Reply to DC Charter for speech delays?

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Reply to "DC Charter for speech delays?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Yes, there are guaranteed spaces for children with IEPs (via Strong Start/Early Stages. Basically your IFSP will be transitioned to an IEP) and you can enroll your child as soon as your child turns 3 (e.g. if your child's birthday is in April 2018 you could start then).

However, if you opt out of DCPS and choose to go to a charter you will negotiate an IEP with that school after getting in via the lottery once school starts in fall 2018.

There are 2 charters that work hard to meet SN students' needs -- Creative Minds and Bridges. Each has some very happy parents and some detractors.

Others I'd recommend looking at are Lee Montessori, Inspired Teaching. [/quote]

We are at Bridges with a speech delayed child who has been diagnosed with ASD. Generally, Bridges has been great about getting our son the services outlined in his IEP and evaluating him for services not outlined in that IEP (which was developed by Strong Start/Early Stages). They are not, in my experience, a school where you have to fight for more services. Also big plus for us was that their aftercare provider can also provide ABA therapy in aftercare (for a fee -- our insurance covers it).  We are very happy with the ABA they do -- not rigid, very play based and child led, working on the goals that are important to us, including social communication.

My complaints -- our assigned preschool speech therapist went out on maternity leave early in the school year and I'm not totally confident that the contractor they have in her place is really on top of everything. I know my son gets the speech therapy outlined in his IEP, but I'm not sure if the therapist just isn't that effective or if he needs more hours or what. . . I'll have a conference with the contracting speech therapist soon but it's been hard to evaluate the speech therapy and communicate with the therapist because of this transition. However, by next year this should not be an issue.

A plus about Bridges is that they usually have two speech therapists on staff -- in many schools I talked to they relied on contract therapists who aren't at school most of the time (just drop in for their speech therapy appointments) and that can make it hard to communicate with them. I have heard other parents talk about having problems with contract service providers even doing the required amount of therapy. :(

Hopefully some other charter school parents can chime in, too.

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