Xpost from special needs board: considering a move

Posting here because more traffic:

We live in Queens. For a variety of reasons we are considering selling our house and moving to LI. My main concern is my youngest who has autism. All I have ever heard about is Half Hollow Hills district. How it is amazing for kids with special needs. My son is minimally verbal and has lots of behaviors (verbal stims, very sensory, needs to bounce, etc.).

He could not be served by our local public school that my other 2 children go to. My question is in LI does this mean he would go to BOCES? What is BOCES? Is it like District 75 for NYC? If this is the case is this different from the school district? We are open to moving wherever (obviously I would like to be as close as I can to Queens) but we would move to Suffolk if it means better opportunities for him. He is 7 years old and has a 1:1 para in school.

Sorry for all the questions but our heads are spinning. We have friends that live in LI (in different parts) but none are familiar with special ed programs and that is our priority. Thanks very much if you got this far and could explain it to me.

Xpost from special needs board: considering a move

Your best districts for special education are going to be Half Hallow Hills, Commack and Three Village.

BOCES is a grouping of special education schools who have a specific profile of children in each. All districts on the Island use BOCES so the children come from all over (broken out into Nassau and Suffolk). Depending on your needs, BOCES can be fantastic. Also though, if your son is not aggressive, many schools will keep them in house which is great because they he can socialize with his typical peers. The districts I named above have good ABA programs in house and those behaviors you mentioned should not be a problem.

I suggest joining the Long Island Special Education Parent Network Group on Facebook and you can get alot of your answers there. Good luck!!