Moving to NJ with a special needs child. (lawyer, school district)

[AAAFather]

I recently took a job in Bergen County and will be relocating to NJ from NYC.

Currently my daughter is in a funded private school in thecity that we love but she will be graduating the end of 7th grade next year.This would be an opportune time to move. We are very happy with the servicesthat we have received in NYC so far. We have heard that the special educationsystem for NYC is not as good as areas of NJ for high school.

Has anyone moved a child into NJ with an IEP?

Is there a particular school district that you would recommend?

My daughter is very intelligent but has difficulty in socialsettings and lacks appropriate attention skills (she only pays attention whenshe is extremely interested). Our biggest concern about moving out of NYC is bullying.

Any advice or insight would be greatly appreciated.

[Siggy20]

Both of my good friends have children with IEPs and have varying challenges. One of my friends has gotten excellent help and now her child is doing extremely well in school with the various subjects. She has had to fight the district though to get these services and keep them. My other friend has had great success in her school district. She actually moved out of my district into her current one, just for the services mostly.

I don't know anything about Bergen County though. Some districts are really, really good when it comes to things like this. Others are blah. Personally, I fought with our school district tooth and nail when it came to my daughter. They didn't want classify her and fought me every step of the way. We finally got her on a 504 plan which was pretty darned wimpy and not enforced very well. Frankly, I felt like we were at a dead end. Had we stayed there, we probably would of hired a lawyer at some point and fought the school. Then again, our school district had a pretty bad reputation when it came to IEPs and such. At times, I felt that the child study teams were adversarial versus helpful and would put up road blocks. Have to keep those costs down ya know.

We are now in the great state of Texas and in an excellent school district that is very proactive. In fact yesterday they called back to NJ, got her 504 plan, and are expanding it to include a few more things. We were very careful though to pick one of the best districts in the state though. Other experiences very quite dramatically here. Suppose the same can be said of any place you move to.

Just do your research and carefully decide where you want to live. If you want to PM me, I can give you more specifics. Don't want to name and shame any particular districts on these forums. You may want to post on the NJ forums as well to gain any insights.

Good luck. Moving is sooo stressful.