Is this a thing I didn't know about or something unique to my area?

kcisthebombdotcom

So I found out that my dd might not go to her home school when she starts kindie. Each school has an autism specific classroom (some integrated with nt peers, others more self contained) and they match kids up based on profile.

Princess_Lily

They won't place her into her home district school? I know schools have support classrooms, but I've never heard of a child being placed out of the home district.

I know spaces fill up, I've heard, for that type of class...and parents need to specifically request it. Outside of that, then there are aids/paras, resource room and self contained classes.

bumpuser511563

Yeah we have a home elementary 5 minutes away driving. i thought we would end up going there but they do not have the right classroom environment that fit DS's needs.

The right classroom environment is 15-20 minutes away where he needs a bus. The school caters to the entire town for special needs with life skills teachers for each grade level from Kinder-5th. 2 ASD classes are there, possibly 3. DS is in one of those classes with some mainstream classroom time.

MirandaHobbes

Yes, that's how it is for us. We're in a large urban district. We were given the choice of 4 "ASD program schools" in our "Zone". Our Zone is much bigger geographically than our "home district" which is like a couple square miles. Coincidentally, we ended up at the school that would have been our home district school anyway, so we're the lucky ones. We could have opted out of the ASD program entirely and tried to get into a "non-home district" school, but then we'd be left to our own devices a bit. The amount of services provided would have been much less. DS would basically just have an aide. At an ASD program school he has multiple autism-trained professionals, and a separate autism-specific resource room. It was a no-brainer for us.

I did hear of MSW's making recommendations of schools based on the composition of the school. My own MSW was biased towards a particular school, but I went ahead with the one in our home district. Another parent whose son came from a different preschool said her teachers had recommended our school because more of the kids were HFA as opposed to other schools.

We were lucky that we had an integrated kindy that was co-taught between a mainstream and ASD teacher. In 1st grade DS is mainstreamed but-for an hour of breaks/social skills classes.

kcisthebombdotcom

Princess_Lily said:

They won't place her into her home district school? I know schools have support classrooms, but I've never heard of a child being placed out of the home district.

I know spaces fill up, I've heard, for that type of class...and parents need to specifically request it. Outside of that, then there are aids/paras, resource room and self contained classes.

It's tough to say at this point as she has nearly two full years of preschool left and who really knows where she will end up...but mainstreaming with an aide seems like a worse option than self contained. Hopefully she would be placed in an integrated classroom and wherever that may be would be where I want her.

Princess_Lily

My cousin is a ese teacher for 2nd grade. She has what's called a modified mainstream class, or something like that. She has 35kids and all of the kids in her class have some sort of accommodation, whether its a para (usually the case) or have pull-out for certain subjects. Some kids get bussed in from other districts, but she is in tri-state.

Here, in Florida, our district has one full ASD class, and then those who don't qualify go mainstream with support, or self contained. I haven't heard of one kid from a district going to a totally different district school for the accommodation.

malcivar

NYC checking in here.  Nope, Chris does not go to a school in his home school district.  He goes to a school that's 35 mins away by car because that's the closest school that had the 6:1:1 program he needed.  We're considering looking at 'non-public' options for 1st grade.  

hopecounts

It's a thing here, they have a couple ASD programs that are at 2 specific schools so when we do her IEP for kindy if either of those are considered most appropriate she will have the option of being sent/going there.

We'll see when the time comes what is best for her.

fancynewbeesly

Our schools are similar. There is 11 elementary schools in our district; and each one caters to a population. Autistic programs are at 3 of the schools; Hearing impaired is in one school, English as a Second Language is at 2 schools, etc.

If your child qualifies for the program, they may not be at their "home" school but still in the school district. It helps with resources. (instead of having one interpreter at 11 schools, they have 3 at one school, etc)