Schools denying my son OT, and speech?

[Mesa]

The super Intendant here is claiming that NM schools dont offer homeschoolers any special services such as speech and occupational therapy anymore...

What do I need to do now? How can I find out if this is legit?

I'm so sick I think I may puke now....

 

I'm not a member of HSLDA either. If I join would they help me?

[Melinda]

I don't have any advice, but hope you get it worked out. They don't offer us services in Maryland at all if the child is not enrolled full time in PS. Good Luck!

[Mesa]

I just dont' understand how they can get away with this.

[kokotg]

I've been told that in GA, schools are required to provide services. I just found this site, though:

 

http://www.hslda.org/strugglinglearner/sn_states.asp

 

...and it looks like it's true--NM doesn't require schools to provide special education services to homeschoolers. If you have health insurance, have you already checked to make sure they won't cover it? Our insurance company covers 40 visits a year for my son's speech, although they did give us some trouble about it. They told us they would only cover it if the speech problem was due to an injury or a disability. He has a hearing loss, though, so they really didn't have much basis for turning us down.

[Mesa]

Thanks for that link. This sucks, I was hoping he was lying to me.

 

I'll call our doctor and get him into therpay through the hospital. We do have insurance but these services are still expensive.

 

Dang it.

[farmnwife]

It may be a blessing. In my experience, public school speech therapists are not worth their pay. That is unless you are in a rich school dist, which I am not. I ended up taking my youngest to a physical therapy center that also had speech. They were very good.

[Zelda]

Be relentless with your insurance company. They may try to discourage you by having you jump through endless hoops to get coverage but usually you can get at least part of the therapy covered. But they are gambling on you giving up. Nothing personal, I guess, just business.

[Mesa]

Thank you judi, you have a point there. I will call my sons dr first thing in the morning to get things rolling.

[newbie]

My friend just applied for SSI , that will help her with therapy cost, they just have to have a cut and dry *Label*, like autism.

 

I dont know if this helps, but just a thought.

 

Jet

[Sorbie]

It may be a blessing. In my experience, public school speech therapists are not worth their pay. That is unless you are in a rich school dist, which I am not. I ended up taking my youngest to a physical therapy center that also had speech. They were very good.

 

This has been my experience, too. We decided to skip the speech therapy available to my son this year. I was impressed by the therapist, but she had so many kids and so little time that it was basically worthless to us. He went twice a week for 30 min. He was in a class with 4 other children, most of which had problems besides speech. My son estimated that he might have had 5 minutes of therapy in each session. You will probably be much better off going to a private therapist. They are much better at working with parents so that you can provide carryover at home. The school just sent home worksheets for my son to draw words with his speech sound on.

 

-AC

[charlotteb]

I'm sorry that's not available for you. We live in KY and my daughter has recieved speech therapy thru the public schools for the past 2 years. We really like her teacher and DD is definately improving in speech! It has been a very postivie experience for us.

[Mom-ninja.]

We don't get services anymore where I live.

 

How do they get away with it? Simple. Money. If a child is not enrolled in the PS system then the school does not get money from the gov for that child. So basically any services a homeschool child receives is paid for by the school district, yet that child is not bringing in any money. Make sense?

 

I found a private therapist. She works with me to keep sessions to a minimum and she tells me how to work with ds at home.

[swellmomma]

Out here the schools do not have to provide therapies to children either. Getting into publically funded therapy is not possible without coding from the schools either. I was struggling with this a few weeks ago. I provide speech therapy at home to my ds, I use teh speechercise cd's, and worksheets the speech/language pathologist in our health area uses (she printed them off for me even though we do not attend therapy at the health unit). As for OT, My oldest DS is on a waitlist to a private clinic to receive an assessment, unfortunately the waitlist is 12months+ long. The other son is going to get the assessment and possible therapy through the health unit. The way the system is set up now it is very difficult to access services for your children if they are not enrolled in ps, which is not right, since often being hs'd is exactly what is helping these children the most.

[rafiki]

.

[Christine]

They don't offer us services in Maryland at all if the child is not enrolled full time in PS.

 

This isn't exactly true. Public or private school students are entitled to services. Homeschoolers. . . each district has the option to choose to provide services or not. Baltimore county provides speech, but not OT. I believe Montgomery also provides speech, and Anne Arundel? Baltimore City, does not.

 

Anyway, back to the OP, as I understand it each state has to provide to public school students. However, each state has the option as to whether to offer it to private school students. Further, it's up to each state whether to qualify homeschoolers as private schoolers or no. That will determine your services.

 

Your states educational by-laws should describe what services are offered. If you are in one of the states where homeschoolers have to apply as a private school (like CA) and that state offers services to private schools, then they cannot deny you services.

 

Also, if you are military and fall under a DODDS school, you are guaranteed services. (I don't know of any DODDS schools in the continental US -- it seems most have been "given over" to the home state, but there may be still a few.)

[Mom2GirlsTX]

In my area of Texas (I'm in DFW) the school district does not have to provide services to homeschoolers. Texas is a great State to homeschool in, but the school districts offer zilch to homeschoolers.

 

My advice to you is to get your Dr on board in this fight, and in my experience it is usually a fight with someone (insurance, school district) when your child needs OT, etc.

 

My youngest is in public school because she has had an absolutely wonderful OT who has made huge progress with her. I would prefer to homeschool her, but school has worked well with her. My daughters IEP called for OT but she was not getting enough and her Neurologist was not happy, he filled out a 504Form, Disability Dertimination form (this is from the Americans with Disabilities Act). My goodness, my school district started jumping through hoops, tells me we didn't need the 504, it would complicate things, just use the IEP, etc. I actually didn't end up using it, just having it in hand put a fire under them.

 

You have my sympathies, this is difficult. I made a choice you probably won't make and that is to enroll a child in school to get services. I don't plan to do this forever, and I do homeschool my oldest, but I had to weigh my options.

 

Try going after your insurance, if not, try using State resources which are probably limited. My daughter got a letter from the State that she was finally at top of list to get services, it took her almost 6 years to get there!

Whew, I declined them as there are other who need it worse than us and she was so much better now. I've done private therapy, it can work very well, but can be very expensive.

[Quiver0f10]

Do you have a university nearby? Ours has a speech and hearing clinic and my son recieves ST by a graduate student who is over seen by a professor. The rate is really inexpensive verses private clinics.