Criteria for Private Placement.

[bubbalicious]

Hi.

Anyone have any leads/resources on criteria for private placement from the IEP team or public school?

I am finding unilateral placement by parents but nothing that can be used.

Also LRE in private placements.

Thanks!

[mrsbuttinski]

Feb 25, 2015 10:25:13 GMT -5 bubbalicious said:

Hi.

Anyone have any leads/resources on criteria for private placement from the IEP team or public school?

I am finding unilateral placement by parents but nothing that can be used.

Also LRE in private placements.

Thanks!

The only private placement that is generally considered LRE is private preschool unless a district offers a universal preschool. This is going to be difficult to do without an education attorney. Basically, you're looking to prove that FAPE is only obtainable by in a more restrictive setting. Generally this is done by going through the process of letting her fail to improve under systematically more intensive approaches that move up the ladder from LRE- 

So she'd fail to learn to read with Title One instruction or RTI, so they might offer an aide to work individually with her in the classroom, or send her to a resource setting where she'd have differentiated instruction, and so on. TBH, it takes time and the school can stonewall you and claim its doing so to protect her right to be educated with typical kids in her neighborhood. Meantime, the child falls farther behind and full remediation becomes less likely.

In the continuum of LRE- mainstream to RTF, a private therapeutic placement is considered quite restrictive. From IDEA-


to the maximum extent appropriate, children with disabilities, including children in public or private institutions or other care facilities, are educated with children who are not disabled, and that special classes, separate schooling, or other removal of children with disabilities from the regular educational environment occurs only when the nature or severity of the disability is such that education in regular classes with the use of supplementary aids and services cannot be achieved satisfactorily. (IDEA, 20 U.S.C. § 1412)


www.education.com/reference/article/mainstreaming-inclusion/?page=2


www.wrightslaw.com/info/lre.osers.memo.idea.htm

[akafred]

Can I pop in with a question?

I have a friend who has a child with pretty severe apraxia of speech. She has other SNs too, as she suffered some kind of prenatal or birth injury that caused left-side brain injury. Both legs work fine together but her right hand doesn't grasp well or function well at all. Her development is pretty much as you'd expect here, as she is more verbal than spatial and is very interested in art vs math etc.

Her mom is having some evals done and is considering moving to southern MS to send the girl to a language-specific school run by USM. I was browsing the webpage and it seems they do not do tuition but this is something they work with school districts to pay for. Which is where this dovetails into the current discussion on LRE. Any insights? Just curious. Her mom is very motivated to help her and has unfortunately moved around a bit already looking for the right school placement.

[mrsbuttinski]

Random thoughts-

This school serves kids 3-13 and typically has a waiting list of 80-100 kids. That's a huge disruption in one's life for a small shot at services.

The school sticks to the mantra of serving those whose primary presenting condition is a speech and language disorder. In practice, this allows them to opt out of serving a kid whose primary dx is TBI, ASD, ID or a whole host of other conditions that could and would benefit from this kind of differentiated instruction. It sounds as if your friend's LO has significant OT and PT needs. They do not have OTs or PTs on staff; for that reason alone she might not even be considered.

This is basically a lab school. Some history- in the old days pre-IDEA kids with special educational needs weren't necessarily included in neighborhood schools. Colleges who were producing SLPs and special education teachers needed a venue with access to students who needed such services in order to do the required student teaching and practicum hours towards certification- hence the rise of the clinical divisions and lab schools.

Once IDEA rolled out, there was less of a need for such places- college students were able to go into public schools and gain this experience. A lot of schools closed their labs and clinical facilities or scaled them back to sliding fee therapy centers. One of the schools we looked at for DS started as the Lab School of Temple University; when the university shut it down, parents hired the staff and started their own school onsite.

Funding for these schools has been interesting historically as well. I will assume you're talking about DuBard. The primary purpose of these places was to provide an appropriate educational setting- not for the littles but for the college students. I suspect there was also a bit of elitism around the founding of such places- the colleges often served gently nurtured young ladies from very middle to upper class backgrounds whereas the children available upon which to practice were found in inner cities and very rural areas. Since the college provided the physical space for the program, parents could be assured the setting was safe. (Temple's Lab School was near their suburban Ambler Campus rather than the main North Philadelphia site.

Lead staff was funded by the college as it would be for any class for which a student pays tuition. In some cases, local school districts would pay some, but nowhere near all, of the costs associated with their students. I suspect they operated much as charters do- taking the per capita cost of educating a child in the district rather than setting a standard tuition. I always wondered if students from "cooperative districts" had an edge relative to those coming from those that didn'y or who paid less than most others. Fundraising and grants would make up the shortfall.

It's funny, reading about the founder of this program reminded me so much of Marsha Lewis- there were some formidable women getting things done in the old days.

