EmilyM

I believe "school of choice" is not an official term, either, so yeah, it's up to local rules. In my state, it simply means a non-district school that you choose to attend and adhere to said rules and policies.

Hi, virtual school teacher here with thoughts. You said it was a charter, so if you're in the US that automatically means public. You said she was just diagnosed. Was this diagnosis shared with the IEP team? If you have any interest in staying with this school, this could help with new accommodations to help her with lesson completion. The way she's been completing lessons sounds reasonable at least to me. If that method keeps her on track and doesn't affect the integrity of learning and practicing the material, I don't see what the big deal is. That very way may be great accommodation for her. That all said... A huge majority of accommodations in virtual school tend to fall on the parent and virtual school requires a lot of independent determination from the student and family. In my state, any public school including charters has the right to deny entry to an expelled student for up to a year, so if it comes down to it, yeah, you're best to withdraw on your own.

I think this will likely depend on any state rules, but in my state she wouldn't have to sign anything extra, just enroll in the private school. It is wise she is getting the IEP for just-in-case.

So this is ordered by an outside, non-school team for mental health? I don't know much about CT law, but this program sounds like it's making some problematic demands of the school. I'm not saying this isn't a good program for the student, but the school is indeed in charge of the education. This all sounds like a backwards demand. When is the student getting that education during the school day? Is it enough? This indeed needs to go to the IEP team, figured out, and only if it's supporting the IEP goals be placed in the IEP and funded.

In the US, all charters are public and just as beholden to the laws. The new school will likely review the IEP within the first month or so of receiving it to make sure all is in order. Until then, they will follow it.

Based on this, it does sound as if your parent wants the best of both worlds, and I don't think IDEA will cover that. I presume they picked the online school, and most online schools require the parents to provide the at-home help (no publicly funded school can afford to send out personal teachers). The offered accommodations are reasonable, but if the end goal is homebound instruction, they may have to look outside the offerings of IDEA. Are there any options for them to apply for grants/scholarships for a private teacher? Otherwise, they may have to have that school choice means making choices and see how things go in the district school. I don't think "this is harder than we thought" will be the best argument when they chose that school. A provided learning coach will have to be based on the kid's needs with the charter school being the most reasonable and effective placement for learning, and that's a tough argument to make.

You might have a local timeline, check with your parent center. However, home instruction is extremely unlikely because the school's first aim will be to get someone in the classroom (I'd venture to say the options of home instruction and private tutoring are at the bottom of the list of options). I agree your best bet is to look into summertime minutes. Ideally, a school would have tried to arrange all this before leave, but you can't hire blood from a stone or something.

Would you be able to better express what your current relationship is to her? If you're acting officially as guardian your house may qualify for her living arrangement. What are the details on the bullying?

I hope you find something that will work in your area!

That sounds quite fascinating. But it looks like those are only for middle and high school grades and OP gave the impression it was elementary.

I believe that may be beyond what special education in the public sphere would be able to reasonably provide. That's a far cry from a 1:1 para (speaking of which, does your son have one? That's a reasonable thing to ask for).

I'm familiar with this. I think the general ed teacher thing depends on school/state laws, but it's pretty standards for certain specialists to need to be state-certified. I hope you come to a decision for your family that works for everyone!

I would bring up the being late for school issue and state what you've done on your end for it.

I wasn't aware 504s could expire.

Either way, the other teacher and I get to go on maternity leave, but it does put the school in a weird situation if this isn't altered soon. Since this was a move from another school, we are still in the time frame to create the new IEP for this school, but this parent seems to have this as the hill to die on. From what I know, the child struggles immensely with change and while that is being worked on, they want as much stability as possible for the child. I guess some documentation was brought in which led the previous school to allow the child to avoid the classroom in times of a sub.