Posted on 04/02/2008 7:11:05 AM PDT by Tired of Taxes
Home-schooled children in New York who receive special-education services through their school district will have to get their own therapy or go to school full time.
The state Education Department notified school districts in January that they cannot provide the services.
In a memo to superintendents, the state says the federal Individual with Disabilities Education Act requires students who are home-schooled to receive the same special-education services as those enrolled in private schools, if the state designates home schools as private schools. But New York State does not recognize home schools as private schools.
The change came as the result of a decision by a state review officer in a case brought last year.
"It's a problem we had seen cropping up across the country," said T.J. Schmidt, a staff attorney with the Home School Legal Defense Association, a nonprofit organization providing legal services to home-school parents. "The federal government basically leaves it up to the states to determine who is a nonpublic student."
He said many parents in New York have received letters from school districts telling them that the services will be terminated.
"Often these children are in most need of additional services because their parents may not be able to provide these services themselves, or they're going to have a difficult time getting these services outside school," Schmidt said.
The decision affects a relatively small number of students. There are about 450 children statewide receiving the services from their school districts, the state estimates.
In the Kenmore-Town of Tonawanda School District, the district is setting up appointments with the parents of four children, said Michael B. Haggerty, a spokesman for the district. Most of them receive occupational or physical therapy, he said. The district will go over the individualized education program for the pupil to see if any changes in services are warranted.
"The choice is, they enroll their student in public school or private school. If not, they're kind of on their own for the level of services their child needs," Haggerty said. "This is something the state decided, and whether we want to or not, we have to comply with the regulations."
Please read post 63 again, RR.
:-0 What school district was that? We live in that state, and I may want to move there. ;-)
Oops, I think I misread the line above. I thought you meant you agree with the rest of the posters. You meant you agree with the rest of my post. Sorry about that.
In post 63, how does the document from which this is excerpted define “student”? Does it include home schooled “students”?
Assuming your child was placed in a special needs class on an Individual Education Plan (IEP), the services you noted were all available to be provided under that plan that you had to sign. If you disagreed with the placement or level of services provided, you had a legal option to request a due process hearing where you could present a case for different services. I am aware of school districts having to pay for placing students in more intense service settings as a result of a due process hearing.
I am not saying it is easy or inexpensive to go this route but it is the method by which elevated services are found to be necessary for the student and the school required to either pay to place the child appropriately or provide the services themselves.
Were you aware of this or did you choose not to pursue this due to the expense and time?
It is pretty obvious that homeschooling families cannot hope to benefit from anything related to public schooling. Even the smallest dependency can, and probably will, be used against them.
It’s from the *Regulatory and Informational Manual for Home Education in New York State* regulations manual that the state and the parents have to abide by in the *Students With Special Needs and Compliance with the Regulations* section. This is not regarding public school students. This is specifically addressing homeschool students with special needs.
It certainly appears the the State Dept of Education is wrong on this one.
Not really. Private school students are still eligible, and they are not enrolled in public school. NYS seriously dislikes homeschoolers (we used to homeschool in NYS), and this is simply the next step in de facto outlawing the right, IMO.
I think there is a serious equal-protection case within this ruling.
Really, there’s not much difference between private and home schooled students in relation to public schools. Neither attend the the public school and both pay taxes. If private school students are eligible for these services, homeschool kids should be as well.
I doubt that the school district is the same now, once outsiders move in, they usually try to change everything. It was Egg Harbor. My husband was teaching in Ocean City at the time.
>>It certainly appears the the State Dept of Education is wrong on this one.<<
I agree. It does appear so.
What gets me is that disabled people can get services before and after school age, so why not keep the delivery system the same throughout their life.
In our area, regional services contract out the services for disabled people before and after school age. I would personally like to see them be responsible for coordinating services to the disabled children when they are school aged.
Private school students in California (and many other states) are not eligible for special ed services through the public schools.
I agree with your point.
In our case, we thought the public school was not providing enough services. We are paying for those services through private school (small class size, multi-sensory reading program, extra help).
However, we lost occupational therapy and speech therapy that everyone agreed my daughter needed.
In public school, she wasn’t learning how to read and write well, but we can’t afford occupational therapy which would be helpful. Our insurance is providing speech, so we are lucky there.
We were definitely aware of it, and we looked into hiring a lawyer. It would cost $5000 to retain a lawyer, and if we lost the case then we lose the money.
Most parents loose their battles with the school districts, and it takes a lot of time. You also have to repeat this process every single year.
It was pay a lawyer $5000 and take a risk or pay $7500 for a private school that we knew would do the job.
Given that the federal Constitution says nothing about public education, the federal government has no business calling any shots in public education anyway. The feds must stop funneling taxpayer's money to public education and appropriately reduce federal taxes. Note that such spending is just one of many examples of constitutionally unauthorized federal spending.
Also, given that taxpayers should ultimately decide how their tax dollars are spent, New York's policy that private-schooled children are not eligible for special-education services is unfair.
I understand your quandary and your choice as being best for your family but just was curious if your rights were explained to you. Good luck in the future.
450 children multiplied by the $20,000 dollars (or more) that each child brings into the school district ( directly and indirectly) equals 9 MILLION dollars!
Follow the money!
If the services are that valuable to the family, then the parents do have a tough choice on their hands. But the schools do not receive the same compensation for ISP's as they do for IEP's. If a parent wants that type of level of service, they must attend the school full time.
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