[bubbalicious]

This! Thank you Mrs. B

8. What are the permissible factors that must be considered in determining what placement is appropriate for a student with a disability? Which factors, if any, may not be considered?

ANSWER: The overriding rule in placement is that each student's placement must be individually-determined based on the individual student's abilities and needs. As noted previously, it is the program of specialized instruction and related service contained in the student's IEP that forms the basis for the placement decision. In determining if a placement is appropriate under IDEA, the following factors are relevant:

* the educational benefits available to the disabled student in a traditional classroom, supplemented with appropriate aids and services, in comparison to the educational benefits to the disabled student from a special education classroom;

* the non-academic benefits to the disabled student from interacting with nondisabled students; and

* the degree of disruption of the education of other students, resulting in the inability to meet the unique needs of the disabled student.

However, school districts may not make placements based solely on factors such as the following:

category of disability;
severity of disability;
configuration of delivery system;
availability of educational or related services;
availability of space; or
administrative convenience.

- See more at: www.wrightslaw.com/info/lre.osers.memo.idea.htm#sthash.R3p3l2DM.dpuf

[akafred]

Yes, DuBard. She has been considering it a while but didn't want to move there. She moved to another city instead. She says the academics are going fine but they just don't have the specialized language services she needs. To my knowledge her DD has not been in PT or OT. She repeats when asked that it is a brain/neuro issue and not a physical/muscular issue so PT/OT won't help. I don't know much about the child's specific issues but I have read a lot of wonderful things about how simple exercises like balance and crossing the midline can help repair brain tissues and create new synapses. So idk.

[mrsbuttinski]

Feb 25, 2015 15:47:28 GMT -5 akafred said:

Yes, DuBard. She has been considering it a while but didn't want to move there. She moved to another city instead. She says the academics are going fine but they just don't have the specialized language services she needs. To my knowledge her DD has not been in PT or OT. She repeats when asked that it is a brain/neuro issue and not a physical/muscular issue so PT/OT won't help. I don't know much about the child's specific issues but I have read a lot of wonderful things about how simple exercises like balance and crossing the midline can help repair brain tissues and create new synapses. So idk.

IDK either. Everyone I know who's ever had a stroke has gotten OT; some have gotten PT. Even the little ones who had strokes before birth.

[kar]

That's...weird. I don't know anything about that school, but that sounds a lot like a stroke/neuro issue. And that's kinda what PT/OT does. Constraint therapy, even ABM/Feldenkrais if she's looking for more alternative neuroplasticity therapy. But nothing? Weird to me. Hemiplegia is a neuro issue (often a result of stroke/lack of O2 at birth) that can present with fairly typical gait, one very impaired arm and significant speech issues, with or without cognitive issues. I think I would be looking more at private speech vs moving all over the country, but also doing OT for the arm functioning.

[akafred]

This isn't something I'm really free to give advice on. I just was curious about how the school district funding thing worked especially when moving out of state.

She has done a lot of ST both private and public though. One of the things she even tried was hiring an SLP as a nanny (1/2 day school/kindergarten and 1/2 day SLP nanny). So it's not as though she isn't working hard at helping her child, whether or not the things she does are or would be the same as what I might do in her shoes. Also FWIW the child was adopted internationally so it's not 100% known what caused the brain injury.

[mrsbuttinski]

Where did she find an SLP willing to be a nanny?

These are a very limited resource that can command big bucks and very lifestyle friendly hours. I have a friend making very close to six figures working 10 months a year and a 4 day workweek.

I can't wrap my mind around one agreeing to do childcare.

[akafred]

I'll PM you.

[mrsbuttinski]

Feb 27, 2015 14:35:09 GMT -5 @kitchen said:

Feb 26, 2015 10:22:07 GMT -5 mrsbuttinski said:

Where did she find an SLP willing to be a nanny?

These are a very limited resource that can command big bucks and very lifestyle friendly hours. I have a friend making very close to six figures working 10 months a year and a 4 day workweek.

I can't wrap my mind around one agreeing to do childcare.

In some of our local school districts SLPs are paid on the same scale as teachers.  I can see why they'd be interested in charging a premium nanny rate during the summer or breaks.

True. Good point.

Of course I live in a district where the teachers are the highest paid in the state. SLPs can easily sign on for ESY work or the spendy social skills camps to make extra money for student loans, etc. Some of them do their CEC seminars then. Most who choose to work in schools do so for the summers off. At least that what's DS's always said.

[bubbalicious]

I had the thought maybe a SLP student or recent grad could nanny. Maybe part time.

[akafred]

I mentioned this in the PM, but (keeping in mind this friend is pretty close-mouthed about stuff) I believe this was a former SLP who was a SAHM now or something like that.