Town on the N Shore with excellent public special ed? (Andover: lawyer, public school)

[JoeMamma]

Looking to move up the North Shore or just north/East of 93 anyway. Ideally up near Hamilton/Wenham etc? One of my kids has an IEP and uses a lot of the public school services in our town. Our current town West of the city has excellent public school services and we are wondering which towns around the north shore have the best... Anyone with personal experience they can share? Don't know any towns up there and don't know where to start... Not looking up 93 towards Andover but more up 95/128 and ideally on the train line.

Any suggestions are much appreciated!

[scarletfire]

Hamilton & Wenham have a shared school system that is quite reputable. I'd recommend calling the superintendent's office to ask what resources they have available. Other good options to check out would be Manchester by the Sea and Marblehead.

[fourkorz]

Let me warn you away from Marblehead. We have needed school support in a similar situation and found it just awful. We know of other parents who have had to go the lawyer route to get basic support. We have a tutor/specialist from the Western suburbs who came to a meeting with us and afterwards said, "I had to see it to believe it -- there's just no support!"
We've lived in numerous towns and states -- Marblehead has the worst support. They rely heavily on wealthy parents able to subsidize their faililngs though private tutors, etc. There are some very dedicated teachers, but I'm far less impressed with the administrators. What they seem to do best is pat themselves on the back at what a good job they think they're doing. We have another child who excels academically, but has had speech problems. Again, the school couldn't wait to get him out of their programs and we've had to spend our own money on a private therapist. Very disappointing, made all the more annoying by the incredible smugness of the administrators.