Fw: Least Restrictive Environment

[Guest guest]

sent me this first, in case it was to advocacy in nature, but I think

this is very important information!

This is of special interest those homeschooling.

Thanks, .

> I have been reading the conversations about schools not wanting to

> provide services to families who home school. This is against the

> law. The Federal IDEA act states that special needs children have

> to be provided a free appropriate education in the least restrictive

> environment. Translated, that means that if the schools don't have

> a program that fulfills the child's requirements, the school has to

> foot the bill to send the Speech Therapist or the OT or the PT to

> the home if the parent has done all the paperwork to homeschool.

> This also applies to parents who don't want to put their very young

> special needs child into the school system. It is a Federal law

> here in the US and if you school district is not in compliance, the

> mention of a lawyer might get you services. Here is the link for

> 's law on the subject.

>

> http://www.wrightslaw.com/info/idea.index.htm

>

> Also, as far as child protection goes, in order to access anything

> besides school services, you have almost always have to be assigned

> a county case worker - they all came from child protection at one

> point or another. Autism is so new to them, that they know very

> little about it. Educate them if you have to. There are county

> services that are worth dealing with the county that you will not be

> able to access if you don't deal with them. In Arizona, I see that

> they have an amendment - like the TEFRA that gets - MA based

> on her income instead of ours that pays for our co-payments,

> mileage, additional therapies when our habilitative services is

> maxed, etc. Here in Minnesota, if didn't have the waiver,

> there would be other options like parental support grants that a

> caseworker would have helped us access. I don't know what will

> happen to these services with our new congress, but they are in

> place for now. MA also has alot of services that help our kids -

> Assistive Technology, Homemaker services, PCA support, Caregiver

> training and much more. But you have to deal with all the paper

> work on top of everything else - it is worth it.

> E-mail me off list if you want me to look up more information about

> your state.

>

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