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Old 12-13-2016, 05:08 PM
 
12 posts, read 6,899 times
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Hi,

I have a 3 yr old kid with ASD. Currently we are in Roundrock ISD but havent started school services. We are planning to buy a house but finding hard to make a decision with respect to which ISD will be good for my kid's normal/special ed in long run. If anyone has any experiences (good/bad) can you share your comments? Any comments on special education in specific schools that falls under the below ISDs will also help.

How would you rate or list among Roundrock ISD, Leander ISD, Austin ISD, Georgetown ISD?

Thanks
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Old 12-13-2016, 07:43 PM
 
772 posts, read 1,055,429 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Anukrishna208 View Post
Hi,

I have a 3 yr old kid with ASD. Currently we are in Roundrock ISD but havent started school services. We are planning to buy a house but finding hard to make a decision with respect to which ISD will be good for my kid's normal/special ed in long run. If anyone has any experiences (good/bad) can you share your comments? Any comments on special education in specific schools that falls under the below ISDs will also help.

How would you rate or list among Roundrock ISD, Leander ISD, Austin ISD, Georgetown ISD?

Thanks

Why haven't you started school services since you kid is already 3? I think you are in a good position to get an IEP established RRISD and that will give you an actual experience of working with them vs. whatever else anyone else can tell you about any other ISDs.

That being said, I don't have personal experience with ASD but have experience with my neuro typical child receiving speech therapy in LISD. LISD has been beyond exceptional in everything. It was just easy to work with them. We moved with a speech IEP for a 3.5 year old from CA. It was easy as ABC to get services started here and they offered us identical services for the first month and then at the end of that month, they had an ARD and actually offered more than what we had including an intensive daily 2 hour speech and language program (3-5 years) mixture of kids needing speech and those not needing speech.

The bus took her to preschool after. In the group of kids needing speech included neurotypical kids like her as well as kids with ASD, Downs syndrome etc ( I believe since of these kids got an extra 2 hours daily). 2 or 3 times each week, she was pulled out for 30 minute 1*1 speech therapy.

When we started kindergarten, transition was smooth since we were now in a different school (was told by the SLP in the 3-5 program that she physically took the files of each of the kids moving to a different school kindergarten to make sure nothing gets lost - that to me is dedication). We are coming up to get 3rd ARD and I've been told that if unlikely that she will qualify (she barely qualified last year but I argued for an extra year of speech since i believe she was still benefiting.

Today, most people wouldn't know she ever had any speech issues. I still hear some speech faults but I'm here mother and after years of working with her on this, I'm probably listening way too much:-)

All in all, I can honestly say that LISD has been awesome for my daughter and has helped her close 99% of her speech gaps (I'm told that the remaining will just come with time like some specific sounds that she still has trouble with). I also like how inclusive the classes are. I'm my kids school, very normal to have classes with special needs children and typical children.

Good luck with everything!
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Old 12-13-2016, 08:48 PM
 
12 posts, read 6,899 times
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Thanks for your reply. I havent started school services because of ABA/OT/Speech schedule and we started ABA just 2 months back and we want more one-on-one for now. We have got school services approved after evaluation but put on hold for now.

Can you give me the school names your daughter went for 3-5 and kindergarden?
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Old 12-13-2016, 10:49 PM
 
307 posts, read 719,184 times
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child with down syndrome here. I hear that RRISD and LISD are two of the best (we are AISD and considering moving to Eanes).
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Old 12-15-2016, 02:03 PM
 
7,996 posts, read 10,362,820 times
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As a preschool teacher who has referred many families to their school district for services, I would just take AISD out of the running. In my experience and observations with them, they seem more concerned with getting kids to be able to sit down and be quiet and not disruptive than actually helping them.
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Old 12-15-2016, 02:17 PM
 
Location: Austin, TX
15,246 posts, read 35,505,155 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by CarnivalGal View Post
As a preschool teacher who has referred many families to their school district for services, I would just take AISD out of the running. In my experience and observations with them, they seem more concerned with getting kids to be able to sit down and be quiet and not disruptive than actually helping them.
As a parent with a kid in an AISD IEP (for four years now), I haven't had this experience at all and have been very happy with the services. That said, I can't really compare to other districts or even other schools.
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Old 12-15-2016, 04:41 PM
 
