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Am I misunderstanding this? In the first part you're saying you can't blame the schools, but in the second part you're saying that you're impressed by kids who succeed in spite of the schools. Doesn't that second part imply that the schools do have an impact on the kids?
Is that so hard to understand? 90% or raising a kid is parenting, if not more.
1. If the district is full of kids with no parenting and one kid has a good home, that is what I mean. It isn't really the fault of the school that it is FILLED with kids with horrible home lives.
2. It takes strong parents and in turn kid to go through a horrible district and do well.
My statements are not only very logical, but certainly easy to read for anyone with a half a brain.
I can make this simple for you...My daughter who is perfectly fine has made a ton of friends...loves her school blah, blah, blah....my son who is special needs....well the teachers are completely incompetent...they treat him in the worst most awful way, and it is all because they haven't had kids on the spectrum before, and they simply want to preserve their pretty little prissy school without any disturbances. The ABA teacher wants to do things by the book rather than by the child, and we are re-searching other districts that may be more suitable for both our kids not just one of them.
Maybe your son who is "special needs", is a handful and he takes a lot away from the other kids there because the teacher's attention is on your son? There could be lots of reasons. Maybe your son should be in a special school. Believe it or not there are plenty of people that don't feel some children that have special needs should be in public schools if they disrupt other students. The cost to those other students is too great.
My family is planning a move to the greater Pittsburgh area in June of this year and I have pretty much narrowed down our search to the Mt.Lebo/USC area due to a number of factors (location for both of our jobs, schools, etc). While I have come across an abundance of data regarding the quality of the acadmics in these areas, I am wondering if anyone has any feedback regarding how easy/difficult it is for new families to integrate into the communities. I have a daughter who will be starting 6th grade and we currently live in a smaller suburb of Boston (about 13k) that is very welcoming to new families; we moved here 3 years ago and she had no problem making friends/fitting in.
As everything I am reading about the Mt.Lebo area sounds too good to be true, I'm just wondering if there are any negatives people could come up with in regard to moving to this area with a middle schooler.
Thanks!
You stated that you will be close to work, does this mean that you will not be commuting into town? I lived in both the south hills and north of the city, and I found to commute from the south into town to be worse. Something about going through a tunnel that seems to freak people out/slow them down.
This may be minor, but Mt. Lebo does not bus students to/from school. You must provide transportation for your children or they walk. There may be some limited busing, but I don't think it is very extensive. USC does have buses.
When we looked at houses in Mt. Lebo area, we found may beautiful places. However, we noticed that many were older, and had some common older features (smaller closets, etc.). That may be a generalization, but it is what we noticed.
Maybe your son who is "special needs", is a handful and he takes a lot away from the other kids there because the teacher's attention is on your son? There could be lots of reasons. Maybe your son should be in a special school. Believe it or not there are plenty of people that don't feel some children that have special needs should be in public schools if they disrupt other students. The cost to those other students is too great.
Um wow. You realize there are many different levels of special needs and you don't just send any kid to a "special" school,right? My Mom worked for 30 years at a school for children with special needs in the Pgh Public School System. It was for children with severe disabilities and children with Autism who are non-verbal. Schools should be working on inclusion for children with less severe special needs. They may need a different kind of class setting but should be included with the general student population whenever possible.
Um wow. You realize there are many different levels of special needs and you don't just send any kid to a "special" school,right? My Mom worked for 30 years at a school for children with special needs in the Pgh Public School System. It was for children with severe disabilities and children with Autism who are non-verbal. Schools should be working on inclusion for children with less severe special needs. They may need a different kind of class setting but should be included with the general student population whenever possible.
That could be okay, but if the special needs kid is holding back others, I am NOT for it. I have seen that first hand and just because one mom of a special needs kid say, my son should be in those class rooms, doesn't make it right. It can kill a whole classes education. Sorry, but that isn't exceptable. Maybe good for the one kid, but what about the other 20 students? Not buying into that crap! Period!
