FoggyRock General Forum

Next year, Tom is hoping to attend Westbrook Preparatory School, a $2.5 million institution that will be New York State’s first residential school for students with high-functioning autism and that was founded after intense lobbying by parents, including Tom’s mother, Maureen Holohan, 48, who is on the school’s governing board. The new school, serving 24 middle and high school students with average or above-average intelligence but in need of significant emotional and social support, is part of a statewide push to bring special education students back from out-of-state private schools by creating publicly financed alternatives closer to home.

Since 2005, out-of-state placements by school districts and social service agencies have dropped to fewer than 650 from more than 1,200, even as the number of special education students has risen slightly to 410,000, or 12 percent of the total student population. Besides Westbrook Prep, half a dozen New York City schools for the disabled are planning to add residential programs in the next few years. “New York is a great state. Why should our children have to be sent out of state for services?” said Lester Kaufman, executive vice president of Birch Family Services , which is starting a new residential program for 12 disabled high school students in Flushing, Queens, next year. “We should be able to create those services locally where the families and children live, and this is exactly what this program is about.”

Read the entire article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/educa … ref=slogin