ESY not enough...

[bri276]

Just got the schedule for the Extended School Year program at DD's school (she's a preschooler going into Kindy). It's only four weeks long and 2.5 hours. DD is very significantly delayed in all areas, but speech is one of the big ones and something I'm not willing to slack on for most of the summer. The local university that we go to for private speech therapy (on top of what she gets at school normally) doesn't go through the summer and I have NO idea if I'll be able to find an SLP on this short notice. They're in very high demand around here- around everywhere, right?

So do I have a chance of getting the school to pay for some type of private placement? I feel like this is so inappropriate for her needs.

[PieKat]

My guess is that you won't be able to convince the school district to pay for other services. The shortened ESY hours you described are, unfortunately, pretty typical of a summer program. I know it has to be frustrating, at the very least she did qualify for ESY, so you won't have such a huge gap between prek and K next year. So, I'm a recent (Sunday!) graduate in speech pathology and I have the following suggestions. . .

Talk to the university about posting for "childcare" for graduate students in the program. They can't exactly do therapy under those conditions (they could lose the potential to get a license if someone found out), but for $10-15 an hour, you can have a grad student come to your home and "babysit". You can watch the interaction and if you like, take a break (even the most dedicated mommas need that!).

Go here: http://www.asha.org/findpro/ to see if you can find an SLP in your area to provide services.

Let me know if I can help.

[QueenOfTheMeadow]

From what I understand, at least in MA, ESY is not to teach kids new skills, but just keep them from forgetting what they learned in the year before. So I suspect that would be what they say if you request having them pay for more services over the summer.

[Cinder]

Kincaid stopped qualifying for ESY at 4, but even before that, ESY was like you said, it was like from after the 4th of july till the first week of August, 2-3 hours per day, and mostly, they went on field trips, which is of course beneficial since their special ed teachers and therapists went with them, but there was no 1:1 therapy or even small group actual therapy being done during ESY.

Anyway, every year since the summer after he turned 2 (he started in EI at 15 months) we have done private ST over the summer and for a couple years in there we did private OT-sensory based as well, luckily we have pretty good insurance, and once he had a diagnosis on the autism spectrum our insurance went from good to awesome in terms of therapy coverage, so he gets unlimited sessions of ST, OT, or behavioural therapy with just us paying our regular office visit co-pay ($15) per visit.

Travis will be 3 in August, and because EI here is done where the therapists come to your house, he will get therapy till about 4 days before he starts pre-school this fall, no clue what ESY services will be like for him next year though since we are changing school districts.

[Cinder]

Originally Posted by PieKat

My guess is that you won't be able to convince the school district to pay for other services. The shortened ESY hours you described are, unfortunately, pretty typical of a summer program. I know it has to be frustrating, at the very least she did qualify for ESY, so you won't have such a huge gap between prek and K next year. So, I'm a recent (Sunday!) graduate in speech pathology and I have the following suggestions. . .

Yea, that...it is SO hard to qualify for ESY, we had to FIGHT to get Kincaid into it and he had a 50% global delay with cognitive and speech being closer to 75% delayed at 3 years old.

[Aridel]

Originally Posted by Cinder

Yea, that...it is SO hard to qualify for ESY, we had to FIGHT to get Kincaid into it and he had a 50% global delay with cognitive and speech being closer to 75% delayed at 3 years old.

Yeah, the way the regulations are written the amount of delay doesn't matter, it's the degree of regression. A lot of districts around here measure by looking at any change over breaks during the year (winter/spring break etc) and basing it on that. And then when a child gets ESY it is (by regulation) not for progress at all - just to reduce that regression.

Many, many families use any insurance coverage they have over the summer to supplement as much as possible. It's tougher when you struggle and struggle to make up the difference and then find out that - guess what? Since there was no/limited regression over a break with all the extras put in place, ESY isn't needed.

[Lilypie32]

I would start looking around for private therapy during the summer. My son qualifies for ESY and it's about 5 weeks long, M-Th, running about 4 hours each day. He will have therapy in ESY and I have him in private therapy at home. I doubt you will get the school system to pay for anything else. It's really not their responsibility to go above and beyond ESY.

