Reply to Does Early Stages serve charter students?

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Reply to "Does Early Stages serve charter students?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]From the Early Stages Website .....
"...Early Stages is a DC Public Schools diagnostic center for children between the ages of 2 years 8 months and 5 years 10 months. We help identify any delays that your child may have and we arrange services to address them. We can serve any child who goes to a DC public school, is home-schooled or has not yet entered the school system. [b]Please call us if your child attends a charter school.[/b] We will help you find the right person to talk to."

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In my experience, if you call Early Stages for a child who is in a charter school that serves as its own LEA, Early Stages will instruct you to call the special ed coordinator, and will help you find that person's number, and provide instruction on how to get the ball rolling and timelines started.  They won't actually test the child though, as they are part of the DCPS LEA, and only responsible for testing students who are part of that LEA.

Charters can also contract with Early Stages, if they have personnel available to do the testing.  I haven't had recent experience with this because the testing the one time my school did this was very poorly done, so we've figured out other solutions.

There is a lot of confusion as to who is responsible for testing kids between the date when they accept a slot in a charter that is it's own LEA, and the first day of school.  For kids who are currently attending DCPS, and plan to move, it is clear that DCPS continues to be their LEA until the last day of school, but unclear which LEA is in charge during the summer.  For kids who are not attending school, and plan to attend charters in the fall, it is even less clear.   DCPS will maintain that the students are the responsibility of the charter from the day they accept the spot.  The charters maintain that they are not responsible until the first day of school.  For kids who start charters at 3, and need an IEP in place on day one to be successful, this is a huge problem that has yet to be resolved.[/quote]

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