For those of you who've used Calvert 1st through a virtual school...

[umsami]

DD has some speech issues, and was approved for speech therapy 3x/week this year through the local school district.  The only way I can get services through the school district is either to enroll her in a local public/charter school, or use the local virtual school.  Our virtual school uses the Calvert curriculum, pretty much exclusively.  I've had friends use Calvert IRL...and I've also known people who've used a virtual school.  My Calvert IRL friends liked the school, but were looking for school-in-a-box.  The people I know who've used the virtual school have liked it, but said it's a lot of work.

 

I will be homeschooling her elder two brothers using Oak Meadow plus a variety of stuff.  If you've used Calvert through a virtual school, how much "hoop jumping" will I have?  I spoke to the teacher who handles Kindy/1st, and she said DD can go at her own pace, and that she can customize it for her based on her level. (I worry about her being bored with the phonics/reading because she reads at a 3rd grade level.)  

We can't afford speech therapy on our own, and our health insurance pays for only like 10 sessions, which is not enough.

 

If I go with the virtual school, will I go crazy? I'm hoping it's not that bad at this level. :)  Help!  

 

Other option is to put her back in the local charter school, which would be O.K.--but not my first choice.

[Tidbits of Learning]

Ask for a placement test so that she can be placed properly in her level on reading.  We are not with Calvert, but K12 and we have the option to test out. So my ds who read on  a 2nd grade level in k last year just took all the k end of unit tests and then they sent him the next level.  You could ask your teacher if Calvert does something similar.

[TraceyS/FL]

Get it in writing that they are willing to place her where she needs to be - K12 here (when they offered it last year) was not allowed to let the kids work where they tested and should be, ahead NOR behind. Everyone in FL works at grade level.... including my special needs daughter that was in a self-contained classroom.

I would certainly suggest you take advantage of the 10 sessions that you get with your insurance. My youngest started speech at the school at age 3, it was group speech for 45 minutes a day twice a week. She finally graduated out of speech at the school at at 8.5. From age 6-8.5 she was also getting private speech for an hour a week - that included language work the school said she didn't qualify for. The majority of her speech progress was accomplished in private. I won't completely discount the PS sessions.... but well, I suggest you do the 10 private too - they will probably be more willing to help set up some home activities for you to do.

 

Unless of course they are one on one at the school, but I doubt that!

[...................]

Private speech therapy can be EXTREMELY expensive.  We used to live in FL and were blessed that, as private homeschoolers, we were allowed to utilize our public school and we had a wonderful experience, wonderful results, and a wonderful teacher in a clean, well lit, bright happy classroom.  It was a great experience.

 

Looking at your options, I would ask if you can afford to pay the private speech teacher 2x per month, after you are done with the 8 sessions.  THey will give you plenty of homework and tell you exaclty what to work on, and they will even guide you, should you desire to purchase flash cards, etc.  My son only had articulation issues, not delayed speech, but I know from experience of watching friends, that if your child is delayed, what truly makes the differnence is what YOU do at HOME with them.

 

IOW, speech 3x per week and less time of you working with him is great.  But if he only has speech once a week and you work with him doing his homework every single day, he will still improve very quickly.

 

If you cannot afford the speech teacher (usally 45.00 per hour, so about 200 per month at first and then you should be able to taper back when you learn the ropes and he shows improvement) then I would sign up with the Charter and just deal with it for a year or two.  Calvert has its faults but is in general an excellent curriculum.  As far as hoops to jump through, every virtual charter is different. Some of them are very annoying and some hardly even bother you.  We have some in CA that meet with you once a month and leave you completley alone the rest of the time.  Other charters in FL (the horrible COnnections Academy) had so many tests, reports, online checkpoints, videos, and stupidity that it is unbelievable.  Constant, constant annoying problems and requirements!) 

 

 

[TraceyS/FL]

If you cannot afford the speech teacher (usally 45.00 per hour,

 

The place we go is $125/hour. They do an awesome job working with the kids, and would set you up with the stuff to work on at home.

 

 

 

 Other charters in FL (the horrible COnnections Academy) had so many tests, reports, online checkpoints, videos, and stupidity that it is unbelievable.  Constant, constant annoying problems and requirements!) 

 

My only option for having my DD home is Connections with FLVS full time. I was talking to a PS teacher over the weekend that teaches 4th - she told me I was dead on in my assessment of my DDs impending 3rd grade year. The school just dropped from an A to a B school (but should have gone to a C), with first year there principal. The pressure on the 3rd graders for FCAT performance will be HUGE. Even with the hoops of Connections I can at least control it a bit more.

