Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Twice Exceptional States/districts in US good with special ed

I'm just curious if anyone is willing to share if they have had a good experience in public schools with their 2e child in terms of special ed and where you are located? A school where you don't have to push and fight and advocate for the smallest of things? And if so, is it just your school or district, or the state overall seems to "get it"?

Also, does anyone know how a person can figure out if a district has a good special ed program without actually going there and trying it out? Because just going and visiting or talking to the principal does no good. They all say they are excellent and will meet the student's needs. Maybe they actually think that's true. But then you find out later that they are actually clueless.

(my kids' current school isn't terrible like others we've experienced, but DD is aging out of it, since it's just an elementary school, and we need to find other options).

Ours is ok. It wasn't hard to get an IEP but it is difficult to get all of the staff to follow it. Our district has a relatively large number of 2e kids, which might help.

Intellectually the staff seems to understand what they need to do but doing it is the problem.

blackcat, you most likely already know that our family has had issues with sped in our local public schools - so I can't help you with the "good experience". Two things to consider though, based on my limited experience:

1) In our area, the SPED experience didn't vary just with district, but with individual school, due to both philosophy of the administration at the school as well as the attitude of school staff

2) I found a wealth of information through our local parents' advocate group - they were able to tell me where my ds would fit best re services, where we'd have less success at getting services etc (which schools). If you have a parents' advocate group, I'd suggest at least giving them a call, explain that your dd is moving to middle school and ask what their knowledge of specific school situations is in your area.

Good luck!

polarbear

Let me reiterate that this is not only true, but that DS7, who is only in second grade, is on his third SPED teacher and second school administrator. Each change has brought significant changes in his IEP and in staff attitudes. We had his IEP meeting yesterday, and the current SPED teacher didn't come right out and say that the goals that the previous SPED teacher wrote sucked, but it was quite clear that that was what she thought (and I can't disagree). So even if you find a "good" school, it's only as good as the current administration/SPED team, and you can't really count on that staying in place.

Good luck to you.

When we were in the heat of battle I was advised to google my school district and the words "due process" to get an idea of how the district handled spec Ed issues. In my case I found that there was literally no history - they had never forced a parent to fight them legally. In other words if parents don't blink the district WILL meet the child's needs rather than go to due process. It took some work but I was able to get them to meet DD's needs. Other districts will fight anything and everything parents request so that parents will choose to leave the district or send their child to private rather than fighting to get the district to provide FAPE. These districts will likely show up with several due process claims won by parents represented by attorneys. Most parents who fight without attorneys do not win so their outcomes probably won't provide much info.

Our neighboring huge district (where DD attended K in an inter district magnet) does not easily provide services and what they do provide really just meets the bare minimum requirements. DD's OOD has kids from all over the state but interestingly none from this large big-city district it borders. So maybe contact a local spec Ed school and ask them which districts they find the most and least cooperative.

Parens who fight for their kids spec Ed needs usually have some financial resources so I would look at higher socioeconomic districts. There are some districts that are known for their spec Ed services and families will relocate to them to get their kids what they need. Maybe check your state's dept of Ed website and see if they have a listing of per capita spent on spec Ed funding.

Contact an advocacy group for kids with similar diagnoses and ask them what districts their members have received the best services from. Or as PB suggests above a general spec Ed advocacy center may be able to help.

When I was at the end of my rope with my district I considered relocating. The person who initially handled our case for the district had resigned and took a job as director of special Ed in a neighboring highly ranked district. Since he was familiar with DD's situation we met with him to see what his new district could/would provide for DD if we relocated. He knew how complex and expensive DD's situation was so he did NOT want us moving to his district. You need to keep this in mind when you speak to people from potential districts. (And by the way I would approach this at the district level not the school level. In a complex, expensive case the director of special Ed is going to be making the decisions not an individual principal...) He told me that my district is well known for its spec Ed services, that families move to our district to access spec Ed services and that we should just stay put because we were just about to be awarded OOD placement. I have since met several families that have indeed relocated here for just this reason and others who have benefited from the fight I waged. So what I considered a district I had to battle others consider a cakewalk. It's all a matter of perspective...

My experience from the inside of districts (admittedly mostly in a state with relatively generous parental due process rights) has been that larger districts are more likely to be in compliance with the law (and hence to offer services), while small, UMC districts are highly-variable. Quite often, I've been in meetings where parents of students transferring into our district from a smaller, superficially more highly-regarded district are relieved to find they will not have to fight us tooth and nail to obtain appropriate services for their child. A large district I worked for at one time had a huge range of services, far superior to those available in any of the surrounding suburbs. OTOH, one of my past districts was a high SES/highly-ranked district, and was also quite responsive to parental concerns.

I suspect that the small districts are prone to effects from 1) a smaller, more homogeneous student population, and thus less experience with low-incidence or high-needs students; and 2) individual district representatives and their personal biases and skill sets/deficits, and thus more extreme effects from personnel changes. Large districts are forced to have better-articulated policies and systems, which means parents usually have a clearer path for going up the ladder, and less inconsistency moving from one staff person to another, and are also more likely to have a pool of low-incidence students, which means they may actually find it cost-effective to employ specialists and design programs for those students' needs.

We had a similar situation in our school. In 3 years we had 2 different OTs, 2 different special ed and 2 different school psychs...all at different intervals which lead to them having to learn how each worked as part of the team. It was the final straw that led us to homeschooling.

One of the schools we were in was so bad the staff had no idea what the special education categories are. DS ended up qualifying under "Physically Impaired" and I don't think they had ever assessed anyone for that category, or any of the others that were possibly relevant to him, such as "traumatic brain injury" "visually impaired", "Other Health Disability", etc. He had a speech IEP since he was 3-4, but I don't think I ever saw a notice of team meeting or prior written notice until we changed schools. This was at one of the larger elementary schools in the district with hundreds of kids. I don't think they EVER had any training about even basic stuff. They ended up needing help from the special ed director to evaluate DS. I was never able to figure out if he is almost as clueless, or if he is deliberately trying to avoid following the law (it's one or the other).
I know it sounds like we are in a little town in the middle of a corn field, but it's actually one of the more affluent (and large) districts in a large metro. That's why I feel like maybe nothing around here is ever going to work. They cut special ed and at the same time keep improving their sports facilities.

I contacted an advocacy group at one point but I don't know if they give out that kind of info, as they were always very politically correct and no matter what I said, they would never act negative or say anything negative about the school. A disability lawyer was more direct and told me our district is ridiculous (she's worked with them before) and I did get some info about other districts, but not much to go on.
(consulting with her was a one-time deal so I don't think I can just call her and ask more questions about school districts--I can try, though).

Sadly, I think it's really person-by-person. DD went to a very highly rated school in a very highly rated district through 2nd grade. They were a nightmare. They never fully met the requirements in her IEP, and they never "got" her. The principal and school psych were really the ringleaders of awfulness here, and everyone else followed their lead.

I moved to a different district to a school I picked based on my gut feeling which was based on phone "interviews" of the principal and a couple other people. This school turns out to overall be very excellent with my very 2E child. They've given her a lot of help and a lot of ways to thrive.

But you know -- my mother used to work at a different school in this same district and complained constantly about how useless their special ed people at that school were. So I feel this is very much school-specific and based on the people currently at this school. If a new principal came in, or a new sped teacher... all bets would be off.

I contacted the disability attorney and she wants me to call her. She has concerns about the district we are planning to go to. Ugh.
At least I'm getting some info, though, but I feel like our options are becoming more and more limited, esp. because we have to find a place that will keep the 3 year math acceleration for my younger kid. I don't know how to find a place that can deal with both of the e's.