My kindergarten-age son currently attends a private school in Little Rock. He's high functioning autistic, so this setting is difficult for him, but he does enjoy school. In private school I lose all the various PT, OT, and ST services but felt that this anxious and rigid child would be much better off in a small, calm, environment. He does not like crowds or classes at all, which is hard to avoid in a 450-person public elementary school.

He needs help, and the homework and mom's tutoring are not enough.  I am going to see what the public school system offers.  This introductory post is the first in a series on accessing therapy outside of the public school system.

Update on Friday, February 19, 2010 by Eye Contact Arkansas

Thorough New York Times article on Child Find. LINK HERE

Unfortunately many of the services listed in the article are difficult to find in Arkansas.  Independent evaluators, effective parent advocates, and individuals knowledgeable in special education law are rare.

Moses in child findSo now I am trying to access public school therapists for my son, who is falling behind in a private school. By federal law school districts must make some small percentage of money available to special ed students in private schools.  Arkansas is in fact one of a few states allowing IDEA funds to go to homeschooled children.  I have the Arkansas Department of Education exhorting schools to “child find” special ed students in the private school population.

But calling the local school district has been totally chaotic. There's no child find button on the school's website, or a child find department. In May everyone was away on IEP conferences for six weeks. I will say that staff returned calls, but I felt totally out to sea speaking with them. Everyone wanted some sort of “teacher referral form” or even “do it next fall.” At least the staff seemed to know what “child find” was.

To avoid all these confusing phone calls I’m just mailing a letter to the school district's head of special education. It’s by registered mail and has two of his evaluations attached. By law the school has to respond in 60 days to my request. I’ll be interested to see what happens with this “child find” request.

Within days of requesting child find by letter, I got a very polite call from LRSD. The school district has been busy arranging my son’s skills testing and his academic achievement testing within the 60-day period. (The IEP is not developed within the 60-day time frame, however.) To do this testing I had to dual enroll in both the private school and in Little Rock School District. Enrollment was pretty easy, just a fax to the district enrollment office of a birth certificate and current utility bill. The following day I got his LRSD student id number which the bureaucracy needs for his testing. So far so good with arranging his evaluations. Hopefully the testing can be arranged quickly during the summer vacation.

Dual enrollment did not mean my son now has to attend LRSD.  The enrollment form just ensured that he's eligible to be tested by LRSD as a U.S. resident and as a resident of Little Rock.  No shot records or prior school transcipts were required.

Unfortunately my LRSD contact person is on vacation for a couple of weeks. She had given us the option of other LRSD staffers to contact in her absence, but for now we'll wait for her return.

Scheduling will be tight but still doable in August. I’m also a little less worried about his academic achievement. My son’s been tutored all summer by myself and a very skilled elementary school teacher. He’s now reading simple books with great pride.

In the meantime I've been reading "Autism: Asserting Your Child's Right to a Special Education" by David Sherman.  It's a fairly generic book on IEP law, but at least the IEP examples and cases are of children with autism.  Unfortunately the IDEA legal procedures are so complex that I would say a normal parent, even one trained in advocacy, is going to be outfoxed by a school district. At least the book has a lot of prewritten letters to mail to the school district.