 

I would have preferred K12 - but the county kicked them out because of test scores. Great!

 

 

The quality of the speech therapy is just going to depend on so many variables at the school. DD loved her 5.5 years in the program.... but speech wise didn't get a lot out of it. She made more progress in 6 months of private than she had in almost 3 years in group. Some years were better than others - a lot of kids shared the same issues, other years, all 6-8 kids had different issues to work on each week. It was nuts!

[umsami]

We are in FL...Lee County which has their own virtual school that uses Calvert rather than Connections.  Seems to be more true Calvert, vs. what I saw back when I lived in Jacksonville.  There it was Connections Academy at the time, which used Calvert...but then they replaced most of the stuff with traditional textbooks (Scott Foresman?), etc.

 

DD's main problem with speech is pronouncing her "S"s.  She substitutes some other letters and has a hard time being understood. She got teased a lot last year.  They evaluated her at the beginning of the year, but didn't approve her for speech therapy until May.  She did love working with the speech therapist, though.  

 

For her elder brothers, we'll probably just sign up with the umbrella school rather than be official homeschoolers.   Weird thing is that my kids (who will be 4th and 3rd grade) want to take the FCAT.  SIgh.   At lest they won't have to go through months of hearing about it.   THat's all they talked about when DS1 was in 3rd grade.  He was so paranoid about the FCAT, he thought he wouldn't make it into 4th grade.  IF he felt that way even though he aced the practice tests, how did they kids who didn't do as well think?  Way too much pressure IMHO.

[...................]

UmSami- if you are in FL it is absolutely possible to get speech at your local school.  Brenda Dickinson fought very hard to ensure that homeschoolers had a right to do certain things.  WIth regard to speech, the public school is not forced to allow you, but it is up to their discretion.  Since they receive funding for every child with any kind of IEP, guess what?  They do it.  Again, we had an excellent experience at our particular school. 

 

FCAT is a lot of pressure, that's true.  If you sign your dd up with Lee COunty virtual she will have to take it.  That's a good point....

 

What I did to get my ds into the speech was call my zoned school, and ask for an evaluation.  They dragged their feet and I called again and again until I finally got hte Special Ed Coordinator.  Then when I finally got her, she set me up with an appointment with her.  Then we met with her.  Then we came back and had the evaluation with the speech therapist.  Then we came back again and had the meeting with the therapist to go over the results.  My son qualified (all he had was a bad lisp on his s's as well) and then we immediately began classes two weeks later.  So the process was a little annoying...you have to be the squeaky wheel to get to the Special Ed Coordinators.  Once you get to him/her though, you are in.

 

Whatever you do, do NOT sign up for FLVS FUll TIme.  I had to help homeschool my nephew through them for ten days, and it was the most awful experience you could imagine.  If you could TRY to write a book about how HORRIBLE a virtual school could be and how CONFUSING and JUMBLED and annoying and interruptive....you couldn't even come close to how bad it was. My sister finally gave up and now homeschools privately.  

 

If you do want to sign up for a virtual charter the best thing to do is to find someone who actually uses them and they will give you reasonable and reliable feedback.  I did hear good things about Lee County, and if your ds is going into first you might be able to get him in.  

 

Good luck!

 

 

[...................]

Oh, I forgot to tell you, in FL the law is such that if you sign your first grader up under a private umbrella school (or sometimes called a 600 school or cover school), you then DO NOT qualify at all to take speech at your local zoned school.  So if you decide not to do the Lee Charter, then make sure you file a letter of intent and homeschool your first grader privately in order to try to get him into the local public school.

 

Lastly, NOW is the time to start making those phone calls. You just call your zoned school and say "I am a local homeschooler and by law we are allowed to take speech therapy at the school.  Would you please connect me with the special ed coordinator?"  and then leave a message that you need a speech eval and your name and number.  DO not be shy about calling more than once, but be sweet and kind and polite of course.  They are just so busy.  

[umsami]

Thanks Calming Tea. I asked the speech pathologist about coverage if we homeschool and she told me it was only covered if we were under the virtual school.  Of course, she just may not have had any "real" homeschoolers yet.  I'm definitely going to be making a lot of calls today!

[...................]

She's completely wrong. If your local school has space they can and probably will accommodate you. As I said they are not forced to by law but they almost always do!

 

Call today! Don't wait till you file your letter of intent. That's the easy part.

[TraceyS/FL]

I think the difference becomes what is required by law, and what is left to the district to decide. Money is TIGHT, they are not going to provide services to anyone extra if they do not have to at this point.