[bri276]

Yeah, we got spoiled at our previous preschool, (we moved last fall), it was 6 weeks and 3 hours PLUS services.

DD is really pretty delayed, like, barely verbal, just started walking when she was 3.5, so we've never had problems qualifying for anything.

It's really not their responsibility to go above and beyond ESY.

I dunno, there are kids who have IEPs that go to year round private special needs schools (and full day instead of a 2.5 hr program) that the state pays for 100%. The only reason DD isn't one of them is that she has no real medical/health issues.

I definitely don't feel like PS meets her needs even during the school year. It's great for her to be around the other kids, she loves school, but I could count on one hand the number of skills and new words/signs she's come home with from school in two years at two different prechools. In private therapy, she learns new words/signs every week! I would get an advocate but I really feel like it's an exercise in futility, this school takes on kids who are even more delayed and who need much more physical assistance than DD all the time and the SN private schools have told me we're unlikely to "win" a placement (and their tuition is around $50K per year otherwise...)

Ugh.

To top it off, I'm on bed rest for threatened preterm labor and can't drive her around for therapy. It can only be done on specific days that DH is home, and we have to somehow find a daycare that will take a 5 yr old who isn't quite 100% potty trained. Just a mess.

[Lilypie32]

May I ask why your child is not in ESE prek through the school system? You could get your ped write up a letter stating why your child needs it and give it to the ESE supervisor.

My son started at age 3 and has been in the program for 3 years. He goes to kindergarten this next school year. In his ESE placement he goes to school FT M-F 8 am to 3 pm. He was basically nonverbal when he started school and now talks very well. He is still delayed but nowhere near what he was. He can even spell simple words, etc. His teachers and therapists at school have been amazing! He started out with a state program called Early Steps when he was 15 months old due to his delays, etc. He has been attending ST, OT, PT, ABA therapy, and feeding therapy since 15 months of age, both at school and privately.

I might be sending my son to a private school by the time he hits 1st grade but none of our private schools run a full year. They all run like the public schools.

I feel for you re: the bedrest. That is very tough to do and even harder if you have a 5 yo running around!

[bri276]

I'm sorry, what's ESE?

The prek at this school only ran 2.5 hours. I bent over backwards trying to figure out how to get her a longer day, but there wasn't one available for prek, period. They had a morning and afternoon program, but both were exactly identical so she would have been taking the same class twice per day, in other words, and that just wasn't done (and I don't think it would have been any good for her).

Next year's kindergarten will be more like 8-2 and then we'll have an hour private speech 2x week from 3-4. I think that'll be pretty decent, I might throw in a swim class or something, she doesn't do too well with a ton of structured therapy (she was in EI since she was 2 months old and we had to figure out all kids of ways to not make her feel like anything was a LESSON or she'd freak )

[Cinder]

Originally Posted by Lilypie32

May I ask why your child is not in ESE prek through the school system? You could get your ped write up a letter stating why your child needs it and give it to the ESE supervisor.

My son started at age 3 and has been in the program for 3 years. He goes to kindergarten this next school year. In his ESE placement he goes to school FT M-F 8 am to 3 pm. He was basically nonverbal when he started school and now talks very well. He is still delayed but nowhere near what he was. He can even spell simple words, etc. His teachers and therapists at school have been amazing! He started out with a state program called Early Steps when he was 15 months old due to his delays, etc. He has been attending ST, OT, PT, ABA therapy, and feeding therapy since 15 months of age, both at school and privately.

I might be sending my son to a private school by the time he hits 1st grade but none of our private schools run a full year. They all run like the public schools.

I feel for you re: the bedrest. That is very tough to do and even harder if you have a 5 yo running around!

Our school district doesn't offer ANYTHING like this. Kincaid has a boy in his class who is 6, 100% non-verbal in any language, but he just moved here last july, so English isn't even his native language, and even he, in K, goes to school only half days. There is not a single pre-school open on friday district wide, and there are no full day pre-school slots district wide. There is 1 pre-k class, for the whole district, it is full day, but you have to make the K cut off (5 by october 15th last year...they change it every single year though) and you can only qualify based on maturity or behaviour issues, so because Kincaid is an awesome well behaved kid who listens he didn't qualify even though he is quite a bit behind his classmates...

