School choice a special pick parents make

At a recent state Board of Education meeting, officials gave approval for almost 1,600 Georgia special needs students to earn scholarships to attend private schools — an 80 percent surge over the 2007-2008 school year.

While this is only the second year of the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship Program, 1,596 parents from throughout the state voted with their feet for more school choice. When their neighborhood school didn’t do the job, they snapped up scholarships and found a school more tailored to their child’s learning style.

During the initial year of the program last year, most of the private schools that chose to participate were in metro Atlanta. But this year, there are 145 schools statewide from Winder to LaGrange, from Dalton to Albany. That has given parents of children with disabilities such as Marie Leon of Duluth the opportunity to shop around and take advantage of the program.

Leon’s son Jonathan, 10, is a fifth-grader this school year at Integrity Christian in Lilburn. Jonathan, who has mild autism, earned a special needs scholarship to transfer from B.B. Harris Elementary to Integrity this fall. Leon couldn’t find a school last year where the scholarship would cover the entire tuition. But this year, there were more participating schools on the list, such as Integrity, where tuition was $5,645.

There are seven private schools in Gwinnett County now participating in the special needs program.

Leon said she was particularly attracted to Integrity because school officials said Jonathan could work toward a high school diploma. “It always disdained me that at his previous school they told me he would go to school for 14 years and would only get a certificate of attendance,” Leon said. “Here he is getting extra attention and seems to be doing very well.”

Like many children, Jonathan is thriving because he is in a smaller school with smaller classes. The school’s director keeps an eye out for him. With the scholarship program, Leon has to pay for outside speech therapy, but she says it is worth it to get her son in a more productive environment.

“I always believed he would be able to function at a higher level,” Leon said. “His grades are A’s and B’s.”

To qualify for a special needs scholarship, a student must have been enrolled in a public school during the prior school year and have an individual education plan. Then a parent can go to the state Department of Education Web site and learn the amount of the scholarship for their child. That scholarship follows the student until he or she graduates or turn 21 years of age.

Public schools do an excellent job of providing a free and appropriate education for most children who are enrolled in special education programs. Every special needs child deserves the best education possible.

But as Leon has experienced, one difficulty in the public school can ruin a child’s future — and an entire life.

That’s why we will continue to see parents flock to school choice programs such as the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship.

Parents can make the best decision where their son or daughter should attend school and what environment is best.

It is enormously challenging to be the parent of a child with special needs.

Hopefully the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship is bringing some sense of normalcy to children and their parents who are finding hope in smaller classrooms, different schools and happier educational environments.

• David Casas, a Republican state representative from Lilburn, was the sponsor of the Georgia Special Needs Scholarship in the Georgia House.