 

And be sure to check beyond the Therapist and with the DISTRICT people. According to HSLDA http://www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner/sn_states.asp#FL

 

Florida

Has a private school provision. If homeschoolers are operating under private schools, they are eligible to receive special services.

 

 

 

[Tidbits of Learning]

We have done at home from the school speech therapy and private therapy.  Private therapy wins hands down.  Use whatever your insurance will pay for and get homework.  They do have to offer it to you but only if they have the space and the evaluator deems it necessary for your child.  In our experience, with children that needed speech and OT....the school will say yes your child could use some therapy but there are children that need it more attending our school.  It is part of the reason we went with a charter school last year.  We finally got ds diagnosed with dysgraphia/dyslexia and got OT.  We used what our insurance would pay for as well as what the school provided.  Your school district may be different, but they aren't obligated to give you services.  By law they have to evaluate your child, but often they will just deem your child not severe enough for school services.

[...................]

It depends if they have room.  Why not try to find out?  Unless you have that much money sitting around, I don't see why you can't try.  I have at least a dozen friends in Palm Beach County (one the biggest and busiest district in the state)and none of us were turned down by our school.  

 

Again, they are not FORCED to give you services- it is "up to their discretion."  But to me, it is worth call.  OUr son only had an S lisp- nothing else, no other articulation or delay and he qualified.  THe speech teacher was kind, the school was clean and bright, they let me sit in the waiting area, they even allowed him to come twice a week instead of 3 times per week because my husband and I were sharing a car and we just couldn't get him there 3x per week.  They gave him worksheets of homework and his teacher met him in the lobby and brought him safely back to the lobby.  When they had a fire drill, she held his hand because she assumed (correctly) that he had never been through one and would not know what to do.  HIs speech improved so much in 5 months that when I requested he withdraw, she agreed that he had pretty much "graduated" and there were no hard feelings for not finishing the school year.  She even sent him home with a little certificate.  

 

Your school district GETS money for every student with an IEP.  It is not a drain for them, it's a win-win as long as they have room.  Maybe we were just really lucky down in Palm Beach because all of our schools were very accommodating with speech therapy and homeschoolers, but I cannot see why OP shouldn't make some phone calls and try.  It took me several months but it was worth it.

 

 

[...................]

PS Tracey's quote from HSLDA is a pretty strong indication that you may still qualify for speech at the public school if you are under a 600 school.  But in my experience it was a big problem.  I'm not sure how that works but the private school itself, if I remember correctly, had to work with a local public school district. So definitely check into that before signing up with a 600 school.  

[TraceyS/FL]

PS Tracey's quote from HSLDA is a pretty strong indication that you may still qualify for speech at the public school if you are under a 600 school.  But in my experience it was a big problem.  I'm not sure how that works but the private school itself, if I remember correctly, had to work with a local public school district. So definitely check into that before signing up with a 600 school.  

The biggest problem I can see is if the umbrella school is not in the county you reside in. Mine isn't, and the hours drive would not have been worth it to a school in the correct district. I can see that as a reasonable requirement.

 

And I have no issues with the SLP we had, she loved my kids and helped make it an easy transition when they entered the school from home mid year. I do question some of the aspects of the program - like when they are only going 2 times a week for about 30 minutes, losing a day to "computer fun day" doesn't seem efficient. Then another day at the end of the quarter for prize day. We also did not get homework. But overall, I recognize she was doing the best she could in the environment that is group therapy in our particular local school.

 

When my daughter entered she didn't have just 1 or 2 things to work on, they couldn't limit it - rather they picked the easiest and worked towards the hardest. It wasn't until the private eval that we discovered the WHY of the major issue, and progress sped up when we addressed that and worked with it. If we hadn't had private - she'd still be getting it at the school.... lol, probably until high school!

[TraceyS/FL]

I actually just read on her IEP (for another reason), what they listed.... it didn't matter at the time, WE could not understand her and the ped would not refer us anywhere. The ENT told me to self-refer to the district because she turned 3!!!
 

Anyway, hers was: liquid simplification, cluster reduction and errored productions of initial y, initial "sh", "ch" L, final "j", voiced and voiceless "th" and "r".  :ohmy:

 

There were different/others in the private eval. Which also found her lack of mandibular something - she could not move her jaw up and down AND move her tongue to make the sounds at the same time. 

It was nuts.

I hope your day gave you some acceptable answers!!!

 

 

[NicAnn]

I can't speak for any of your other questions. But I do know that Calvert has great placement testing and is very open to work at your own pace.

 

Good luck!