Special needs schools gather for fair

By D. Aileen Dodd

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Schools for children with learning disabilities will gather Sunday in Sandy Springs to help parents using state vouchers to choose the right environment for their special needs kids.

More than a dozen schools will be represented at the first school fair of the Georgia Association of Private Schools for Exceptional Children. The event will be from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m. at First Baptist Church of Sandy Springs.

“Students who qualify for the Special Needs Scholarship have to choose from a long list of about 150 schools, some of them are special education, some of them are not,” said Robert Moore, president of GAPSEC and headmaster of Mill Springs Academy. “It takes them a long time to find us."

"We have schools serving students with dyslexia and autism. We have schools that offer college prep," Moore said. "We feel like if parents knew about us, they would be glad to have that choice.”

Indira Dhandpani of Alpharetta said she could have benefited from a school fair like this one because it took time, research and gas money to find the right campus for her 9-year-old daughter, Rema. “I drove to five schools,” she said.

Dhandpani said Rema qualified for a voucher but did not get one because of a deadline issue. She said parents lacked information about voucher opportunities and schools that accepted them. She says she now pays $27,000 a year at Jacobs Ladder Center. “She was eligible for $9,700 under the scholarship, but was paid zero,” said the business analyst. “We had to use 75 percent of our 401(k) to pay for her tuition."

GAPSEC will provide information about the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Program and how the vouchers work to help cover tuition payments. Students must have an Individualized Education Plan for services and must be a public school student for one year to qualify for vouchers.

The school fair comes as a new voucher bill that would expand the offerings of the Special Needs Scholarship Program is gaining steam in the Legislature. That bill, SB 361, the Georgia Early HOPE Scholarship Program, would also offer vouchers to foster kids, children of military service personnel and the severely disabled with special learning plans.

It would give families four deadlines a year to seek vouchers instead of just one under the current program. The measure was recently approved in the Senate Education and Youth Committee. It now moves to the Senate Rules Committee to schedule a vote.

"I think that  allowing enrollment four times a year will open up a whole world of possibilities for parents,” Dhandpani said.