Reply to Any parent of SN child at Bridges?

Forum Index » DC Public and Public Charter Schools

Reply to "Any parent of SN child at Bridges?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Experiences with SN, like some other experiences at Bridges, are I think a bit uneven - possibly just this year in particular.  From our experience, I can tell you your child WILL get the related services on their IEP, and they'll get them on the weekly schedule like they should be done.  You will get weekly progress notes, providers will offer to meet with you every quarter - I'm sure they'd be open to a meeting at another time if needed.  Services are appropriate for kid needs - they seem to do far less (if any) doubling or tripling up on such services, versus our DCPS where my kid was routinely pulled with other kids with speech delays in a group, and basically the speech therapist traded off working with one and then another (so it wasn't a group, but just clocking hours for two kids at once while giving half the services).  Bridges will pull with a peer (often not delayed) where appropriate for skills, and will do individual in other instances - much more based on kid's needs than the need to cram all kids in.  Their speech and OT staff are full time at the school, they have several, that helps significantly from a service provision perspective - in terms of kid getting support during the time of day they need it, make up sessions, etc.  They also have equipment on site to use (like a swing for OT).  (I contrast this to DCPS where a month in they still hadn't started one of our related services, they refused to give us tracking sheets, their plan to cover an known extended leave was...well there wasn't a plan, and so on)

They are also more willing to explore/add other services than DCPS.  I'd guess they'd be more willing to evaluate as well and it's easier for them to do so as they have people on site, again - they don't have to do the central early stages thing.  They've certainly been far more willing (that is, they do it) to follow other pieces of the law in terms of review of things, people at meetings, considering parental input, etc, than we experienced at DCPS.  And they write better IEPs.  They also have an in house BCBA, and aides when needed don't seem like a nightmare to get.  They have more in house support for students and more experience utilizing it than many other (but not all) charters.

That said, in our experience and talking to some others this year, there seems to be a tendency or push for them to decrease classroom support for some kids which some parents find really unsettling (myself included).  As in, significantly less support than even DCPS was willing to provide.  To the detriment of some kids.  They've had some staffing shifts/departures and issues with inclusion support this year - I don't know if that's resolved completely and whether that contributed.  But I've heard a similar experience from 3 or 4 other families now that makes me wonder.  I'm not clear if that has impacted the provision of some specialized instruction services at all - if any kids are missing some services or what - those are a lot harder to track than related services.  However I've also not asked for documentation, yet, for ours, so it's quite possible they do track and can easily show they fulfill those hours. They also tend towards a bit of the same issue as DCPS, where their inclusion classroom (which is meant to have a higher proportion of kids with IEPs and gets correspondingly more special ed support throughout the day) may have tipped the balance into just a few too many needs/not quite enough support for some kiddos.  I don't know if they routinely have such a classroom, or it's simply how things worked out this year.

They seem to do really well by some kids, and not quite so well by others, but having experienced both early stages/DCPS and Bridges, the experience and support is better at Bridges for many.  It could be better still - we are lotterying for a very few select school where we understand the approach to be better for our child's needs and are contemplating leaving DC, because while Bridges does it better than many, I'm not sure it's good enough and we have one of the kids not getting quite the right support (note that we haven't given up on working with the school on this, just that we don't think they'll get there).  However, I know many people who are quite pleased with their experience - at least from what they say - on the special ed side of things, some who left Bridges and returned, others who specifically sought them out, some who came from DCPS.  This is where your experience may vary based on your child's needs, diagnosis, those things relative to other kids and other things - though that is true of other places too.  I've been impressed with the knowledge of the general ed staff we work with, which makes a difference in a kid's day.  And I greatly appreciate not feeling like I have to fight over every little thing that ought to be done anyway - timelines, procedural stuff, actually providing hours - they do it.

I don't know if that answers your question, or was far more than you are looking for.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics