OT Homeschool

[shaylahc1]

I actually do have a special needs child. And this is why she goes to a school that specializes in her needs.

Yes I do think those types of centers should be non-exisitant or paid for by the parent who is once again making the choice to homeschool. And don't give me that "I pay taxes BS line." So does the single no kids household or that grandma down the road whose kids are long out of school. We all pay taxes but that does not mean we get to use the services that those taxes pay for. We only get the benefit if we qualify for it. And IMO if you choose to homeschool, you no longer "qualify" (in my book) for PS services.

Yes all kids are entitled to an education, no one is denying that. But I do think that as a parent we have to make the best choice we can for our child. If that is homeschooling great. If that is sending them to private school great. If that is public school great. BUT there are benefits and risks to all choices.

No offense, but this is one of the most ignorant things I have read in a long time.

I have a special needs DD. She has a severe speech disability, as well as learning disabilities & special medical needs. I live in NC, which apparently is one of the worst states you can live in if you have a special needs child (due to the lack of funding for their state programs). When our DD was born, we tried to get in to the "0-3" program due to our DDs delays. It took FIFTEEN months to get her in to the program due to the long waiting lists. When we got in, we were assigned a therapist who had ZERO experience working with children who have my DD's disabilities, and to boot due to our "generous" family income of $40K a year, we would have to pay $60 AN HOUR to receive these services as well.

When DD made it to preschool age, we could not afford the $800 a month it would cost for private speech therapy (most people don't realize insurance doesn't cover therapy for "developmental disabilities" ). So we were forced instead to seek therapy through the school system. My DD, who is classified as "profoundly delayed" just BARELY qualified for the speech program despite the severity of her disability. She received 30 minutes of speech twice a week for about a year and a half (we waited a long time to get in to this program also) before she was "graduated" at age 4 still barely intelligible. The school system said she had "met their criteria" for graduation and released her.

Fast forward to this past year....I have been battling the school system the entire school year to get them to provide DD with services. She has been diagnosed by an OT & and a ST as being severely delayed in the areas of speech and fine/gross motor skills. But the school system doesn't care. They are happy to shove DD on to the next grade because she is a good girl and is quiet. I can truly understand now how children can graduate from high school not knowing how to read. And I live in a "good" school district, I can only imagine what it must be like for those who don't.

Due to all the problems we have encountered with the school system, we are most likely going to be homeschooling our children starting in the fall. I feel as though the school system has given me no choice...they are unwilling to provide my DD with the special services she needs. Would I, as a good parent, make the choice to leave my child in a school that obviously doesn't care about her academic performance, who is happy to move her on to 2nd grade even though her handwriting is illegible and she reverses her letters and then tells me this is "normal" and "she'll outgrow it"?

What a lot of people don't realize until they have a special needs child is how hard it is to get services for their children. If they are "fortunate enough" to be on welfare or poor enough to qualify for free medical care, this will all be provided to them FOR FREE. But for the average middle class family, we are stuck trying to figure out how to provide the BEST CARE for our children when therapies can easily cost $100-200+ an hour PLUS. Insurance companies won't pay for it because it's "educational" or "developmental", the government (depending on what state you live in) often provides inadequate support services, and most people can't afford to bear the burden of private care. My daughter has often gone without therapy over the years because we just plain and simply couldn't afford it.

Our tax dollars pay for many things we may not like. They pay for educating, feeding & providing health care for illegal immigrants and their families. They pay for welfare recipients, people who have managed to get themselves declared as "disabled" even if they aren't so they don't have to work (my own ex-BIL has done this, he is an Oxycontin addict who, while too "sick" to work, goes dirt biking and deer hunting on the weekends), etc. I think it's positively EVIL to tell someone that you don't think your tax dollars are worthy of treating their special needs child. The fact is NO ONE ASKS TO HAVE A CHILD WITH SPECIAL NEEDS. This is a burden that gets placed upon some people, and the programs that were created exist to "help" those who happen to have a child with special needs. Unfortunately many times these programs are also inadequate to provide children with the best care. If a parent feels that homeschooling their child AND seeking assistance through the school system at the same time is the best fit for their family, who are you to judge? It sounds like you are fortunate enough to have a school that is able to provide YOUR child with the assistance s/he needs. Count yourself LUCKY. Not everyone has such resources available to them, and often it takes a lot of creative management on the part of a parent to do the best thing for their special children and provide them with the optimal care and support they need and DESERVE.

The public school system has told me more than once that they are only legally bound to provide my child with a ADEQUATE (um, poor) education, not an OPTIMAL one. Would that be satisfactory to you?

As far as being enrolled in public school to receive services....preschool special needs services often serve children who aren't enrolled. When my DD received speech services she was not enrolled in any other preschool programs (I am not lucky enough to live in a county that provides free or subsidized preschool programs like some states have). So children often do receive services even if they aren't currently enrolled in any school. This is also true for many children who are enrolled at private schools or day care centers.

In a perfect world, every parent of a special needs child would have an advocate and advisor ready and waiting in the delivery room to guide them through the often painful task of raising their special child. Unfortunately what we often encounter instead is ignorance, unsupportive state & government programs, as well as insurance companies who refuse to cover their children's therapies & medical care. All any parent wants, whether they have special needs children or not, is to provide their child with the BEST education and care so they can grow up to maximize their potential. Special needs children require a tremendous amount of time and money invested in them, and unfortunately special needs children can happen to ANYONE, not just the wealthy. Government programs were created for a reason, although sadly, many just don't provide anything beginning to resemble adequate assistance.

Michele
(formerly Shaylahc on Disboards)

 

[noodleknitter]

Yes I do think those types of centers should be non-exisitant or paid for by the parent who is once again making the choice to homeschool. And don't give me that "I pay taxes BS line." So does the single no kids household or that grandma down the road whose kids are long out of school. We all pay taxes but that does not mean we get to use the services that those taxes pay for. We only get the benefit if we qualify for it. And IMO if you choose to homeschool, you no longer "qualify" (in my book) for PS services.

Obviously you missed something... Most health services are not paid for by the school system, but by community public health agencies. They are implemented in the school system for convenience, not because the school system is paying for them. They are not a service of the schools, but of programs such as "Healthy Families". So, they should not be under the jurisdiction of the BOE, but Public Health. And it isn't BS to believe that if someone wants said services they should be available. If the only place they are available is in a school building, so be it.

I think the greediness of a post such as yours is truly sad. Why on earth wouldn't you want a child to receive health services?

 

[skoi]

We homeschool, but before we made the final decision to do so, we were planning to place our oldest child into public school so I could go to work. She had been receiving early intervention services for speech (greater than a 35% delay/issue) and we were told straight out by our district she was "too smart" to receive services, even though she needed them. No talk of her outgrowing her issues, it was, "too bad, she needs to have another issue for us to spend money on her". At that time we were very uneducated as to the law (even though I was a certified Secondary Ed teacher), so we just accepted it as the way things were.

I've also been told my child is officially "enrolled" in the local school we report to, so they DO collect money for her, if the way people are claiming funding works is right. They give her no services, yet they constantly harp on me how she's THEIR responsibility (re standardized testing) because she's enrolled in their school.

On the tax issue- is it the view of those who subscribe to the "you made the choice to homeschool" paradigm that children in parochial, charter, and private schools shouldn't receive special ed services through the local district if their school can't provide it and the child in question's school doesn't fully reimburse the school district? Their parents made a choice, so then those children shouldn't get services in the public schools, either.

If you don't like that homeschoolers can receive services in the public schools, contact your state legislators and tell them to change the laws. But as long as the state tells me I have to be answerable to the school district, my kids have to meet more requirements, have higher test scores, etc than the students in the public school, and as long as we pay school taxes, and our kids pay them too, we have the right to use public school services.

 

[disneychrista]

On the tax issue- is it the view of those who subscribe to the "you made the choice to homeschool" paradigm that children in parochial, charter, and private schools shouldn't receive special ed services through the local district if their school can't provide it and the child in question's school doesn't fully reimburse the school district? Their parents made a choice, so then those children shouldn't get services in the public schools, either.

In my area the charter schools are run by the district. The private school pay into a fund that covers special services.

 

[tyandbash]

I don't know anything about homeschooling but did want to say that my children go to a private school, BUT our public school district provides a small book allowance to the private school they attend. In NY it is a law that the public schools must send either a book allowance or actual books (whichever they want) to the private school their district student is attending because they get the tax dollars for that child being in their school district. The public school district must also provide special services if a private schooled child needs them. The district school must do the testing too. They do not need to provide the services anywhere but the public school and they don't need to provide the services at a time that works for parent's and students, but they must provide it, even to kids that go to private school. Wouldn't make just as much sense that a homeschooled child would be just as entitled to service?

 

[disneychrista]

I think one big thing that seems to be neglected is that from everything I have read (mainly here on the DIS) about homeschooling, is that each state or district have different rules about it. Some you have to "answer" to the district school. Some you have to have a "contract" with the school. Some are very liberal and have no requirements.

Just as how "services" are offered and funded are different depending on your state or district. From everything I have seen in our public school district services are provided by school employees, not health and human services. The speech teacher, school nurse, school counselers, etc are all school district employees.

Now we also have county schools, including day treatment schools for special needs, that are funded by several different sources, including health and human services. But these school are not part of the "school district."

So just because the answer you have for your school district does not mean you have the answer for ALL school districts.

 

[jaycns]

FYI at least in the state of KY...EVERY child in the school district in need of "services" is eligible. IT IS THE LAW. If you think a child should opt in or not is your own opinion (and you have the right to it) BUT EVERY child has the right. And the school system is credited for EVERY student that uses the special services, if they are public schooled, home schooled, private schooled ETC. They get no money for that child in the classroom setting but they do get funds for the special speech/OT or PT they provide. That may not be how they do it everywhere but it is how they do it here.

As a home schooler you can even qualify for money for use in paying for the educating of a disabled student (although many I know who home school wouldn't touch that funding with a ten foot pole because once you take money they get some say in what you do(at least that is the fear).

Another side note, some school districts have been known to allow homeschool students to enroll part time...this gets them another student on the roster to get cash for and allows the home school student the benefit of opting in to a class they may want to take...It is the SCHOOLS courting the home school kids in that case and not the other way around.

Again, this may not be true everywhere but it is true where I live. GOOD LUCK OP in making your decision. I think "local" feedback would be the most accurate in your case. I think the quality of services offered would vary wildly from school system to school system.

 

[grlpwrd]

No offense, but this is one of the most ignorant things I have read in a long time.

I have a special needs DD. She has a severe speech disability, as well as learning disabilities & special medical needs. I live in NC, which apparently is one of the worst states you can live in if you have a special needs child (due to the lack of funding for their state programs). When our DD was born, we tried to get in to the "0-3" program due to our DDs delays. It took FIFTEEN months to get her in to the program due to the long waiting lists. When we got in, we were assigned a therapist who had ZERO experience working with children who have my DD's disabilities, and to boot due to our "generous" family income of $40K a year, we would have to pay $60 AN HOUR to receive these services as well.

When DD made it to preschool age, we could not afford the $800 a month it would cost for private speech therapy (most people don't realize insurance doesn't cover therapy for "developmental disabilities" ). So we were forced instead to seek therapy through the school system. My DD, who is classified as "profoundly delayed" just BARELY qualified for the speech program despite the severity of her disability. She received 30 minutes of speech twice a week for about a year and a half (we waited a long time to get in to this program also) before she was "graduated" at age 4 still barely intelligible. The school system said she had "met their criteria" for graduation and released her.

