Decision Time!

The decision to home school your special needs child isn't one to be taken lightly as you all know.  Seriously consider all the pros and cons before you make it final.  We all need some time to ourselves, if we don't take care of us, we can't possibly give them 110%.  My son had behavior problems the year before and it was a very BAD time for us.  We were lucky enough that his summer school teacher had also been a behavior specialist.  She was able to get him calm and ready to start the new school year.  If they hadn't planned on moving him from teacher to teacher until they found a suitable replacement, he'd probably still be in public school.  Just the thought of dealing with another year of horrendous behaviors, getting a call from the school to pick him up every day was enough for me to say "Let's do this home schooling thing!".

Do thorough research on what you need to do to pull him/her from their current school system.  You should be able to contact the student services department with your local school board.  They'll have the forms you need to fill out in order to start home schooling.  Also, they'll have the information that your state needs you to keep in order to stay in compliance with their home school procedures.  

Before you finalize the home school paperwork, you need to do research on what curriculum you are going to use.  There are a companies that have special needs curriculum but they aren't cheap.  At that time our local online courses that the state or county offers free do not offer any special curriculum for special needs.  I decided after researching online that I was going to use the same curriculum that his old school was using for their ASD classrooms.  (See if your state is implementing a Personal Learning Scholarship to help you with the cost of getting all the necessary items you need)

Find out whether your school system will provide any OT, ST, PT or ABA services.  Ours refused so you'll want to do some research on whether or not yours can do that.  If they aren't legally obligated to provide the needed therapies, find out whether your insurance will cover them.  If you can't get the therapies through your insurance and your school system can legally refuse to offer it to students who are home schooled, perhaps you should consider the other option.  Research local private schools and see if your state offers either the Personal Learning Scholarship or an income based scholarship for private schools.

Once you've done all the research and decided on which route to go, take a deep breath and congratulate yourself on doing what's best for your child!