BUSD Central Zone schools for IEP + gifted (2e) kids?
Hello fellow parents out there,
We have two kids (K and 3rd) currently in a small private school, where we are not happy. The school claims to support differentiated learning, yet lacks basic structure or learning standards, and a sense of community. So we're looking to move to a BUSD school in the Central Zone (Malcolm X, Washington, Cragmont, Oxford, BAM).
We are super stressed about the whole transition although excited to re-allocate the tuition money toward more family time together.
Our older child has a host of learning differences (challenges and strengths) and we will need (I'm sure) to establish an IEP for him. Can anyone shed any light on which (if any) of the schools in our zone might be especially supportive for our family? Any advice on navigating the lottery/school assignment if we don't get one of our top choices? What do you IEP families wish you knew before you started the process? Is there any learning/social-emotional support for gifted kids anywhere at the elementary level in BUSD?
SO many questions. Thank you so much for any words of wisdom!!
Parent Replies
My experience with the lottery is that we have not been able to move to a different school and we have been trying all year (we are currently at Malcom X). I think this is highly dependent on what school you are trying to get into and if there happens to be a spot or not. I think any special social-emotional support for kids (gifted or not) is going to be teacher specific. Our highly sensitive daughter is in a classroom that is not a good fit for her and while the school has done some work with us trying to help her they were not willing to try a different classroom. The only option they gave us was to change schools completely. All students in BUSD use the Toolbox program for social emotional development (https://www.dovetaillearning.org/)
I'm not in that zone and can't speak to the schools, but wanted to speak to the IEP process - one thing BUSD throws in as a requirement is that the child have a vision and hearing screening that was done within the past year. Kaiser regularly does these at check-ups, but you need to make sure you've got paperwork that says they had the screening. The Special Ed Department has a very long list of documents they want before they start looking it over, I think it's on the website. If you can, start the process NOW before everything closes up for the summer.
We moved here over the summer and didn't find out the school we'd be at until August 15th, didn't have an IEP, and had to rush to get a 504 and some basic accommodations in place prior to the start of school by contacting the principal. I believe you can actually get the whole thing started now because of a provision of the IDEA law called "Child Find" - DREDF is a good resource if you have technical questions. Good luck!
Hi, sorry to hear your school isn’t very supportive of your children. I would suggest looking up Family Resource Navigators and give them a call! They are a good resource on how you can start the process on getting evaluated. They will most likely send a referal to East Bay Regional Center to start the assessmens/evaluations. Based on the results if your kids need services, they’ll direct you to the public school and then they’ll do their own assessments. The school will then call for an IEP meeting and set goals for your kids. As far as schools, it depends which school you’re closest to and if there’s an opening. I highly suggest calling a DREDF advocate to help with the IEP. They can also come to your IEP meeting. Hope that helps!