That is precisely what they have NOT done at this school for him. From day one they decided that they'll treat him with the cold shoulder. He was deemed MORE than ready for K when last year ended, educationally and socially. Now, he cries almost every day because he is being isolated and has 5 minutes with his class, because his teacher is incompetent, and unqualified and flat out ignorant almost like H_Curtis on the matter.
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Originally Posted by heartchya
Um wow. You realize there are many different levels of special needs and you don't just send any kid to a "special" school,right? My Mom worked for 30 years at a school for children with special needs in the Pgh Public School System. It was for children with severe disabilities and children with Autism who are non-verbal. Schools should be working on inclusion for children with less severe special needs. They may need a different kind of class setting but should be included with the general student population whenever possible.
Your reply is so ignorant its truly sad. For your information the medical field still has no idea what Autism is, nor how to treat it. Also for your information there are a LOT of kids diagnosed with PDD/NOS (Google it) who are bounced back from one disorder to another just so they can get some services like speech/behavior/occupational. These therapies for the uninsured cost $900 per session or 45 minutes. Most employer provided healthcare does not provide any insurance for Autistic children.
The Gov thinks that the parents of Autistic children are millionaires, and can afford private schools at some $20 a year. Most are NOT millionaires, far from it.
My child was fine (can be seen through video's) before his MMR shot....others are truly born like that....regardless of how they ended up with some spectrum disorder the education department has done nothing to address THEM (All of them). Some of these kids who do make eye contact and speak have to be helped to become self sufficient individuals who can handle a car, a job and have a shot at a normal life. Same happens for children with Down syndrome...etc. If you want your child to be undisturbed in school, you put yours in private school then. But please don't come here and tell us what to do when we're the ones left with minimal choices here. The cost of an Autistic child through his/her life is of several million dollars...and guess what, Autistic children are not born only to wealthy families who can afford all the therapies and private schools. So, if you want to complain, then complain to the Gov who is the ONLY body who can DO something about this. Please remember however, that "Education" is Gov's favorite field to take money FROM non stop. So, if you don't have a child with special needs, please don't tell US what to do. Why don't you ADOPT one, and then come back and give us feedback as to how you're handling it.
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Maybe your son who is "special needs", is a handful and he takes a lot away from the other kids there because the teacher's attention is on your son? There could be lots of reasons. Maybe your son should be in a special school. Believe it or not there are plenty of people that don't feel some children that have special needs should be in public schools if they disrupt other students. The cost to those other students is too great.
Lastly to the OP, there is one other school in Mt Lebo that has an Autistic class, but it is ONLY for those who do not make eye contact or speak. The whole district is not equipped staff wise to deal with special needs.
That is precisely what they have NOT done at this school for him. From day one they decided that they'll treat him with the cold shoulder. He was deemed MORE than ready for K when last year ended, educationally and socially. Now, he cries almost every day because he is being isolated and has 5 minutes with his class, because his teacher is incompetent, and unqualified and flat out ignorant almost like H_Curtis on the matter.
Find out the reason this is happening. It's very possible that they do have an appropriate placement for your child but there is no room. That's not an acceptable reason for him to not be appropriate placed because the school district is required by law to hire another special education teacher if a placement is full.
Have you located the special education parent's group? If not, you need to get in touch with them. You also need to file a complaint with the state if he is truly being isolated. Don't think for a minute that this won't happen at another school district. You have to advocate for your child, take action, and force the school district to provide an appropriate placement. Moving might put you back at the beginning. Find other special education parents so you can learn how to resolve this.
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Originally Posted by algia
Lastly to the OP, there is one other school in Mt Lebo that has an Autistic class, but it is ONLY for those who do not make eye contact or speak. The whole district is not equipped staff wise to deal with special needs.
If they truly don't have an appropriate placement, they have to pay for your son to attend another school. You have to learn how to fight to win. Just talking to them on the phone or in person isn't going to accomplish anything. Learn the procedures. Put everything in writing. Find an advocate (the special education parent's group can help you with this) who can guide you and who will attend meetings with you.
