Elementary School Support for ADHD – Madera or Berkeley Unified?
I’m hoping to tap into the collective wisdom of this group. We’re exploring elementary school options for our rising kindergartener and are especially interested in hearing from families with experience at Madera Elementary (WCCUSD) or in Berkeley Unified, particularly Sylvia Mendez.
If your child has an IEP or 504 plan for ADHD (combined presentation), I’d love to hear about your experience, how the school has supported your child academically, socially, and emotionally.
I’m also curious to hear what the process was like for qualifying for an IEP or 504. I’ve heard from some parents that the threshold can be incredibly high, and that schools sometimes require a child to have a very severe need before services are offered. I’d really appreciate any insight into how that played out for your family.
Feel free to DM me if you’re more comfortable sharing privately. Thanks so much in advance!
Parent Replies
Hello! I hope you get some good advice on the schools, we're in Albany so I can't speak to that element. What I can speak to is being a parent of an ADHD kid and that I wish I had started my parent coaching in elementary school. The most effective thing you can do is get coaching for yourself. How we parent our neurodivergent kids is different, and all the things I tried are on the laundry list of "what not to do." I have had great success with Jed Purses who has an office on upper Solano in Berkeley. For ADHD school support we didn't get it until middle school, but it didn't seem difficult to qualify for, but again, we're in Albany.
Also keep in mind that all kids have their own journey, and a happy kid is a successful kid. Best of luck!
It was a looong time ago, and my kids are now adults, but the younger one with learning differences—but not adhd—went to Madera while the older one—no diagnosed learning differences, but I suspect some were present—attended BUSD. We had just moved from Berkeley to El Cerrito and my husband had an office in Berkeley, so enrolling in the two different school districts made sense for us, at the time.
We got an IEP for the younger child, who had just repeated first grade at a private school and wasn’t progressing or happy. Madera did a great job providing services. Four tutoring sessions a week plus two OT sessions at another location, after school. At the end of his first year at Madera, our son was in the gifted program as well as receiving services through his IEP. Once he was progressing, I did have to effectively make a case that progress did not mean it was time to remove all the services which supported him. Madera cut back some and we supplemented with increased private learning specialist services, after school. It was totally worth it.
By contrast, the older child got absolutely no individual attention at BUSD, after skipping a year in the transition from private to public school, and problems ensued for her. After two years, we applied for a scholarship and enrolled her in a private school, for high school.
Both kids grew up to become amazing, happy, well-functioning adults. Good luck! I hope this helps, some. Of course, the political climate is different now, which may affect IEP services in California schools.