Special Ed in Greenwich?? (Darien, Fairfield: house, school districts, tax)

[jjinla]

I know this is the NY forum, but I can't find anything at all helpful on the CT forum.

We've included Greenwich in our house hunt, mainly due to the tax benefits, but I'd love some feedback on their special ed programs.

My son starts K next year and has ADHD and social skill defecits. He will either be in an integrated or mainstream class, and will need OT/ST/social skills classes, most likely.

We are mainly focused on Old Greenwich and Riverside. If you have any experience with kids in their system, have friends who have, or even have just heard rumblings, please let me know.

Thanks.

[lan3]

I looked into Ct for a short time (I have family in Fairfield). I think Greenwich is better for special needs than the other wealthy areas of CT such as Darien and New Caanen which have awful reputations. It seemed that the bigger cities had more special needs programs. I think that Norwalk was one of the better districts in terms of special needs programs when I was looking but I don't know if that is what you are looking for. My child has autism and most of the people that I spoke to in CT used private schools for autism and I wanted my child to be able to go to school with his siblings so I chose to stick with Westchester. I also didn't like the large schools in most of the areas that I could afford and I couldn't see my special needs child getting the attention he requires in a high school with almost 3000 kids. I would have to use private for high school and I want my son to be around typical children.

One other thing, my son's ABA teacher took a class at Yale when I was looking into different areas to move and I asked her to ask the Professor which school districts did she recommend in Fairfield County. The Yale professor told her to tell me to stay in NY and that the services were much better.

Please remember that this is all about autism and I don't know much about ADHD programs so it may be completely different. ADHD programs in CT may be completely fine. I am sure it is quite common in any wealthy school district and Greenwich could probably accommodate a child with ADHD but I don't know much about it. Good luck. I know how hard it is to find a house when you have a child with special needs to consider. We felt quite limited when we were looking because we only focused on areas that had strong special needs programs. Good luck in your search and i hope you find the information you need to make a good decision for your family.