Organization that helps with cost of special ed?

amother

Honeydew

Mon, Aug 10 2015, 6:48 pm

Is there such a thing? I would very much like to take my child for a comprehensive private evaluation but it is so expensive. I also have an advocate working on getting us services through the DOE and that's expensive too. And while we're waiting (and hoping and praying) for the DOE to come through we have nothing, and can't pay out of pocket for services meanwhile. And it has been suggested that a specialized school could be more helpful than all this rigamarole but we are already painfully receiving a tuition break from a reasonably priced regular school, the costs of special schools are through the roof comparatively even if you do get DOE to reimburse for the english half, which they don't always do. I feel like such a loser letting silly things like money get in the way of doing everything possible to help my child but I also feel like it can't possibly be right to put my whole family into the hole over this when maybe the DOE evaluation was good enough for now and maybe the DOE services will be good enough and maybe we won't have to wait too long for them and maybe nothing terrible will happen because of waiting... but at the same time I feel I should be doing more. I don't think the DOE OT's are doing good enough, I think a lot of our issues are stemming from the OT problems and I want an expert on the case and none of them take DOE or insurance! Exploding anger

amother

Slateblue

Tue, Aug 11 2015, 8:21 am

Many special education schools do offer tuition breaks. If you do qualify for reimbursement from the DOE, some schools will not charge much beyond that to cover the Jewish subjects. One special education administrator told me that one reason the nominal tuition cost at her school is so high is because of DOE reimbursement. Yet the secular studies portion of tuition at this school is still less than tuition at comparable private non-parochial special education schools.

amother

Honeydew

Tue, Aug 11 2015, 2:11 pm

The only school I have found so far that might be appropriate offers about 10% tuition discount, which would be a drop in the bucket and leave us paying about three times more than we do for our regular school.

Still shopping around for other possible school options but I think it will be similar everywhere.

Also, I would like to consider other types of help besides for school. While looking for the best school/services combination, people mentioned various experts in different fields that could help (e.g. private neuropsych eval) and the costs for these things are astronomical.

Not to mention as Octopus said that ideally we should get a lawyer. If we do end up in a special school that the DOE could reimburse, I would need a lawyer to get that reimbursement. That's about $5000 minimum, which they say pays for itself in the tuition it will save you but you're still left with additional tuition and costs and such. In this area I decided to go with the advocate and pray. Other things don't have a less expensive option, though. For example, there are various OTs who claim to be able to address some of our issues in ways that are not done by our DOE OTs and none of these are covered by anything and again we're talking thousands of dollars (besides the crazy amount of time.) And I have moms who have BTDT telling me I should look into holistic/integrative medicine (we have related physical and behavioral health issues that go together) and of course no one who does that is covered by our insurance. I could go on and on.

And even the stuff that is supposed to be covered by insurance and DOE is taking way too long to get through red tape, meanwhile we are losing precious time in our child's development.

ra_mom

Tue, Aug 11 2015, 4:02 pm

amother wrote:

Columbia's Morgan Stanley Children's hospital has a clinic where they do comprehensive private evaluations covered by insurance. As does Mt. Sinai.

Hope this helps.