My outside psychologist tested my daughters memory and said that she should have at least three days a week of school during the summer. What I got last year was 2 weeks of summer school and I paid for 4 more weeks of summer school. Does IDEA say they have to provide summer school? Talking to the school psychologist she said even the year round schools don’t go during the month of July so she wouldn’t get more time.Also I go to an outside speech therapist during the summer, last time I had the school provide it it was once a week for 6 weeks and it took a while for my daughter to warm up to the speech therapist. It seemed like a waste.School psychologist said school will probably not pay for my private speech therapist we have been seeing for 4 years who my daughter is comfortable with.What I would really like is a speech group for social interactions during the summer this would be less cost for school district instead of one on one but would be of great benefit.Has anyone been able to get more schooling and programs during the summer?
Re: SUMMER SCHOOL ON IEP?
“Now they have changed the policy and the only kids qualifying for ESY are those who they can document will regress more than 90 days in basic skills.”
Beth is right. That is pretty much the requirement by law. The child would have to regress by not being schooled over the summer to the point that a few weeks of review the next fall would not be sufficient to retain the skills. An autistic child with emerging language might be one example who’d qualify. Most kids will not qualify under these rules. I’m sure the federal gov’t had to issue clarification on that since no one was really clear or consistent on what ESY really meant.
Janis
I think it depends on the district. In my district my son automatically qualified for the past two summers for what they called extended school year. This doesn’t necessarily mean they have teachers or therapists they have had in the past though. We opted to only have him go for speech and OT and do the academic remediation on our own. He had the same OT but a different speech therapist and ESY was at a different school than his home school.
Now they have changed the policy and the only kids qualifying for ESY are those who they can document will regress more than 90 days in basic skills. My son doesn’t qualify at all under those guidelines. In his case, “catching up” is not a criteria—they actually have to lose skills.
Betj