I have been workin with children most of my life. My favorite jobs were with special needs children. I have worked with many different levels of delays to non verbal autistic kids. Your day at work is never the same with a job like this. Its always fresh and interesting and never know what will happen next. Over the years, I have attended many CSE meetings. This was so helpful to me when I had a special needs child. It made it so much easier to navigate the process and know when the district was trying to take advantage.

 Do you know the process for how your local district places kids with extra needs? My home district will take new kids in for the first 8-10 weeks as an initial evaluation. If a child is recommended for extra services, the district will remove the child from the classroom and move them accordingly. That could mean a different classroom or different school within the district. So they take a brand new student, let them start to feel comfortable and then pull them out and move them. How is that child not to feel punished for not doing well enough?  There are things you can do to stop this. Children need to feel loved and accepted and most of all, understood. Unfortunately, our system is not always set up to do this. Now not all districts are the same so doing a little research can prevent any of these issues. Its important to know who to talk to first.

The process to receive services for children in or out of district is intentionally complicated. They never have enough providers for the amount of students that need services in most districts. There are ways to make sure your getting the best for your kids. Some people higher lawyers but advocates can be very helpful at receiving those needed services without a lawyer. I advocate for special needs children and homeschool families. If you have a child that is not in school yet but you anticipate them needed extra services or your child is already in school but not receiving the services they should, please contact me. Every situation is different but I’d love to help where I can.