Wednesday, August 12, 2015

235 families approved for education scholarships for children with special needs.

The Mississippi Department of Education issued the following press release:


          MDE Approvals for Special Needs Scholarships Pass Halfway Mark

JACKSON, Miss. – The Mississippi Department of Education (MDE) announced today that 235 families have qualified for an Education Scholarship Account (ESA) that will provide funding to parents of students with disabilities who want to withdraw from public school to seek educational services elsewhere.
Applications will continue to be accepted and reviewed for eligibility until the annual enrollment limit of 434 is reached. Parents of students with disabilities are encouraged to apply. As of August 12, 199 scholarships are still available.
The MDE began taking applications July 1 for the scholarship program created through the 2015 Equal Opportunity for Students with Special Needs Act.
To participate in the program:
·      the applicant must be a Mississippi resident;
·      the student must have had an active Individualized Education Program (IEP) from a public school within the last 18 months; and
·      the parent must sign an agreement to adhere to the rules of participation.
Since July 1, the MDE has received 342 applications. Two applications were withdrawn, and 105 applications were denied. The majority of the denials were because students didn’t have official IEPs issued by a school district. Per federal law, only a public school can issue an IEP.
Parents will be reimbursed for expenses quarterly after submission of a reimbursement request with proper documentation of expenses incurred.  Funds can also be paid quarterly directly to an educational service provider if approved by the parent.
The total amount of each ESA for 2015-2016 is $6,500. 

 Application. 

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good for them, both students and parents need all the help they can get.

Anonymous said...

The interpretation of the Federal law that private schools can't issue IEP's is novel. It punishes people who have taken their children out of public schools due to dissatisfaction with the state of SPED in MS. I thought the whole idea of the ESA was to help parents who were dissatisfied with what the public schools were doing with SPED? Now, those parents who had an opportunity to do better by their children by sending them to a private school are somehow not the deemed as dissatisfied with SPED in public schools?

We tried to enroll our daughter in the public school SPED program, but it was woefully inadequate, with no experienced teachers to help out hearing impaired daughter, no curriculum to help with speech development for hearing impaired children, and no real plan to address supports for her Cochlear Implants, which are vital to her educational advancement and learning. Yet, we were supposed to enroll her in that situation when Magnolia Speech School, a state accredited special school, had all of those things and more? This seems like once again the political and civic leadership in MS missing the mark when it comes to investing in all of its citizens.

Kingfish said...

Or if you were home-schooled, you're screwed.

Blackwatch said...

The sad thing is that one of the requirements noted in the application was that any students presently enrolled in a public school with an IEP would have to be removed from the public school and enrolled in a private school in order to receive the ESA reimbursements? What kind of logic does that make? Would that make them ineligible for the ESA in two years, since they would have been enrolled in a private school that can't issue official IEP's?

Anonymous said...

My brother is a longtime school board member. He's told me stories of some of the disabled students the district must accommodate. They have one building (about the size of an average home) equipped with hospital beds for students up to age 18 who have the mental and emotional development of an infant. They cannot speak. Workers must feed them, change their diapers and care for them all day. A nurse is onsite each day as well. The district uses a special bus to transport these students. I have no problem with public schools accommodating students with physical disabilities or speech and hearing difficulties, but caring for bed-bound teenagers still in diapers seems to stretch the definition of "school."

Anonymous said...

@ 11:50, what district?

Anonymous said...

Dear 8:56 a.m.,

The Mississippi School for the Deaf offers a comprehensive education for the deaf and hard-of-hearing. Many students there have cochlear implants. There are also a large number of students at MSD who have come from Magnolia. Magnolia students can 'parrot' verbal English but are not taught the comprehension skills needed to succeed. MSD graduates confident, capable young men and women. From their website:

The goal of the Mississippi School for the Deaf is to provide for early language acquisition and to facilitate the development of two languages, American Sign Language (ASL) and English. This goal is accomplished with the belief that for most Deaf students, American Sign Language is the accessible, dominant language used for communication, and thinking, while English is learned as a second language. By fostering competencies in these two languages and by providing an academically and culturally enriched learning environment, Deaf students will have the skills and attitudes necessary to function effectively with members of the Deaf and Hearing Communities.

Anonymous said...

My daughter with Autism had several excellent teachers at JPS. Her reading skills are great, and she uses a computer with the Windows 8 operating system. She learned to do all kinds of life skills that regular people take for granted. Of course she still has Autism and will never be able to live on her own, but because of her schooling and home training, she has some independence. Also, the teachers helped me to better care for her needs and how to work with her to improve her life. I know every teacher is not the same, but my child's needs were very well taken care of at JPS, and I feel blessed.



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This is definitely a Beaver production.


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