How to find a good school for my daughter

[charlene1186]

I have daughter with several issues going on. She has Asperger's Syndrome, ADHA. Bipolar, and Borderline Personlity Disorder. Right now she is main stream into the 10th grade. She is steadly going down hill it seems. We both are stressed every day,  I would like to put her into a high school that deals with Asperger's. Does any one know of  a public one in upstate New York ? We can not afford a private school.

[SueNYC]

You need to look at the NYS website.  All of the state sponsered private schools are there - doesn't mean you are going to get the letter that let's you in..  They don't exactly hand them out.  Then you need CSE to evaluate her for non-punblic placement - with luck you will get ther letter.  
There are of course other means, requiring a bit of persistence and litigation on your part.  ad news - it is about a year before they give you any money and you have to foot tuition bill.  You ned to talk to your school psychologist - that is the starting point.  You need to hire a child advocate - they usually work on a sliding scale.  

Good luck - NYS sucks with this and we had to take them to court.  We won - but it was a nightmare.

[Sally44]

I don't know how it works in the USA, but in the UK you get in touch with your local council and ask for details of all the schools that are Special Educational Needs or have Enhanced Resources (extra staff/funding) for pupils on the autistic spectrum and also find out if there is any entrance criteria.  Then you would make appointments to look round each one to see which was the most appropriate.  As your child has a number of diagnosis, is an Educational Psychologist involved who could also advise you?

[Moms3boys]

We homeschool our Aspie and we're not the only ones. My son is still in the elementary grades and so we buy his curriculum and have it sent to us but it is much better still for high schoolers. There are programs such as is offered by Keystone Highschool, where the student logs on and completes high school and college credit courses entirely online.

Plus most U.S states also have distance learning programs where they have to supply you with curriculum, help and grading.

School was too over-stimulating for our son and it lead to lots of meltdowns and general unhappiness.

Good luck with whatever you decide:)