Various verbal comprehension scores in the 96th-98th percentile while Perceptual Reasoning, Processing Speed and Alphabet/Word Knowledge were all 5th percentile.
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They are telling us the she NEEDS to be in a public school so that an integrated combination of special ed services can be provided. They also acknowledge that the town does not have a mechanism to offer enrichment prior to 4th grade so we are not sure if her comprehension strengths will be supported....
The private school would have us contract with an Orton Gillingham specialist who would come to the school 4 days per week, at an additional cost of almost 50% of the already steep tuition. We would also continue to do OT privately, as well as potentially counseling for the anxiety.
This is a tough one, Pemberley. I think you should gather more information from private (non-school) professionals as soon as possible. If she were mine, I'd want a full neuropsych workup to identify all disabilities so you know exactly what you're dealing with. A school eval doesn't cover everything, and you want really solid information.
Private school is suggesting Orton-Gillingham-- so they think she's dyslexic? Or just offering a resource? I suspect you don't need to hire the specialist until you know for sure that that issue is there to treat; as far as I know O-G only treats dyslexia.
Our approach with our 2E (Asperger's) DS9 has been to stay in public school, partly because there's no private school here that will meet the need. We did spend the better part of three years in active negotiation to get the public school to understand and work well with DS; they are now on board and trying hard, and largely succeeding. Big wins from staying in public school included having a special ed teacher whose job it was to coordinate everything and make sure he was successful across all subjects, including wrangling the specials teachers, and our having the legal authority to go back to them when it wasn't working and ask them to do it a new way. The in-school therapies were a plus, though they always come with tradeoffs (being pulled out of subjects to go do therapy).
My understanding of private schools, gleaned from others' experiences, is that sometimes they think they can handle a kid with disabilities, and then it turns out to be hard, the teacher gets discouraged and/or punitive because the problems are out of his/her league, and then the situation goes sour. And you have no guaranteed legal right to be there, so they can give up anytime. But sometimes they are wonderful. You should go watch in the classrooms-- not that you will see anybody just like your child, but if you watch for a while you will see how the outliers (slower/faster/different) are being handled.
You probably need to decide something very soon, if you're somewhere in the US where school starts imminently. Do you know what the teacher placement would be at the public school? Does the principal in the current public school know about the problems you had with last year's teacher? Have you talked to other special needs parents (maybe there's a support group in the district)? IMO the right teacher can go a long way toward making a placement workable (or not).
If you had a sense that the public school was going to be okay, I might stick there until you have more information, just because changing schools might feel hard for a first grader and changing twice (back and forth) could be tough on her, confusing, etc. (You can probably always move to the private if you need to later?)
And yet, know this: your DD will change as she grows, so don't feel you have to get it right forever. Find the fit that meets the current needs best, and plan to change it if you need to.
HTH,
DeeDee
