Transferring Services

amother

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 12:46 am

The principal in the school my daughter is joining next year mentioned at that interview that if I'm already receiving services in NY for my daughter it shouldn't be such an issue to recieve services in NJ, as they may not want the hassle for a new evaluation. She claimed this happened with a student who previously came from Brooklyn.
When I reached out to her to get more details, she refered me to the person in charge of OT in the school who didn't seem to think this was possible and said no one gets services around here from the board of ed.... Does anyone have an idea what the principal may have been refering to and how and where do I take this further? In Brooklyn I find if you actually go down to the BOE you can accomplish in minutes what would take forever with no response by phone/email.
Any ideas how to proceed here?

amother

Rose

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 1:12 am

I doubt it's anywhere nearly as simple as the principal made it out to be
I moved from Lakewood to Brooklyn in order to get services for my DS.
No way he would have gotten the same services in Lakewood. I still use a lawyer and file to sue the city every year but so far the city has always settled without a hearing and they pay for his services about $110,000 per year which includes six weeks of summer services.
There is a possibility of using a lawyer in NJ too but from what I heard it's a much longer drawn out process and the likelihood of going for a hearing rather then simply settling is much higher. Also here in NYC some agencies have grants for elligible parents to pay most of the legal fees for them.
That being said if you have private good quality health insurance (not Medicaid or HMO) chances are you can get a lot of services through the health insurance. There is even a school in Lakewood that provides a full range of special ed services all covered completely by private health insurance funding and not by the DOE. I don't know the name of the school but I can find out.
I know mothers or fathers who had to switch jobs to get the health insurance from their employer. And if the job for any reason turns sour they are forced to stick it out because of how vital the health insurance is. If an employee does get fired or quits they do have the option of keeping the same health insurance through Cobra for a specific period of time which requires that they pay a higher premium each month after leaving the job.

amother

Peach

Mon, Aug 26 2019, 1:42 am

I don't know how old your child is but things work very differently in NJ. In ny your child can get cpse services through the board of Ed in any school. In NJ between 3 and 5 you either qualify for special Ed preschool and go in district or to stars (unless there is signing special needs) or the board of Ed doesn't cover services. Older than 5 therapy services can be put in your child's IEP However the board of Ed doesn't have to provide those services in private schools. Speed is often through catapult or tree of knowledge. Bit for ot/pt there is noone going down to the privacy schools. There is a board of Ed service center with very limited slots where you can pull your child put of school and bring them down for therapy if you can work out a schedule. At least this is how it was several years ago when I dealt with it.
If anyone finds out otherwise and services are more accessible please let me know.