The
Columbus Dispatch...
New
voucher
effort serves special-needs students
By
Catherine Candisky
Wednesday
January 25, 2012
Ohio is
about to launch its fourth tax-funded education-voucher program, this
one for
students with special needs.
The
application process is expected to begin in early February for the Jon
Peterson
Special Needs Scholarship, named after the former state representative
from
Delaware who pushed for the program. The vouchers — up to $20,000 a
year — will
be available for the 2012-13 school year.
Supporters
say the program will give students with disabilities access to services
tailored to meet their needs.
Fati Fuchs,
a Gahanna mother of three children, two of whom have special needs,
expects to
be among the first to apply. She said the aid would help provide speech
therapy
and other help for her 12-year-old son, Christopher, who has Down
syndrome.
Fuchs said
she knows from experience that additional services can help children
reach
their fullest potential. Her daughter receives a state voucher under a
similar
program for autistic children.
“She went
from a non-verbal 3-year-old to a 10-year-old attending Catholic school
without
an attendant. We are delighted to have the same opportunity for
Christopher,”
Fuchs said.
“You can’t
give up on these children.”
Special-needs
vouchers will be available to students ages 3 to 21 who have been
identified by
their public-school district as having a disability. The aid, which
comes from
the school district in which the student lives, can be used to pay for
private-school tuition, therapy and other special services.
Enrollment
will be capped at about 11,750, or no more than 5 percent of the
roughly
235,000 disabled students in Ohio.
The state
Department of Education will be accepting applications for the 2012-13
school
year, but an online enrollment process is being tested, and it is
unclear when
it will be ready, said Patrick Gallaway, spokesman for the agency.
Awards will
be based on needs outlined in an Individualized Education Program from
the
student’s school district. The money can be used to support students at
their
existing school or another one.
Supporters
gathered at the Statehouse on Monday to draw attention to the newest
voucher
program and outline their plan to push for further expansions of such
assistance.
Topping
their agenda is a statewide tuition-voucher program for low-income
families,
not just those in poor-performing schools, said Jason Warner,
legislative
director for School Choice Ohio, a Columbus-based group that advocates
for
vouchers and charter schools.
A
Republican-proposed bill in the Ohio House to create such a program is
being
reworked, however, after running into opposition from public-school
officials
who complained that tuition vouchers in some cases would exceed the
amount of
aid the districts received from the state, cutting into their locally
generated
revenue.
Read this
and other articles at the Columbus Dispatch
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