IEP or Special Education experience in any of these school districts? (Minneapolis: new home, neighborhoods)

[jkuipers]

Hello all,
I am looking for any advice/experience you've had with IEP, special education, physical disability in our metro area school districts. We have two young kids, our oldest is currently in kindergarten and our 2nd is 21 months old and is physically disabled. Because we will eventually need a wheelchair accessible home, we've begun to look outside of S. Minneapolis (where we currently live) for a new home.

We're used to commuting and fairly flexible, so we've been looking at a wide range of areas, but specifically homes in the Bloomington, St. Louis Park, Hopkins, Minnetonka and Mounds View districts. I'm originally from the cities and so am pretty familiar with neighborhoods, amenities, etc., but would love to hear any experiences with the special education services for these districts.

I've been searching the forum for similar topics and have found several related posts, but since many of them seem to deal with students on the autism spectrum, I'd love to hear if anyone had any experience with physical disability / wheelchair accessibility* and inclusiveness.

*I understand that all schools by law are wheelchair accessible, but there is a difference (at least to me) between a single story school building and an older multi-story school building with one service elevator jammed in some back corner somewhere (like our current neighborhood school).

Thank you!

[ellysbelly]

I can't speak with personal experience about physical disabilities, but I was very impressed with the special education services (my youngest had an IEP due to a significant processing/reading delay and my middle had speech therapy) while at Chanhassen Elementary. Additionally there were a number of kids with moderate to severe intellectual (as well as some had physical) disabilities that were often included within the curriculum (especially for specials, plays, field trips, etc) whenever possible. The building is a single story and I believe (but can't confirm 100%) that it's entirely wheelchair accessible.

I'm still in touch with my youngest's special ed teacher at Chan and can tell you honestly that she is single handedly responsible for my daughter's academic success (she took her from barely reading to reading well above grade level)-- she still checks in with my daughter though she's no longer her student.

Not certain whether District 112 (Chaska/Chan/Victoria/Carver) is on your radar, but wanted to at least mention our family's very positive experience.

[Tyryztoll]

We have 4 special needs kids......ranging from severe developmental delays to autism, and Lakeville schools (district 194, I believe) were awesome with them during the year we were there. The early childhood learning centers and special needs assistance provided were exactly what we needed, providing all the speech/occupational/physical therapies along with paras (chaprones) and special counseling. Unfortunately, when it came time for us to purchase a home Lakeville was a little too rich for our blood, so we purchased up in Cambridge and they'll be switching to the Cambridge/Isanti schools now.

We were told before we moved to Minnesota that this was one of the best states for special needs children in correlation with everything available to them, and that has been spot on true from what we've experienced thus far. Even if some school districts aren't as special needs oriented as others, they're still probably going to be better than anything you'll find in, for instance, Texas, which is where we were previously. No comparison.

[jkuipers]

Thank you both for the feedback - much appreciated!