OUSD Preschool experience with IEP?
Hi Everyone,
Our 3 year old son was recently assessed by OUSD and they found he’s on the autism spectrum, but a bit more on the mild side. He’s verbal and has great vocabulary and has made tons of friends at his current preschool, but can work on word and sentence structure, pronunciation, conversations with others, emotional regulation, attention, and transitions. OUSD recommended he attend one of their preschools that have social and speech services integrated into the general classroom.
We’ve been researching OUSD preschools and a few seem promising for our needs - Laurel, Kaiser, Burbank. Curious if anyone sent their kids (especially with an IEP but open to any thoughts) to any of these programs or other ones? We’ve read that parent engagement seems much lower at these schools and have seen mixed reviews on the effectiveness of services. I’d also add that we’re only going to need to do this for a year as he’s eligible for TK Fall 2026 and plan to enroll him at our neighborhood school Glenview which will have services. Also curious if anyone in a similar situation ended up going a different route outside of OUSD schools.
Thanks!
Jordan
Parent Replies
First of all, great job of knowing your son's strengths, advocating for him and considering the different preschool options.
My son was also diagnosed with level 1 ASD shortly after he was 3 and has an IEP.
You'd asked about other routes outside of school district. I kept my son at his preschool and got an aide (through insurance) to attend school with him. If your son has made a lot of friends and is enjoying/thriving where he is at, I'd consider doing the same if possible (know there are a lot of different factors and each family's situation is unique).
If there are other services in his IEP (speech, OT, etc), you should be able to take advantage of them and decline the preschool option.
Separately I've heard good things about Glenview and the services there.
My son was assessed by OUSD at 3.5 years old to have autism (High functioning) and was offered a spot at Burbank. The two years he was there he had two amazing teachers and paras. My son had a great experience at Burbank. The parent involvement at the time was nonexistent. I tried to start a parent support group and one mom showed up once and that was it. To get him prepared for his Kindergarten inclusion class I had him attend Laurel preschool a few days a week to see how he could handle a general education class. It was chaotic and ultimately not a good fit. He also tried Garfield preschool for a day and although it was not as chaotic as Laurel it wasn’t a good fit either. He ended up attending Burbank full time for his last year. Something I learned from that experience is that its not necessarily the school, but the teachers that make or break the child’s experience. Burbank teachers have special education training and the other schools don’t. They are general education teachers and it makes a difference. Glenview was also our home school, but at the time there wasn’t an inclusion program there so he ended up going to Joaquin Miller for Kindergarten-2nd grade. While the para assigned to my son was amazing, the teachers and principal were so-so. It ultimately was not a good fit due to bullying and other reasons so we started homeschooling 3 months into 2nd grade. My son is now 11 years old and does a hybrid of homeschooling with charter school support through Connecting Waters Eastbay and its the best option for him. If I knew of this program I would have forgone OUSD and started it from the beginning.