[Lilypie32]

I'm sorry, I thought most states would have ESE (Exceptional Student Education) or something similar in all of their schools. Here in Florida if your child has autism/developmental delay, etc., they are evaluated and placed into full day special needs prek at a regular public grade school from age 3 to age 6. They have IEPs and receive therapies as well. They have school bus transportation with an aide. Without ESE I doubt my son would be where he is today. It's been a godsend! My son started out at age 3 in a small class size of 10 with 1 teacher and 2 aides in a varied exceptionalities classroom. Then, because he was not improving enough, he went to an ASD classroom which is where he has been for 2 years. He starts kindergarten this next school year and will likely be in a blended class or an ASD kindergarten. We're not sure yet because we're waiting on his IEP meeting after all of his testing comes in.

[Cinder]

Special education services vary so much by state, even by district there are huge differences...


Kincaid (who was diagnosed with dyspraxia at 18 months, global developmental delays at 18 months, ASD (they never specified it) at 2 1/2, and re diagnosed with global dyspraxia at 6 when he lost his ASD diagnosis) was put in pre-school when he turned 3. In Michigan it was a specifically special needs pre-school, kids were in self contained class rooms there, and it was 6 kids, 1 teacher, 2 aides, then there was always 1 therapist (speech, phyisical, occupational, behavioral) in the room at all times too, so it was 6 kids to 4 adults. But it was 3 1/2 hours, not all day, and it was m-th and it went on the normal public school schedule (laborday till early june). In denver (cherry creek schools) it is a mixed class room, he was actually one of only 2 kids in his first pre-school class here that had special needs, all the others were esl kids...it was also 15 kids to 3-4 adults... In his second pre-school it was a much better mix, probably 5 kids there for special needs and 7 "typical" children, also there were at least 5 adults at all times. For kindergarten here in this district EVERYONE is mainstreamed, there are no self contained classrooms before 6th grade, it doesn't matter what the delay is...kids who can't walk, eat or talk are still in normal class rooms, they get pull outs obviously, and depending on how severe the delay (and behaviour issues, like running away, violence, etc) is they have 1:1 aids, but it's completely mainstreamed. Kincaid receives 16 hours of therapy per week at school (out of 30 total class room hours(including lunch and recess) per week, so he is getting 1:1 or 3:1 therapy for more hours than he is actually in his kindergarten class) this year, and that will be bumped up to 19 hours per week starting next year when he is in school all day. Right now he goes all day, but because we pay for the kindergarten enrichment program.

Travis is 2, he'll be 3 in August, he was diagnosed with autism (moderate-severe) at 2 1/2, after about 9 months of ST (the only thing he qualified for at his first eval a year ago) had no results and his therapist, after spending so much time with him, saw a lot of other issues. He will be transferred to pre-school through the school district in August. There are 30 slots district wide for a specific autism program for pre-schoolers...and he qualifies for one of those spots, it will be a 7:5 ratio, but it will still only be 3 1/2 hours 4 days per week...he'll stay there till K.

[Cinder]

ohh, I was wrong though, there are all day kindergarten class rooms. They are working on making it so there is only all day kindergarten available, but it's a slow process starting with the most at risk schools. So the 6 schools with the lowest test scores and highest # of kids receiving free lunch (avg. together in some way) have all day kindergarten, they are adding 3 schools per year to this.

[bri276]

I think I might have found a place. This place was actually a part of the public school system until they cut funding and compacted everything into the programs at DD's current school. So, they had a SN director for 15 years and are very familiar with kids with DD's level of SN. They go to 5:30 and all summer long. We're meeting them tomorrow. Let's just hope the price tag isn't too much, or if it is, my parents pitch in!

Then if I can find a nanny for Sunday and Monday nights for the next few weeks until I can be up and around again, we might just be okay. There are a few on care.com that actually know ASL, that would be nice!