Public or Private School?

We got a letter in the mail yesterday with the public school assignment for my daughter for next year. Typically this wouldn’t be complicated because we already know what our base school is.   However with my daughter vision she needed an Individualized Education Program which deemed her needing the services of a, “program school” that served the needs of visually impaired children more specifically.

Within the county there are two elementary schools that are VI specific and there was one of the two we were hopeful we’d be assigned to—and we got the school assignment we were hoping for.   Only we’ve run into another quandary now.

One of the reasons we wanted to send my daughter to a program school was the amount of expertise available to help her with her sensory impairment.   This school year there are four VI students at the school and four VI teachers.   That’s a pretty impressive ratio.   The other main reason would be for my daughter to be around other visually impaired children.   And that’s where we ran into the snag.

Because while there are other blind children at the school, none of them are in the class she would be in and there is zero overlap in their schedules, and that’s a disappointment.    That means we’re considering having my daughter stay at our current private school and supplement her education there with VI teachers brought in during the week or have her attend the public school, even if she won’t interact with other blind children.

We’re trying to contact one other family we’ve met before that also might have their child attend the same program public school.   If their daughter is in the same class next year it would be a good thing.    We’ll hopefully find out soon.

The Big Boy Update:  My son was mad at me the other day.  He asked me if I wanted to die, because he had put dynamite all around the house to blow up for when he didn’t get his way.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter can’t see enough to go next door to see if Madison is home.   This is really sad to me.   She could do it easily before because she had enough peripheral vision to get a gauge on which direction she was going.   Now she can’t tell and with her cane training incomplete it’s like walking in a large open space not knowing how much farther you have to go or if you’re even going in the right direction.