Schools in D.C. area

If you’re moving in D.C., look into the Lab School of Washington. This is supposed to be an excellent school for LD. In Maryland, Montgomery County is a great school system for special education ( I work in spec. ed here!). I’m sorry I can’t help you with VA. Please e-mail me at [email protected] if I can be of further assistance.

In Virginia, Fairfax and Arlington Counties both have excellent school systems. Prince William and Loudon Counties have good services in the “developed” areas (the VERY rural areas do not always have the personnel available).

The Lab School is outstanding. There are also several other private schools in the areas of both Northern VA and Maryland that have good reputations.

Good luck.

The Kingsbury Day School also serves kids with learning disabilities, different in various ways from Lab but good reputation (I have looked at it long and hard for my NLD 6th grade daughter, but it’s not quite the right fit).

We may send our daughter to Parkmont and this might be a possibility for your son, as they have small class size (8-10) and while not an LD school they do have a lot of kids with LD/ADHD issues, and I think they know how to work with them. The school has a very mixed reputation (primarily based on old history), and I would be glad to correspond with you about it off line. ([email protected]) http://www.parkmontschool.org I think. It’s on 16th St., NW, in DC.

We live in Montgomery County. Our son is in 7th grade (White Oak middle school) and has ADHD and problems with dyslexia and written expression. I agree with the post that said Montgomery County public schools have a pretty good Special Ed department, although I think it’s a hit or miss kind of thing depending on the school/teachers you end up with. We had a lot of trouble getting them to do the initial psych/ed eval, but it sounds like you are past that point.

In elementary school, he got 1 hour of resource time, three times a week. It was shared with 6 other students and much of it was spent on issues he didn’t have. We had to supplement it with private tutoring to keep him from falling further behind.

In middle school, he gets 1 period of resource time. Because of block scheduling (which I love), this ends up being roughly about 1.5 hours three times a week, again with 6-7 other students with varying issues. Depends on the school again. I’ve heard other people say their child’s SpEd class sizes that are larger than this. Actually, I think we (ds and I) are both happy with this school and the teachers that are there. I am happy with the SpEd department and his SpEd teacher (although ds does not describe her so fondly because she insists that he work up to his capabilities). We still have private tutoring to help with the LDs; I just don’t think that what happens at school is enough to directly address his issues.

Our son had some pretty unenlightened teachers in elementary school and we thought about pulling him out and putting him in private school. I’ve heard good things about McLean School (Potomac, MD I think) which has an LD program but it was $15,000 a year (3 years ago) and there are more applicants than there are slots. One family that I knew thought it was so good they would drive more than an hour to get there and then they still had a long commute after that to get to work!

Prince George’s County (MD) does not have a good SpEd rep. One post said after the pysch/ed eval indicated their son was dyslexic, PG County said it could only provide one hour a week of Sp/Ed time. Oh, right. That ought to fix it.

I can’t speak knowledgeably about Virginia schools, but I would really think twice about moving there. They have some great schools (used to live there) but they also have the Standards of Learning tests (SOL - love the double meaning of this acronym) which I hear are a nightmare of worthless trivia like, who was the governer of VA in 1860?. A real pressure cooker for those children at test time. Don’t know what accommodations SpEd students get for those, but I’d check it out. The Maryland test (MSPAP) is more of measurement of critical thinking ability in certain subjects. Montgomery has its own (additional) functional testing at grades 5 and 8 (may be changing to 7) and 12. Starting with students graduating in 2005, students will have to pass a test to get their HS diploma (and I just realized I don’t know whether this is the State test or the County test). And wouldn’t you know… that is the year our child is graduating.

My 10-year old son (ADHD-inattentive, LD in many areas) is in his 2nd year at Kingsbury Day School in Washington DC and has made really excellent progress. The small classroom size (8-9 students, two teachers) has made a big difference for him. If you want any information about the school, please email me.

I’m in Montgomery County, MD. My son is in middle school and is in a GT/LD program. All in all, it has been a good experience for him and the staff has been very responsive.

However, it took three years to get him into this program and we all went to hell and back during those three years. My son attended two elementary schools and both were very unresponsive in meeting his needs. Yes, he had an IEP, but it was never followed. He was passing and there were other children with greater needs, so basically he was ignored.

Anyway, experiences in the public schools are very mixed. If you come to Montgomery County, be sure you do your homework and study up on the schools. Check out the scores of the schools. Visit the schools. Get in touch with special ed. parents. This is easy to do if you go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/MCneeds.

If you want some names of some advocates in the area, I can pass those along to you. From speaking with them, there are problems in both Montgomery and Fairfax counties. I have a friend in Arlington County with a special needs child and her experiences have been pretty positive. Again, it depends on each school.

LJ

I would love some information on this school, Kingsbury.

Thanks,
CP