Find out the reason this is happening. It's very possible that they do have an appropriate placement for your child but there is no room. That's not an acceptable reason for him to not be appropriate placed because the school district is required by law to hire another special education teacher if a placement is full. He is the only one in the school at this time with special needs. There is room, there's no overcrowding.
Have you located the special education parent's group? If not, you need to get in touch with them. You also need to file a complaint with the state if he is truly being isolated. Don't think for a minute that this won't happen at another school district. You have to advocate for your child, take action, and force the school district to provide an appropriate placement. Moving might put you back at the beginning. Find other special education parents so you can learn how to resolve this. Ohh, I know, we've been on top of them since we got here, especially since they couldn't stop telling us how great their school was for him since last February when we first started talking. Being laid back about it is the last thing we are! The reason we moved here was because we knew in FL he wasn't going to get an aid if he needed one, PA from THAT stand point was why we relocated in the first place. The aid is not the problem, the rest are the problem because they don't understand ABA (while they pretend to be educated in it) and if he is not acting 100% like they learned in those books/manuals, then they are lost...they are asking us to provide solutions on how to deal with him, except that at home he doesn't exhibit the behavior their relaying to us. I even entertained putting cameras on him so "we" can see exactly what is going on there and address it accordingly.
Thank you to everyone who has responded - so much information! To answer some questions floating out there - I will be working near Southside Works, but I will be visiting satellite offices in Monroeville and Bethel Park several days a week, so we would like to be centrally located. My husband works from home and only needs reasonable access to the airport. While I appreciate the input on the schools and access to special needs, my daughter (thankfully) does not require any of these services, so that is less important to me than, say, the social climate.
We are now looking in earnest for a place in Mt. Lebanon and plan to visit next month to really get a feel for the place. My husband took a short business trip last month and really liked the feel of the town. We are also looking in USC, Peters, Scott, and Bethel Park, although the latter of the list is less desireable for us. Thanks again for all the input - we are getting very excited about moving and starting the next chapter!
They FREAKED out when we told them that. I know we can ask the district for that. As a matter of fact, I mailed the district person dealing with SE since last May and still have not heard 1 word back; (that was after they originally told us he would continue into a full day and not half day). They also freaked when I asked them a very direct question regarding the success record of such kids since they told us long before we moved how great they are. I asked for specifics and they started stuttering in our face to face meetings. So, for PDD/NOS for those interested, there are NO records of progress available. Meaning that unlike for the regular kids, for these kids they don't keep score as to how they progress (socially or academically) which is shameful considering that there is a considerable number of kids labeled PDD/NOS. For example, my kid reads at 2nd grade level since around April of last year, he picked up books in the library and started reading, then he did the same in Spanish () props to him, however, the schools don't keep track as they do with the other kids because they may get only a handful since a good portion of Autistic (or on spectrum) kids are non functional, so apparently they don't need to give this piece of information to parents. Well, I for one would like know this piece of information because a school can be rated 10 judged by normal kids, but rated 2 for special needs, in which case I may then need to choose a school rated 8 for normal kids but at least 7 or better for special needs. Since we have 3 kids, and I would like for all three to learn the same things (even tho it may not be at the same time, or the same way for all 3, but that's beside the point).
I do have everything in writing. I am drowning in papers as of now.
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If they truly don't have an appropriate placement, they have to pay for your son to attend another school. You have to learn how to fight to win. Just talking to them on the phone or in person isn't going to accomplish anything. Learn the procedures. Put everything in writing. Find an advocate (the special education parent's group can help you with this) who can guide you and who will attend meetings with you.
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) props to him, however, the schools don't keep track as they do with the other kids because they may get only a handful since a good portion of Autistic (or on spectrum) kids are non functional, so apparently they don't need to give this piece of information to parents. Well, I for one would like know this piece of information because a school can be rated 10 judged by normal kids, but rated 2 for special needs, in which case I may then need to choose a school rated 8 for normal kids but at least 7 or better for special needs. Since we have 3 kids, and I would like for all three to learn the same things (even tho it may not be at the same time, or the same way for all 3, but that's beside the point).
