not).

If you apply to private school in teh future, you will be asked if your child has or ever had an IEP / IFSP. So unless you intend to lie, you will need to disclose the disability.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here--Thank you both. The age differential could be a factor. He will be at a maternal school this coming year so hopefully, we can observe how he handles it.
He has not been found eligible for Early Stage yet but our annual review this week with DC EIP let us believe he will probably be.

Another concern is: in order for him to be eligible for either option, we need to give our consent to the DCPS system to access his files. Will it create any issue later in his education life? Could this "mark" somehow be detrimental to him if we were to send him to a private school, etc...?

FWIW OP If your child is given an early stages placement at a DCPS, he will be in a PK3 class, with all 3 year olds (a few schools have mixed age preschool classes, but most do not).

If you apply to private school in teh future, you will be asked if your child has or ever had an IEP / IFSP. So unless you intend to lie, you will need to disclose the disability.

Not OP, PP: 18:01 I didn't know that private school asked about IEP/IFSP, what do they need that for if the kid has graduated from these services?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here--Thank you both. The age differential could be a factor. He will be at a maternal school this coming year so hopefully, we can observe how he handles it.
He has not been found eligible for Early Stage yet but our annual review this week with DC EIP let us believe he will probably be.

Another concern is: in order for him to be eligible for either option, we need to give our consent to the DCPS system to access his files. Will it create any issue later in his education life? Could this "mark" somehow be detrimental to him if we were to send him to a private school, etc...?

FWIW OP If your child is given an early stages placement at a DCPS, he will be in a PK3 class, with all 3 year olds (a few schools have mixed age preschool classes, but most do not).

If you apply to private school in teh future, you will be asked if your child has or ever had an IEP / IFSP. So unless you intend to lie, you will need to disclose the disability.

Not OP, PP: 18:01 I didn't know that private school asked about IEP/IFSP, what do they need that for if the kid has graduated from these services?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here--Thank you both. The age differential could be a factor. He will be at a maternal school this coming year so hopefully, we can observe how he handles it.
He has not been found eligible for Early Stage yet but our annual review this week with DC EIP let us believe he will probably be.

Another concern is: in order for him to be eligible for either option, we need to give our consent to the DCPS system to access his files. Will it create any issue later in his education life? Could this "mark" somehow be detrimental to him if we were to send him to a private school, etc...?

FWIW OP If your child is given an early stages placement at a DCPS, he will be in a PK3 class, with all 3 year olds (a few schools have mixed age preschool classes, but most do not).

If you apply to private school in teh future, you will be asked if your child has or ever had an IEP / IFSP. So unless you intend to lie, you will need to disclose the disability.

Not OP, PP: 18:01 I didn't know that private school asked about IEP/IFSP, what do they need that for if the kid has graduated from these services?

I think they want to know the whole educational history but I'm speculating. I don't consider it to be a secret though, so it didn't bother me to answer truthfully. If they were going to not admit my child because they need or needed services, I'd rather know before forking over significant sums.

If you want to keep things 100% confidential, then you shouldn't accept county / city services period.

[Anonymous]

We went through this process. At the time we made the choice, we'd gotten into a charter school (through the lottery) that we were very excited about. We did not love our daycare at the time, and both parents work outside the home. So we chose DCPS, and regretted it. Here were the problems we had with our choice:

- our son's disabilities looked less severe at age 2.5, when we made the decision, than at age 3.25, when he started at the charter school.
- our son didn't make much progress in speech his first year in school. There could be multiple reasons for this, but I think the only one we could control is that he just didn't have a good chemistry with the school's speech therapist. IME, you get the therapist the school has on staff or contracts with. Unless that therapist gets fired or quits, you can't switch to a different one.
- we wanted to do private therapy in addition to the ones provided at school, and a full time school schedule made it hard to do this.
- the placement we were offered by Early Stages (a seat in the PK3 class at our in-bound DCPS with about 3-4 hours of pull out and push in therapy per week) was, in hindsight, woefully inadequate given his needs. We went with a charter school instead (Bridges), who were very willing to increase our son's service hours, so the Early Stages IEP and placement were moot. But I include this information just so you know that if you accept the Early Stages placement, your DCPS may not be very willing to work with you if you find the IEP Early Stages drafted is inadequate. (They may work with, they may not . . . I'm just saying that you don't know.)
- once you take the school option, you can't go back. So if you accept the spot at a DCPS, and then find that's it's not working and withdraw your child, you will not have access to any free therapies. And you will have to find a new childcare arrangement unless you are already a SAHP. (And Early Stages will not be required to reevaluate you or offer you a different placement, although I've been told that they might, out of the goodness of their hearts, consider that if you ask them.)

