NW schools with best IEP services/Inclusive Ed

[Anonymous]

A friend is moving back to the area with rising 2nd grader who needs speech, OT, and has an IEP. She is looking for a an inclusive program. Anything worthwhile in DCPS?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A friend is moving back to the area with rising 2nd grader who needs speech, OT, and has an IEP. She is looking for a an inclusive program. Anything worthwhile in DCPS?

No.

Lafayette was terrible and I've spoken to unhappy parents at Hearst and Janney. Maybe Eaton or Murch are better, but dcps seems set up to deny services.

[Anonymous]

I would try to go to lab school or McLean or other private school.

[Anonymous]

Shepherd IEP team has been great for our DD.

[Anonymous]

Garrison

[Anonymous]

Shepherd SPED is nothing short of terrible.

[Anonymous]

Lafayette has been awful. Avoid the school.

[Anonymous]

Are any of the general Ed teachers good with kids with IEPs? Usually speech and OT are contracted so it can change each year. When you say SPED is awful at the school, what does that mean? Is it usually bad for all disabilities?

[Anonymous]

OP, I really hate to say this because I have tried so hard to make DCPS work for my student with an IEP but my advice for your friend is to look at MCPS and FCPS. In DCPS, you are dependent on your individual school and the vagaries of staffing which can change year to year. ES can be ok but MS is terrible (which may not be so much an issue if your friend’s child works through some challenges before MS).

[Anonymous]

What’s the IEP for? DCPS has some good specialized programs that are inclusion?

Speech and OT are pretty similar in every school, since such therapists travel from school to school (they’re not based at any one school).

Two of my kids have had both services throughout elementary. Such services have ranged from mediocre to good over the years, depending upon who we got that particular year. Regardless, we’ve always supplemented.

But it’s tough to justify such services after ECE without an appropriate diagnosis. Which leads me to my original question — what’s the IEP for?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the IEP for? DCPS has some good specialized programs that are inclusion?

Speech and OT are pretty similar in every school, since such therapists travel from school to school (they’re not based at any one school).

Two of my kids have had both services throughout elementary. Such services have ranged from mediocre to good over the years, depending upon who we got that particular year. Regardless, we’ve always supplemented.

But it’s tough to justify such services after ECE without an appropriate diagnosis. Which leads me to my original question — what’s the IEP for?

On an anonymous forum, the diagnosis is absolutely none of your business. The original poster is asking what schools provide these services well. Just take as a given that they think they will qualify. The school team will determine qualifications, its not for you to decide whether they will qualify for special education services.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What’s the IEP for? DCPS has some good specialized programs that are inclusion?

Speech and OT are pretty similar in every school, since such therapists travel from school to school (they’re not based at any one school).

Two of my kids have had both services throughout elementary. Such services have ranged from mediocre to good over the years, depending upon who we got that particular year. Regardless, we’ve always supplemented.

But it’s tough to justify such services after ECE without an appropriate diagnosis. Which leads me to my original question — what’s the IEP for?

DCPS doesn’t have any inclusion programs. Either a child is in self contained or resource.

Though as a self-contained teacher I have certainly given students inclusion hours in gen ed but that’s because the plan was to slowly transition them to gen ed/resource.

I would name my school for you OP but then I’d totally out myself lol. I’d say look at if the school has self contained. That’s actually a good thing because children in those programs often have related services meaning they will for sure have an OT and speech pathologist.

Then I’d ask the school how long the resource sped teachers have been there, if it’s less than 2 years that’s a bad sign.

I’d ask the school how they make sped student feel included, if they don’t have an answer right away, another bad sign.

Ask them how they are making sure all student are moving forward.

I’m also going to be honest here and say DCPS isn’t great for sped because admin often don’t care about sped, we are last. So unless the sped teachers are passionate and always advocating for their students you’ll have a lot of liberties taken with your child. Especially in NW schools.

[Anonymous]

I had a great experience at Bunker Hill with speech and the school was working to get my child OT before the pandemic. Of course, the school is Title 1 and not in NW...

[Anonymous]

My kid gets speech at Ludlow-Taylor and it’s been great even during the pandemic. L-T’s head of SPED is fantastic (he’s actually acting as the #2 at the school right now as well temporarily) and it has a number of self-contained classrooms so SPED is a priority. Also it’s first self-contained class opened in T2 thanks to a volunteer teacher and all self-contained classrooms started meeting demand (about 50%) in T3 and are reoffering every spot for T4, which tells you how dedicated those teachers are.

[Anonymous]

^ Sorry, I missed the NW requirement because it’s only in the title. L-T is in near NE Capitol Hill.