Success with school district paying for private math class?
Hello: I am an AUSD parent. My child has an IEP for a significant math impairment. She would not be able to keep up in even the most basic math class offered in her grade. She has been talking math privately. It's very expensive and it occurred to me (yes, silly that it took so long) that we should petition the school district to pay for it. Has anyone been successful with this, and willing to talk to me about how they went about it? Thank you in advance.
Aug 22, 2017
Parent Replies
I also have a child at AUSD who is on an IEP and is taking math privately. Your post did not indicate what grade your daughter is in, which I actually think is important in terms of strategy. Firstly, I would suggest you look at your child's most recent testing for math aptitude and see what your daughter's scores indicate. In our case, even though our kid scored in an average range, they placed him in Resource Math class once he got to Middle School. By the time we got to AHS, they were again recommending Resource Math, even though by this time, we had figured out he was capable of more than that. They said we could place him in a general education classroom for math, but he would only have Support Lab class to get extra help with the material. We knew he would fail in that setting. Here's the rub. We consulted with an attorney who told us that if we wanted to have the district pay for private math, we'd have to prove that the district had not offered us FAPE (Free and Appropriate Education, I think). But to do this, we'd have to put him back in the general education class, and let him fail first. I wish we had forced this issue in Middle School, when grades don't really count. We chose to just enroll him at Tilden Prep for math, where he has now successfully completed Algebra I and Geometry, working one-on-one with an instructor.
Bottom line is you could put your daughter into a Resource Math class at AUSD for free, but if you think she could learn significantly more with intensive instruction and her testing supports that, push for inclusion in a general education math class before high school. You have to be willing to let her experience the humiliation of that failure, though. It's also worth mentioning that my kid found Resource Math to be humiliating because it was so basic.
Other posters are going to tell you to call DREDF. By all means do that, but I think the attorney we spoke with was a bit more of a realist than the folks I talked to at DREDF. Contact me through my username below, if you like. I would be happy to talk to you further. Good luck to you. This stuff is hard!!
I assume AUSD, is Albany USD. It is possible to get the district to pay for outside classes. However, you would probably need to hire an attorney to do that and have outside evaluations done to show that it is necessary. Whether it is worth it or not depends on how old your child is now. If she is young, it will help you get services for many years. If she is in high school, it might not be worth the up front costs for an attorney and private evaluations, depending on what you are spending now. You could also just ask for an IEP meeting, and request that the district provide services for math education. If you disagree with what they offer, then document that by writing an addendum to the IEP. DREDF in Berkeley can help you with advice and doesn't charge for their services. (Disability Rights organization). Unfortunately the services provided by the district are generally inadequate. So you can go with inadequate services, pay for an attorney, (sometimes those costs can be recouped, but no guarantee) or pay out of pocket for the services that will benefit your child. Not great choices. You can contact me if you like.