Re: Private School

[Guest guest]

Here in NY, your child can attend a private school if that is what you

choose, but the evaluations and services are provided by/through the local

school

district. For instance, a friend's son required services (he is an adult now)

but the family chose to send him to the local catholic school. His inital

evaluation, annual testing, IEP and services were established and managed by our

local school district. Since there were other children attending that private

school who had similar needs, there were some services provided by the local

district, hence using the state funding for those classified kids.

The local district did not pay any of the tuition or other costs because it

was the family's choice to send him to that school. Had the IEP team determined

that his needs could be best met at that private school, then the district

would have been paying the full bill.

There were extra services that the parents requested which were denied

because the school did not have to provide them in the private school setting. I

do

not remember the specifics, but the district established that the parents had

decided to forgo certain things in order to keep the boy in the private school

setting. The private school was not the LRE of choice for the CSE (Committee

on Special Education) so they were not obliged to pick up all the costs or

provide all the requested services.

However, for our son, private school would have been completely paid for by

the ditsrict had they not brought in the services he required. There was/is no

D/HOH program in the school or any neigboring school. Our son did not qualify

for the local deaf schools (not deaf enough) so they had the choice of

bringing in the needed services or paying for both tuition and room+board for

our

son. Hiring a TOD and creating a personalized program was far cheaper.

I wish you luck.

Jill