Autism Scholarship/Independent Evaluation

[Guest guest]

Hi everyone! I know I've asked questions about the Scholarship before, but I just don't get something -- how does the school write and agree to the IEP when it won't be providing the services? For example, how would the school agree to ESY if they never see the child? Moreover, why would the school write that a child needs music therapy, e.g., which could be offered by one the scholarship authorized providers, when they have no intention of providing music therapy for any child in the center-based preschool? What do you do if you need to rewrite the IEP in order to utilize the scholarship? (the school previously wrote the IEP to fit our decision that he would only go 1 hour/4 days a week to the preschool, with the intent that he'd work up to the full 2.5 hours over time, but if we use the scholarship now, we'd want the full 2.5 hours written in b/c we'd be using MEEC). If the answer is that the services

need to be in the IEP regardless whether the school would ordinarily provide them (if the child were not using the scholarship), how do you go about proving to the school what services are needed? (our experience the first time through was the school -- probably wrongly -- put the cart before the horse and had his placement in mind first, and tailored the IEP to meet the services in that placement). Has anyone used an independent evaluation for these purposes? Thanks in advance, Eileen

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