7,996 posts, read 10,362,820 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Trainwreck20 View Post
As a parent with a kid in an AISD IEP (for four years now), I haven't had this experience at all and have been very happy with the services. That said, I can't really compare to other districts or even other schools.
Maybe some schools are better than others, but I have had to observe as part of my certification, and what I saw was not great.
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Old 12-20-2016, 02:17 PM
 
Location: Round Rock, Texas
12,897 posts, read 13,227,554 times
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Future funding for AISD Special Education is going to be problematic in light of Superintendent Cruz's recent letter to the taxpayers of Austin:


Quote:
Dear Taxpayers:

You may have noticed that your recent tax bill included a line item attributed to the Austin Independent School District. I would like to explain what happens to over a third of the school property tax dollars you may believe are being used to support our own Austin students.

Currently, more than 35 cents of every AISD (M&O) tax dollar collected is kept by the state because AISD is considered property-wealthy under the state's recapture law, which is also known as Robin Hood. In other words, the district has been told it MUST pay in fiscal year 2017 an estimated $406 million of your property tax dollars to the state of Texas. The number of districts that are paying Robin Hood is higher than ever, and recapture has grown to a $2 billion revenue stream for the state.

Effectively, the legislature uses your tax dollars to reduce the amount it would otherwise contribute to public education from other sources. And, while local taxpayers will pay more than $1 billion to AISD this year, AISD keeps less than $700 million and receives only $37 million in state funding.

Yes, you read that correctly – in essence, AISD will send over 10 times more funds to the state this year ($406 million) than it will receive in state funding ($37 million). There are more than 1,200 school districts in Texas, and AISD is the single largest payer into recapture, representing nearly 12 percent of the total recapture revenue that the state collects.

During the next five years, we estimate the state will take almost $2.6 billion in recapture payments from AISD. By 2019, we expect more than half of every AISD dollar Austinites pay in taxes will be sent to the state if something does not change.

At Austin ISD, we face many growing challenges in serving our students and families, including:

* Over 50% of our students live in poverty; 28% are English language learners; and more than half are considered to be at risk of dropping out or not meeting the state’s academic standards.

* The cost of operating schools increases just as the cost of living in Austin does.

* Teachers are leaving AISD for more competitive pay in other districts.

Simply put: We need more of our local dollars to stay in our local schools.


Unfortunately, the state’s over-reliance on recapture is leading to an unintended, inequitable burden. Austin taxpayers and taxpayers in other communities are forced to shoulder a growing amount of the cost of public education in Texas.

We know there are districts throughout the state that need additional funds to educate their students, but it is the duty of the state—not local taxpayers—to provide those funds.

We ask for your support as we approach the legislative session and implore Texas lawmakers to keep local dollars in local schools. You can follow our efforts and learn more by visiting www.austinisd.org/legislature.

Again, thank you for your continued support of Austin public schools.


Paul Cruz, Ph.D.

Superintendent

The "recapture" program has been better known as the "Robin Hood Plan" for almost 25 years, courtesy of Governor Ann Richards and Speaker Pete Laney.
Leander ISD may be sending out a similar letter in the not too distant future. Something to think about.

My grandson (a CP kid) went through LTISD and RRISD Special Ed years ago.
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Old 12-20-2016, 02:31 PM
 
Location: central Austin
7,228 posts, read 16,052,300 times
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I don't think it will specifically impact special ed at AISD in the future, any more than recapture has in the past 20+ years. Something needs to happen though. Recapture is very unfair to districts like HISD and AISD.
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Old 12-20-2016, 02:52 PM
 
Location: Austin, TX
15,246 posts, read 35,505,155 times
Reputation: 8587
Quote:
Originally Posted by centralaustinite View Post
I don't think it will specifically impact special ed at AISD in the future, any more than recapture has in the past 20+ years. Something needs to happen though. Recapture is very unfair to districts like HISD and AISD.
I think this is the first year, maybe, that Houston will pay 'into' RH? And it is a smaller dollar amount (albeit not small) and an even smaller percentage of their budget (less than 10 percent vs Austin's skyrocketing percentage). The hope is that this 'inequity' suffered by HISD will result in, at the very least, revisions to the RH system. Which sort of pisses me off, 'cause Austin has been in a 'worse' situation for years but that has been deemed just more whining from Austin, not some important place like Houston
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