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Private School and special services

Posted by CathyMcKay on 9/30/2008 2:39:14 PM.

I am trying desperately to get services for my low vision daughter, age 11 who attends a private school in PA.  I am noticing a high level of frustration as the work gets harder and the prints gets smaller.  There are some accomodations made in her private school, but really need the services of a teacher for the VI and don't want to change schools. Is anyone familiar with the rights of the Special Needs student attending private school?

There are currently 4 replies.

      

  • 1 . Re: Private School and special services
    Posted by apiercew on 10/09/2008

    In California, I believe that there is no obligation on the part of special ed districts to serve children in private schools. It may be different in your state. Use the internet, go to your state's dept. of ed. website, find the special ed. section, try to connect with them to find an answer. It's possible that if you try to discover from your local special ed. district jsut what services they need to provide to your child in a private school, they may say "None" without checking the state policy. I would start at the top and work my way down. Good luck. Anne.



  • 2 . Re: Private School and special services
    Posted by ksv728 on 11/08/2008

    I am in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Albuquerque Public Schools has a "Private School Liaison" department. They are required to provide all assessments and to make recommendations. They do not, however, have to then provide the services necessary. We went through the process and ended up with the private-school equivalent of an IEP and this provided the recommended accomodations for the private school so they can make accomodations for standardized testing. This "IEP" also allowed the local Vision school to provide an itenerant vision teacher to work with Joseph, do assessments and provide services. It also made other services available like State programs that loan technology and other vision equipment.

    I wish you the very best.

    Karen Velasquez



  • 3 . Re: Private School and special services
    Posted by Judith Lesner on 11/12/2008

    I think each state probably has its own policies and you should talk with the Special Education folks in your state's Department of Education to find out PA's policies. Also, you might try the Wright's Law website to see if they have anything about it.
    Judith



  • 4 . Re: Private School and special services
    Posted by Judith Lesner on 08/17/2009

    This is a very late follow-up but am doing some catching up with unfinished business. Since new school year is approaching.

    The following is from Gwen Botting who is the chairperson of NAPVI's Michigan chapter and a very active parent.


    HI Judith – I do have some ideas of what you can and can’t get at a private school, I’m not sure who this is, but please encourage her to contact me if she hasn’t already. Generally, we believe, although it hasn’t been tested yet to my knowledge, that a child is entitled to VI and O&M services, but that a paraprofessional might not be made available. We have one child with multiple disabilities in our group who attends a Montessori program and the mom reports that she’s doing very well there. Some of this is up to the school to say whether they think their staff can handle all the extra “stuff” (turning everything into either Braille or a tactile graphic of some kind and making all those other adjustments for a child who cannot see. There is no reason that a Christian School would be required to do this. The child would still need an IEP to get the services of a VI teacher and O&M specialist.

    You can reach her at bottingJG@juno.com

    Judith


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