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relocation pros & cons
MommaJ January 13, 2009
My family relocated from tx to la in 2003 due to my husbands job. My youngest was diagnosed at 3 with aspergers, adhd, pdd-nos with learning disabilities. He was in mainstream with special accomidations in Tx (2nd grade) and that is when we moved. He continued on that corse until 4th grade and was (and still is) placed in "self contained" classes. I contacted our old district and they do not have "self contained" classes. Everyone is mainstreamed! How do I find comparable or better education for my son back in tx so we can go home? We have no family in la, but have found reasonable resources out here. How would if find comparable or better resources in tx. BTW - The Greater North Houston Area
healthy11 January 13, 2009
Hi. I'm not from TX, but I do have a child with special ed needs, and I wanted to point out that every state has its own guidelines for special ed students, although federal law encourages LRE (least restrictive environment.) If your child's current IEP says he should be in a self-contained environment, and you moved, it is my understanding that the old one would be treated as "still in effect" (stay-put) until the new school district could do their own evaluation and propose a change of placement/services. As an equal member of the IEP team, you'd have to agree to it.
Greatschools has a Learning and Attention Difficulties Parents Group at http://community.greatschools.net/groups/11554, where lots of people are familiar with special ed issues, and you might like to join us.
My other recommendation would be to contact a parent support group or organization in Houston, and network through them to get information about the best schools and resources in the area. Out of all the issues you mentioned, PDD-NOS, since it's on the autism spectrum, would be the most likely to justify a smaller class placement, so maybe you want to try to contact www.thearc.org or a similar autism group for assistance.
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healthy11 January 13, 2009
In my area, I know children with Asperger's are often mainstreamed, with an aide if necessary. Many have above-average intelligence, so they can handle the regular classroom academics. I was thinking the PDD-NOS might be more limiting, but obviously every child is different.19270
MommaJ January 13, 2009
You are right. All I know is that he was on grade level before the move out here and now he is a min of 2 years behind now. I don't know how or why it happened, but that is where we are right now. I will be getting the results of his testing at the end of the month and then have his IEP a week after that! I just do not want our desire to go HOME outweigh the educational needs of our son.19269
lillian12 January 16, 2009
The greater north Houston area is huge and growing rapidly, as you probably know, and there are many school districts in this area. The independent school districts, or ISD's, as we call them, for that area would include: Houston, Tomball, Cypress-Fairbanks, Humble, Conroe, Aldine, Klein, and Spring. I think that's about all of the north Houston districts.
There is no set way these school districts deal with SPED. What kind of class your child is placed in will be dependent on the particular school district, and to know which ones have self-contained classes and which ones don't, means calling around and talking to the different SPED departments at the different schools, sending an email to the SPED district office in each district, contacting a parent support group, as Healthy advised, or getting in touch with a special education advocate, who has clients in the different districts and, therefore, has knowledge about the SPED services in the different districts. Personally, I would do one of the latter two or both of the latter two--parent support group and special education advocate.
Having said all of the above, I am curious why you want to keep your child in self contained, when his skills have decreased in that placement and not improved?19268
MommaJ January 18, 2009
I just got him tested privately to find out what his learning disabilities are and to see what we can do to help him. As to your question about keeping him in self contained - We are unsure if he would be able to handel a large class with the demands of one. Not to mention he has straight A's this semester and has had not discipline problems. This is a first since we moved here. I know that he is behind in his academics and may stay back at the end of this year to help bridge the distance. Thank you for your input. I do think having family closer would be a benifit, however he does have 3 friends that he can spend overnights with either @ home or @ thier places. It is a peacefully country enviroment here and not the chaos of a bigger city. That is helpful more me as well!19267
