Hi Michelle-

My experince in fairfax county was great.  And I would recomend the fairfax
county shcools to anyone who has a child with special needs.  They have a
very aggressive criculim and are pro-mainstreaming.  For instance I read
things there in 8th grade that I re-read in 10th and 11th grade when I moved
to Dallas.

You  can find out more about the special ed services in fairfax cournt at
http://www.fcps.k12.va.us/DSSSE/spedhome.htm

Another thing I like about this area is that it is in the Washington DC meto
area.  Everything is very accessible to people with disabilities.  They have
an exelent recreational program and classes for people with disabilities.

Anee

In a message dated 9/17/1999 8:49:22 AM Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:

<< Hi Anee,

 Your experiences in school caught my eye. My 7 year old son, who has
 spastic quad cp, is halfway mainstreamed in first grade. We've been
 unhappy with his school situation, for some of the reasons you allude
 to in your post--specifically, that he is one of only 2 kids with cp
 in the special education room. The other 6 kids have various forms of
 autism or mental retardation. I volunteer in both classrooms frequently
 (his first grade and his sped room), and have seen how impossible it
 is to meet the needs of kids who have such a wide range of abilities and
 disabilities. We feel he'd do better in a special ed room that had
 other physically challenged kids only, not to mention how much more
 efficient for the school to pool its resources in one room. I've asked
 around and our school system does not pool kids like this. Your
 experience in school sounds like what we'd like to give Takoda.

 There are other reasons we're unhappy with the schools here--primarily,
 they don't fund them well and the curriculum is not ambitious. Takoda's
 twin, who is not disabled, suffers from this lowest-common-denominator
 approach too. Both of our boys are clearly demonstrating that they're
 capable of a more intellectually stimulating curriculum. Tennessee
 ranks in the bottom 5 for educational quality for good reason. :(

 Long story short, we're willing to relocate to a better school system just
 about anywhere in the U.S. If anyone else would like to recommend a
 particular area/school to look into, i.e., one where they actually
 educate children, esp. ones with cp, PLEASE write me back. I'm collecting
 a list of places to look into.

 I've lurked on this list for quite some time now and have really enjoyed
 the kick in the pants you give us parents, esp. in recent threads. :)
 Thanks to everyone for their honesty and their willingness to talk about
 very difficult issues. I keep saying I'll post an intro to this list,
 but never get around to it so this will have to do for now. Feel free to
 ask questions tho!

 Thanks for your help,
 -Michelle
   Mom to Caleff and Takoda, 7 y/o twins
   Knoxville, TN >>