General Program vs Centralized Program

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We need to choose for our son with HFA between Centralized Program and General Education setting. He is doing well with his teacher 1 on 1 but has some struggles in class settings. In general education setting it will look like individual education. In Centralized program it will look like an individual plan in a small group of kids with similar challenges. These kids do not care very much about each other, so it will look like individual setting anyway. I see only one advantage of Centralized program - full time autism professional. They will be working on behavioral interventions. Centralized Program is 30 min away, we will use school bus. General school is a few minuts walking distance. What will be a better choise?

I would take the "general" program in most instances.

Our son is in a small special ed class, but it's at a regular elementary school. The class goes into the "mainstream" class for a few hours a day and they also have lunch and recesses, assemblies, etc. with the rest of the school.

He attended a general ed kinder class for a few weeks in October, in the mornings, to get a feel for his needs before we created his IEP. Once we had the planning meeting, they explained that while he responded well to the prompts given by the parasupport, he needed a LOT of prompts and about 3-4 sensory breaks over the span of 2 hours. They said there can be a risk of kids becoming dependent on prompts and the support aide in a setting like that. Luckily, they had the program available at a nearby school in the same district and we jumped on it.

I'm not sure what you mean by the kids not caring very much about each other...if they have similar disabilities, especially in the realm of perspective taking, that's going to be normal. My son complains about a couple boys in his class not being nice, but he does his share of trouble making back at them too. I see it as an opportunity to work these things out in real time, with qualified teachers and aides to assist. If he were in a gen ed setting right now, I don't think the kids would want to be around him much either.

I think our circumstance seems somewhere in between general and centralized, though. So this may not be helpful at all! Plus, I suspect that these programs are vastly different depending on where you are.

Which will lead to a high school diploma vs a certificate of completion?

https://www.understood.org/en/school-le ... completion

http://www.giresd.net/Page/399

I know the above is state specific, but it also lists the pit falls of C of C.

My friends son got screwed that way. He is smart enough to have gotten his diploma, but his parents got talked into the completion program. He wound up having to grind through getting a GED to be able to do anything.

Thanks for posting that Understood link, Tawaki. I'm not the original poster here, but we're really new to the IEP/Special Ed stuff. I really think we need to go to our local ASD advocacy association or something and ask them if they can give us tips on what to look for. The school district, and his school, have been wonderful, but they aren't going to be objective about certain things, obviously.