Yorktown Middle School

If you have a special needs child you do not want them at this school. They concentrate on the VAP. They teach your child so they can preform well on the VAP verses teaching useful information in their IEP. Although inclusion sounds good, does it do "your" child any good to be in a class with "normal" 8th graders learning skills such as cooking or raising children at the level of the regular 8th graders? I feel they waste my child time in "regular" classes when she could have been learning something useful to HER not make everyone FEEL good by "including" her in regular classes. Which means all the Special Needs kids at a table all together in the back of the room while the teacher lectures at the level of regular 8th graders. The administrators tells you one thing to make you think they are agreeing with you but do the opposite and violate the IEP if they think they can get away with it. If you have a child with communication needs and need voice output devices forget about it. The teachers seem to be doing the best they can do with what the county gives them. My advice is if you can't afford private schooling get out of York county as fast as you can. If you can't do that have an attorney and and advocates phone number handy, know your IDEA laws, and skip mediation and go straight to Due process. Remember if they say "it's how they interpret the law" doesn't mean that's what the IDEA's interpretation was.