What options do LD children who can't afford private schools have?
Does anyone know of a good public MS and/or HS that has a good program for LD children? I have two children with LD and they are both struggling in the public school system. I can't afford to send them to a private school.
Feb 12, 2017
Parent Replies
This is what Ive learned.
As our kids mature, it is important to have current comprehensive testing, whose responsibility belongs to your school district. So you need to advocate strongly that your district perform testing on your children to understand the degree of disability and the best practice to intervene. You may need an educational advocate to help you with this process, and you can find a list of advocates through DREDF. We used Toby Adams, toby.adams [at] gmail.com with great results.
There are great NPS and Public Charters schools in the Bay Area like Orion Academy, Phillips Academy, and Realm Charter School, who are stakeholders committed to equity education. Our experience at BUSD was less than satisfactory.
Hi there! I'm sorry for your struggle. As the parent of a LD child in a private school my experience is while some have (limited) resource departments, they are not really equipped (or meant) to fully remediate your child, especially if their LD's are moderate to severe. So 'private school' per se is not necessarily an answer (unless you mean schools ONLY for LD students). I would suggest the route of hiring an Ed Therapist to work with your children as often as you can afford in conjunction with their regular school. I can't speak to the IEP process but assume you have gone that route as well. Wishing you and your kids all the best!
I totally feel your pain... my daughter is in 10th grade and has ADHD. I haven't been able to find any good public schools that handle LD's well, and I also think that private schools aren't necessarily the answer either. I actually just took my daughter out of her high school and she's going to do K12 public school online with a tutor.
I highly recommend Educational Therapist Amy Cheifetz who has been extremely empowering for my daughter and me. She's amazing and would be a good resource for you. Amy's contact info is (510) 207-2995. She completely changed our lives for the better and I can't say enough how awesome she is. Good luck!
As others have mentioned, every child is different and LDs are so varied that what works for one student may not work for another. IMy comment is just directed at private school cost. We would never have considered private school for our daughter with LD until public school absolutely wasn't working despite lots of advocacy on our part. We are middle-income parents ($160,000 for family of 4) and were able to get significant financial aid (2/3 of cost of tuition) for middle and high school. It depends on a lot of different factors and you need to advocate for yourself/your kid, but if you have 2 kids with LD, I am sure you know all about advocating! Coming up with the remaining 1/3 was still a stretch, but it was definitely the right thing (for us).