Hindsight is 20/20, but if I'd known all these things a year ago, I would have found a special needs daycare/private preschool program for my son, had the Strong Start therapists visit him at that location, and also supplemented with private speech and OT. This would have been more expensive for us, but I think it probably would have been more effective in terms of treating at least his speech delay.

Good luck with your decision.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We went through this process. At the time we made the choice, we'd gotten into a charter school (through the lottery) that we were very excited about. We did not love our daycare at the time, and both parents work outside the home. So we chose DCPS, and regretted it. Here were the problems we had with our choice:

- our son's disabilities looked less severe at age 2.5, when we made the decision, than at age 3.25, when he started at the charter school.
- our son didn't make much progress in speech his first year in school. There could be multiple reasons for this, but I think the only one we could control is that he just didn't have a good chemistry with the school's speech therapist. IME, you get the therapist the school has on staff or contracts with. Unless that therapist gets fired or quits, you can't switch to a different one.
- we wanted to do private therapy in addition to the ones provided at school, and a full time school schedule made it hard to do this.
- the placement we were offered by Early Stages (a seat in the PK3 class at our in-bound DCPS with about 3-4 hours of pull out and push in therapy per week) was, in hindsight, woefully inadequate given his needs. We went with a charter school instead (Bridges), who were very willing to increase our son's service hours, so the Early Stages IEP and placement were moot. But I include this information just so you know that if you accept the Early Stages placement, your DCPS may not be very willing to work with you if you find the IEP Early Stages drafted is inadequate. (They may work with, they may not . . . I'm just saying that you don't know.)
- once you take the school option, you can't go back. So if you accept the spot at a DCPS, and then find that's it's not working and withdraw your child, you will not have access to any free therapies. And you will have to find a new childcare arrangement unless you are already a SAHP. (And Early Stages will not be required to reevaluate you or offer you a different placement, although I've been told that they might, out of the goodness of their hearts, consider that if you ask them.)

Hindsight is 20/20, but if I'd known all these things a year ago, I would have found a special needs daycare/private preschool program for my son, had the Strong Start therapists visit him at that location, and also supplemented with private speech and OT. This would have been more expensive for us, but I think it probably would have been more effective in terms of treating at least his speech delay.

Good luck with your decision.

I think you can still get services if enrolled in a private daycare/preschool, but they are very minimal (and DCPS was mucking with the model last I heard). We did it for our 4 year old, but mainly just to have the "placeholder" IEP eligibility for Kindergarten. Since he was already 4, testing was done through Early Stages initially, and the IEP was later developed through the Private and Religious School Office of OSSE. They also developed a new IEP for us prior to enrolling in DCPS IB for K, and it was really strong - we were very pleased with it.

There's definitely something to be said for opting for private for 3 and 4 year olds. While you may have fewer hours of services for free, you have a LOT more ability to stay in close contact with the teachers and administration, in my experience. Also, private preschools/daycares sometimes just have a better and lower-stress atmosphere for kids, if behavior/anxiety/etc are at all an issue. On the flip side, private schools don't have to accommodate you in cases of bad behavioral issues, but thankfully we did not encounter that. If you have a kid with mild SN it's definitely something to consider. OTOH for more intensive needs like an autism diagnosis, I'd likely go with the public placement to get more services sooner.

[Anonymous]

OP here— thank you again. Very valuable insights. A tougher choice than I thought currently our son is at home with an Aupair and he did not have any school experience. However I am not expecting him to experience any issues as he is quite a social kid. The only issue he is facing is the lack of communication and I am afraid it can be a bigger issue than we thought.

He is in a three-language environment currently and his first language is Turkish followed by English and then French.. He has only about 50 words (in total) and just started to make 2-3 word very basic sentences. The maternal school he will start in September is a French one and I hope we are not making a mistake to push English aside!

[Anonymous]

Bumping this up.

We are in this boat now. Our soon-to-be 3yo qualifies for Strong Start services and we have to make the same decision. OP, if you're reading this, what did you decide to do? If we choose DCPS with an IEP, our 3yo will only be attending school for a few months before school lets out for summer. Many people have said having our child with older children will be good both with speech and socially. Our child has never been to a school - only with a nanny.

To the person who posted 06/04/2018 13:01, thank you for your insight! Is there anyone else who chose the DCPS option that could chime in? I'd appreciate it!