Autism/Special needs- Good School Districts/services
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We have a son who just turned 3, with very severe language deficit, and we needed to move abroad. Now, we’re returning to MA and we are free to go anywhere there or in New England with the best possible (district-provided) resources.
If you could choose anywhere in MA and New England, where would that be? LABBB, as mentioned above? Elsewhere? Thank you!
We have a son who just turned 3, with very severe language deficit, and we needed to move abroad. Now, we’re returning to MA and we are free to go anywhere there or in New England with the best possible (district-provided) resources.
If you could choose anywhere in MA and New England, where would that be? LABBB, as mentioned above? Elsewhere? Thank you!
First, I always suggest starting your own thread no matter how similar your issue is to one discussed in an old thread. People always come in and start responding to old posts and your question can get lost in the shiffle.
Second, where to move to and what district would be a good fit really depends upon the needs of your son. My oldest son is on the spectrum and also is intellectually impaired so no school district on the planet is really setup to help him. So, he's been outplaced. As far as collaberatives like LABB, I've asked about those places and the therapists my son works with have all advised avoiding the collaboratives. The private institutions like Nashoba Learning Group, New England Center for Children, etc., etc., etc. tend to be better run and have higher quality care. This being said if your child needs a low level of support then the odds of your district paying for a place like NECC or NLG are pretty low as the law requires your child be in the setting that's least restrictive.
Basically, this is a much more complicated question than it seems and we only have sparse information from you. Housing budget is also a big driver as some towns are far more expensive than others.
Is there a school district that won't fight you on an outplacement? My understanding was that everyone will fight you. Some are just easier to make a case against. The cost of outplacement is high and school districts don't want to pay it. Last I heard, Nashoba (for example) was $105,000/year. NECC in Southborough is somewhere north of $150K.
I heard a terrible story recently about 6 kids with ASD who live in Sudbury. They sued the town and won and all 6 got outplacements. In order to fund the outplacements, the town had to have a prop 2 1/2 override. Apparently, one of the selectmen in town made it very clear that these 6 kids were the reason why everyone's taxes were going up. He couldn't legally name them but people figured it out and were none too nice to these families none of which ever asked to deal with ASD.
THat's disgusting. I hope they fired that selectman.
Those six children should have received better services -- I'm sure it was a nightmare for them at school.
It's extremely difficult to win outplacement, so the school must have behaved very very badly towards these kids and their families.
Now the selectman, too. I hope other people in town are supporting these six families with compassion and kindness. The town sounds horrid.
It sounds like the families deserve that at least.
Last edited by CaseyB; 05-18-2022 at 04:25 AM..
Reason: language
THat's disgusting. I hope they fired that selectman.
Those six children should have received better services -- I'm sure it was a nightmare for them at school.
It's extremely difficult to win outplacement, so the school must have behaved very very badly towards these kids and their families.
Now the selectman, too. I hope other people in town are supporting these six families with compassion and kindness. The town sounds horrid.
It sounds like the families deserve that at least.
That post you quoted is six years old. Not sure if those people are still elected officials in Sudbury, but yest I agree 100% that their behaviour was reprehensible. Those kids deserved an outplacement and Federal law makes the school system responsible for paying for it. It's unfortunate that such a high degree of services is so expensive but it is what it is.
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