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We are planning to relocate this year to one of the towns in NJ. My son, who'll begin kindergarten coming academic year is Autistic & based on his evaluation will either need a self-contained classroom or an inclusion-classroom.
Here's our criteria:
1. School district should have 7+ ratings & well developed autism (in-school) programs.
2. Since I work in downtown Manhattan (WTC), so the commute to city should be appx 1hour (+/- 15-20min)
3. Our budget for house is between 800k-900k
So far I heard good things about Bergen County (esp. Paramus), but any suggestions for town/s that best fits the above criteria will be valuable.
From what I've heard the majority of Bergen county has great programs. Specific districts I've heard brought up in the conversations with parents of kids on the spectrum are Ridgewood, Demarest, and Closter. Your budget is fine for any of those towns. The traffic in Paramus can be a little much but low taxes, good schools and easy access to highways always keeps it in the conversation of great places top raise a family.
Ridgewood is probably better for commuting to WTC than Paramus, since it has a train to Hoboken. Commute is about an hour and 10 - 20, depending upon how far you live from the train.
Thanks for the feedback tdstyles & Mightyqueen801, its good to know that I'm targeting the right county. I'll definitely add Ridgewood to house hunt. Not sure how the commute will be from Demarest (and man its expensive town).
Also, any idea about non-profit org The Valley Program Foundation. There's not enough info on their site, what kind of services they provide??
Bergen County definitely has excellent education for autism.
Paramus has some good autism programs within their district, they also have to the option to send kids out of district.
The Valley Program takes children from all the upper Bergen County areas. Its a public school and my son goes to Valley Pi in Harrington Park. We had to get him an out of district placement to go there, as the services we had in our town weren't suitable at that time.
Once you decide which town you want to move to and close on a house, you would meet with the child study team and the child study team would have to give you a few options for placement to make the best decision of your child.
$800-$900 budget should get you a nice house in Paramus or parts of Northern Bergen County.
Thanks @Kevin1975, based on the feedback I'm planning to add Ridgewood & Demarest in my list.
Any idea how the commute from Demarest to city (manhattan) is??
Hello All, I have moderate autistic boy who is 4.5 yr old, what are my chances to get into valley program, if we live in westwood. I spoke to child study team in westwood district, they were not willing to speak with out having register my kid in westwood schools.
Does any one know, valley program will take children from other districts like Paramus/ridgewood/Westwood. I prefer these palces because i work in NYC and commute is some what convenient.
Hi Imona, I live in Westwood and we send our autistic child out of district to the Valley Pie program in Harrington Park. Westwood is going to want to keep him in the district. We had to fight to get get him into that program. Its very good. I have heard Westwood's has gotten better. We had a lot of problems a few years back, but a lot of the special need services admins who were there previously are gone.
Thanks Kevin, what I understand from your response is, if I live in westwood its not straight forward to get into valley program, I may need to get an exception from westwood district to send my son out of district program.
The reason I was preferring westwood than Harrington Park or Old Tappan is because it has better living options and better for commute.
I need an advise what would be best if not westwood, from the participating districts
Alpine, Closter, Demarest, Harrington Park, Haworth, Northern Valley Regional High School District, Northvale, Norwood, and Old Tappan.
appreciate your response.
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