Fast forward to this past year....I have been battling the school system the entire school year to get them to provide DD with services. She has been diagnosed by an OT & and a ST as being severely delayed in the areas of speech and fine/gross motor skills. But the school system doesn't care. They are happy to shove DD on to the next grade because she is a good girl and is quiet. I can truly understand now how children can graduate from high school not knowing how to read. And I live in a "good" school district, I can only imagine what it must be like for those who don't.

Due to all the problems we have encountered with the school system, we are most likely going to be homeschooling our children starting in the fall. I feel as though the school system has given me no choice...they are unwilling to provide my DD with the special services she needs. Would I, as a good parent, make the choice to leave my child in a school that obviously doesn't care about her academic performance, who is happy to move her on to 2nd grade even though her handwriting is illegible and she reverses her letters and then tells me this is "normal" and "she'll outgrow it"?

What a lot of people don't realize until they have a special needs child is how hard it is to get services for their children. If they are "fortunate enough" to be on welfare or poor enough to qualify for free medical care, this will all be provided to them FOR FREE. But for the average middle class family, we are stuck trying to figure out how to provide the BEST CARE for our children when therapies can easily cost $100-200+ an hour PLUS. Insurance companies won't pay for it because it's "educational" or "developmental", the government (depending on what state you live in) often provides inadequate support services, and most people can't afford to bear the burden of private care. My daughter has often gone without therapy over the years because we just plain and simply couldn't afford it.

Our tax dollars pay for many things we may not like. They pay for educating, feeding & providing health care for illegal immigrants and their families. They pay for welfare recipients, people who have managed to get themselves declared as "disabled" even if they aren't so they don't have to work (my own ex-BIL has done this, he is an Oxycontin addict who, while too "sick" to work, goes dirt biking and deer hunting on the weekends), etc. I think it's positively EVIL to tell someone that you don't think your tax dollars are worthy of treating their special needs child. The fact is NO ONE ASKS TO HAVE A CHILD WITH SPECIAL NEEDS. This is a burden that gets placed upon some people, and the programs that were created exist to "help" those who happen to have a child with special needs. Unfortunately many times these programs are also inadequate to provide children with the best care. If a parent feels that homeschooling their child AND seeking assistance through the school system at the same time is the best fit for their family, who are you to judge? It sounds like you are fortunate enough to have a school that is able to provide YOUR child with the assistance s/he needs. Count yourself LUCKY. Not everyone has such resources available to them, and often it takes a lot of creative management on the part of a parent to do the best thing for their special children and provide them with the optimal care and support they need and DESERVE.

The public school system has told me more than once that they are only legally bound to provide my child with a ADEQUATE (um, poor) education, not an OPTIMAL one. Would that be satisfactory to you?

As far as being enrolled in public school to receive services....preschool special needs services often serve children who aren't enrolled. When my DD received speech services she was not enrolled in any other preschool programs (I am not lucky enough to live in a county that provides free or subsidized preschool programs like some states have). So children often do receive services even if they aren't currently enrolled in any school. This is also true for many children who are enrolled at private schools or day care centers.

In a perfect world, every parent of a special needs child would have an advocate and advisor ready and waiting in the delivery room to guide them through the often painful task of raising their special child. Unfortunately what we often encounter instead is ignorance, unsupportive state & government programs, as well as insurance companies who refuse to cover their children's therapies & medical care. All any parent wants, whether they have special needs children or not, is to provide their child with the BEST education and care so they can grow up to maximize their potential. Special needs children require a tremendous amount of time and money invested in them, and unfortunately special needs children can happen to ANYONE, not just the wealthy. Government programs were created for a reason, although sadly, many just don't provide anything beginning to resemble adequate assistance.

Michele
(formerly Shaylahc on Disboards)

Welcome back, Michelle!

 

[sully7]

The bottom line is...Is it allowed in your school district? If so then all this argument is moot! They already did the research and the arguing! If it is available then do it! Your child will be evaluated and given the services that the district determines they need.

Do what is best for your child!