Reply to Moving to Besthesda for a new job, please recommend elementary schools. Thanks!

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Reply to "Moving to Besthesda for a new job, please recommend elementary schools. Thanks!"

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[quote=Anonymous]
OP - Good advice from last poster on the idea to come to the area and visit the schools you are interested in.  It is hard to balance out academic and social/communication needs.     I think you probably realize that kindergarten in many ways now is no longer a time for "play," but really like first grade was for young adults when they were in school.  So even if there is a floating classroom assistant, the focus is so much now on academics and providing support to kids that way - staying on task, doing specific work rather than how Suzie plays with Alice at whatever play center.

I think it would also be good to try to connect with parents of other young children with Autism in the area you are looking at if there are Autism specific boards or groups you culd find out about.  Another thought where speech therapy is so important for DD, you might try to get opinions of private speech therapists in the area as to which schools would provide the most ST services and social skills modeling.

For DD, if lunch is in a cafeteria, then I would request a "lunch buddy table" accommodation or somehow out at recess "a play partner" (rotating weekly) or however it might be done.  You might ask if DD started out in a more self-contained environment with mainstreaming, if this approach can transition into fuller maintreaming/inclusion.  Again, it is sometimes hard to learn what the experience of a student really is from what you are being told what you want to hear.

A final thought is that I am seeing from a granddaughter with no special needs - other than she is finding "the pace" of instruction in first grade fast with little extra support available within even a classroom of 16 student and is struggling.  A report card of all "P's" does very little to give a parent an indication of where skills are lacking etc.  In some areas of Montgomery County there is also a high number of ESL students which often means a different kind of intervention and support and a principal and staff may well be trying to balance out those needs, too.  Perhaps where you are looking this is not so prevalent an issue.  Again the best you can do is to go observe the school setting to see physically what a regular K class looks like, where are smaller classrooms located in relationship to regular K classes, how are therapies delivered push in or pull out and consider what might meet your daughter's needs best.  [/quote]

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