Colorado Springs Schools resources for Autism (Denver, Boulder: leases, attorney, houses)

[MGR25]

We may possibly be moving to Colorado Springs this summer. How are the schools? How is the crime? My 4 year old son is Autistic. How are the special education programs in the schools? Where are the good schools? and what areas should we stay away from? I would love any info you can give me!! Thanks so much,
Michele

[Mike from back east]

....welcome to city-data....

Considerable info provided by many posters is already in the threads, including much of the infomation you seek.

Newbies may find such data on any location by going to the main state or city forum and using the Search this Forum tool. Insert key words like learning or education or special or 350,000 or soccer or school or pizza or whatever is the topic of interest.

Pictures of most cities in the USA can be found at www.city-data.com and drill down to the city of choice.

One thing we seek to avoid on this site is the repeating the same info over and over....believe me, almost everyone wants to know where are the parts of town to avoid... where are the good schools.... where are houses cheap... where is it walkable to the things you need.... etc... Newbies can help themselves get much better info, immediately, by using Search.

….the Search function is very specific....if you put in schools it will find every case of schools, but it will NOT find the singular version school. It won't find word segments either, you can put in camp, and it will find camp, but it won't find the word camping.

Savvy surfers will love Advanced Search, where you search multiple states or for posts by a particular member, etc.

If the search tool cannot find the info you seek, let us know what you still need.

Thanks!
s/Mike from back east

PS: See posting in COS forum on zip codes as relates to school districts, then use zips to search on realtor.com

[CAtoCO]

Mike is right- I started a thread a few days ago re: zip codes....he gave me a TON of great info~ it's still on the first page....towards the top...hope that helps! And from what I hear Colorado Springs has great schools for the most part.... not sure of special education though...check the forums and I agree, if you need more info..ask away....everyone is VERY helpful! Good luck!!

[camesquibel]

I work for district 49 schools and there are plenty of programs for special education. Some schools specialize in different things, for example there may be a school that specializes in Autistic children. Another school might be for kids with severe needs, etc..
Hope this helps.

[Mike from back east]

Needed to add some new data, so I found this old thread with the Advance Search tool (really good tool).

The local newspaper (The Gazette) has a new interactive school map on it's site. Colorado Springs Gazette (http://www2.gazette.com/schools/ - broken link)

Maps show 3 main ways: street map view, satellite view, hybrid view with both satellite pix and street names overlaid. This is at upper right of map, similary to how mapquest does it.

Just above the map is where you select what you want to see displayed (counties, school districts, all schools, etc).

Takes some playing to get used to it, but is a great site. When you click on a "push pin" for a given school, up pops info on just that school, to include it's website, principal, contact info, which district it's in, etc.

In the future, the site is to include more info such as a school's CSAP scores, lunch menus, enrollment numbers, etc.

Hope this helps!

s/Mike from back east

[mes3fils]

You have mentioned in prior posts several different school districts that have the better reputation...what were they?

I think I remember 20, 38, 12? And maybe one more? Thanks!

[Mike from back east]

Parts of D11 are good. D11 is the largest district in the city and has some excellent schools and some average ones.

Other parts of the state have great schools. Going on memory, I think I've read in these forums that Cherry Creek district up in Denver is excellent, and I recall that most anything in Douglas and Jefferson Counties are excellent. If my memory is wrong, others here will revise that statement for me.

s/Mike

[MobyLL]

Originally Posted by ZKDM

My son has a borderline IQ and has had an Iep in Adams County schools from preschool on up to present 8th grade. This year is the hardest so far and seems impossible for him to get the kind of attention he really needs.

I am researching schools. I have heard that Boulder Valley Schools are good for special needs but I really can 't move into the district.

I am curious about some of the schools mentioned on this thread... not DCA.. he went there his 2nd grade year and didn't work out.

Does anyone know anything about Havern?

Thanks

Here is a link to a great website that has quite bit of info for Havern and other schools:

http://www.ldresources.org/?cat=0&state=CO&full=1

I've spoken to several of these schools... we have an 8 year old son with autism. So all my discussions with them were through that prism. Havern was very responsive and prompt in getting back to us, but do not enroll children with autism (except those with Aspergers Syndrome) so I did not get into a very detailed discussion with them.

Havern only goes up thru 8th grade... so I would recommend that you take a look at Humanex (I will post some info on Humanex next). Humanex goes from 7th to 12th grade.

Here is the Havern website:

http://www.haverncenter.org/

Here is some more info on Havern from the LD website:

Sanford Shapiro looks at The Havern School
© 2006
The Havern School is a relatively small school located in a residential neighborhood in Littleton, Colorado, which is about 15 or 20 minutes from downtown Denver. The Sisters of Loreto who had a mission to help children with special needs founded Havern in 1966. Interestingly, a few of the original Sisters studied with Dr. Myklebust, one of the intellectual pioneers in the LD field, at Syracuse University. As a result of that original mission, the school leases its facilities from this religious order for minimal expenses. In turn the school is reasonably priced and is able to award a healthy amount of need based scholarships. Currently there are 85 students, about capacity for the facility.
Havern enrolls students from Kindergarten through eighth grade and they stay an average of three to fours years. The students that are enrolled at Havern are considered to have more “broadly defined” learning disabilities. Included in that admissions mix are kids with language-based learning disabilities and also children with Non-Verbal Learning Disorders. There are a smaller number of fairly “complex” kids here, maybe 10-15% with an Asperger’s Syndrome-like profile and presentation. In general these are kids that need some closer and more comprehensive levels of support.
Class size averages about 10-15 students, and there are two-three teachers in each room. All lead teachers hold a master’s degree in education or special education. The faculty seems well trained and displayed a great deal of heart and planning in their teaching. There are four current faculty members that are trained and experienced from the Children’s Hospital of Denver, which has a strong history and expertise in the field of language development, speech pathology and dyslexia.
Key components of instructional delivery and teaching perspectives include Wilson Reading and the Language! Program. There are three Speech and Language therapists (one full time) who work on language skill development that includes social language pragmatics. Occupational therapy is also quite visible at Havern. There are three OT’s (one that is full time). I was quite impressed with the school’s SPOT program, which combines expertise from both the Occupational Therapy and Speech and Language disciplines. Kids were seen working on prescribed activities on a climbing wall that challenge and encourages development in both the sensory motor system and language capacities. The activity I witnessed was two kids were blindfolded and one classmate had to direct them on a certain climbing path up the wall. No one got hurt; communication and faculty guidance were visible and in action. In addition the school has a social worker as a consultant one day per week and an art specialist teacher who is there 2-3 times per week. For such a relatively small school it appears well resourced with all the family like atmosphere associated with a good small school.

[MobyLL]

Here is the Humanex Academy website:

Humanex Academy | Home

They were also very responsive to our phone call. They do enroll some children with autism as well as Aspergers and other learning disabilities. The Humanex Academy is for 7th - 12th grade, so our son is still too young to go there and so we don't have a great deal of additional info to provide. But the staff seems very willing to talk about your child's needs to see if it is a good fit.

Addtionally for anyone with a child on the autism spectrum you may want to contact the Joshua School -- Welcome to The Joshua School and the Alta Vista Center (formerly Aspen Center) -- Alta Vista Autism Center Homepage

We have visited the Joshua School -- it is a school pretty much exclusively for children with autism. They only have 13 students with 9 staff. Current range of ages is 6 - 14. It is very expensive but you can try to get a placement there from your school district if the public school system is not providing an appropriate education. Several students at the Joshua School have been placed there by the school districts around Denver at no cost to the parents. Our son does not go there (we are currently in "discussions" with DPS for appropriate supports/services for our son), but we were very impressed with the Executive Director, Jason Gruhl and the staff.

We do not know as much about the Alta Vista Center, but have good things about their program.

Also we can highly recommend the attorney at ARC, Michael Breeskin, if you need legal help:
http://www.arcofdenver.org/staff.html (broken link)

Also, the Spies, Powers and Robinson Law Firm is great for education law:
Spies, Powers, &amp Robinson

We can personally highly recommend Karen Wilcynski:
Spies, Powers, & Robinson (http://www.sprlaw.net/karen.html - broken link)

And have heard great things about Jack Robinson:
Spies, Powers, & Robinson (http://www.sprlaw.net/jack.html - broken link)

And finally, we can also highly recommend speaking to Diane Osaki if you need help with classroom observations, teacher training, advocacy, etc. She is the founder and former executive director of the Alta Vista Center -- an amazing person.
her email address is: osakiconsulting@mac.com

[jojo61397]

Hello--

My husband is in the military, and we are up for orders. My son has autism spectrum disorder, and there are seven bases we are considering. I would like to know what the services are like in C. Springs? How long is the waiting list for said services? What the school districts are like? My son is 4 y/o and has mod-high function ASD.

Thanks