Give Special Needs Children Homeschool Help

Imagine being the parent of a child with special needs in Nevada. Every day you send them off to school, knowing they're not getting the help they truly need; they're not making the advancements you know they could.

Why? In Nevada, we suffer from the amoung lowest per-pupil education expenditure in the country. Some of the hardest hit populations are, unfortunately, children and young adults with disabilities. Services in the schools are often non-existent and in-school therapies for autism, intellectual disabilities, developmental delays, ADHD, or even dyslexia seldom align with the help a child receives outside of school. Children with disabilities are often thrown in self-contained classrooms and forgotten.

Parents of children with special needs are furious – and scared – but they have few options if they want the best education for their children:

     ·    Option #1 – Parents can fight the public-school system with the hope of someday, perhaps, forcing the district to find the resources to provide services, or;
 
     ·    Option #2 – Parents can opt for a private school at enormous personal expense…and that’s IF they can find a school that can accommodate a child with special needs.

There is a third option, and more parents each day are pulling their children from local school districts and opting to educate their own children at home. It makes sense…who better knows the child than the child’s parents?

But it’s scary. They know what works and what does not with their child, but homeschooling is a daunting project. Where do they get the curriculum, and how do they measure for academic progress? What about concepts they may not be familiar with, like science or math? What about the social aspect of school and the important structure a classroom-like setting can provide? More importantly, is there someone, somewhere that can answer questions and offer support when they need answers to help their child succeed?

That’s where we come in. We are NEAT Services, (which is Nevada Educational Advocacy and Tutoring, but we shortened it to NEAT because it’s a lot to say) and we currently provide educational therapy and advocacy to special needs children. We have over a dozen specialized and highly qualified, community-based tutors offering in-home tutoring. Our staff and administrators each have a minimum of a master’s degree in special education, and decades of in-classroom experience with autism, intellectual disabilities, developmental delays, vision or speech issues, or a myriad of similar eligibilities. We understand the behaviors and learning methods that are unique to each unique child. We work with parents, school districts, therapists, and paraprofessionals with a single goal of helping children with disabilities achieve academic success.

With your help, we want to expand our service to include a Homeschool Help (H2) center for families. We are not proposing a school, but a place where children with special needs come and work with an educational professional to advance in their curriculum. They then go home – and this is the important part – they work with the parents on the lessons they learned that day. The parents are NOT idle, but take an ACTIVE role!

Here’s our model: Children come to us four days a week, Monday through Thursday. Fridays are for coaching the parents through the next week’s curriculum and lesson plans. The Friday “Parent Time” is a vital component of our model as the parents must take an active role in their child’s education. Our model does not just tutor the child but also educates the parents to be better educators.

Have we done our research? Yes! Thousands of children are being pulled from local school districts to get a better education at home. Thousands of parents of children with special needs have given up on public schools because they are not getting services the child needs, or their child’s behaviors are not conducive to a general school setting. Research shows children homeschooled perform better in academic testing and spend more minutes (per day) in learning.

Many families that are considering a homeschool program fear the unknown, and there is currently no place to turn as there is nowhere in Nevada where parents can go to get the educational coaching and help they need for their children.

That’s where you come in! We are asking for your help to establish the first-of-its-kind Homeschool Help center for children and young adults with disabilities and the families who want the best for their children. A place where kids can go and be under the direction of an educational professional, and a place where parents can learn the confidence and skills to give their children the best chance for success...a resource center and a place to thrive.

 But we are not asking for something without offering something in return!

·      Each $25 you invest will help subsidize one child for a week of educational therapy;

·      Each $50 you invest will help subsidize one child for two weeks of educational therapy;

·      Each $100 you invest will help subsidize one child for a month of educational therapy;

But wait, there’s more…we want you to know where your direct donations are going. We don't need operational funding - we have that covered. What we need are specific items and would like to share them with you with the hope you can find something on our list and donate a specific amount for a specific cause;

·         Office Supplies - $150/mo.  We go through a lot of educational materials...it adds up. Consider a donation that will cover paper, pencils, pens, folders, craft paper, poster-board and all the materials necessary for a quality and enriching education; 

·         SMART TV (two needed) - $400/ea.  Our classrooms need technology, and our intent is to be able to put any curriculum on the wall in an instant to allow for faster transitions while tutoring in a classroom while working with multiple curricula at the same time;

·         Networked Printer - $900. We are in desperate need of a quality color laser printer that can go on our network so all our students can print homework, worksheets, etc; It's a bit pricy but we need quality as we keep going through the cheapo ones;

·         Office Chairs - $1,000 Sounds expensive, right? Many children with disabilities, especially those with autism,  have sensory issues...meaning what you and I think of as a comfy chair is not appropriate. Many require a rocking-type stool to quiet impulsive behaviors. This donation will cover a number of those (ten of them) and some decent office chairs for our lobby;

·         Technology - $2,000. We would like to purchase six additional new PCs for kiddos to log on each day;

·         SMART Board Interactive Whiteboard  - $2,500. This is on our Christmas list! We know it's a lot to pay for a piece of technology but, if you're considering a donation of this size, research what they are and how they can revolutionize a classroom experience!

You have a chance to be a part of the first center of its kind in Nevada! Your support in the form of a cash investment will assist in covering costs for build-out, technology, furniture, resource materials, and operational capital while we get revenue to profitability. It won't take long! We are looking at 6 months to get to profit! Once we're there we're already looking to self-fund to grow even more! We are simply looking for support to get it off the ground. Your monetary support will make that a reality.

We invite you to support this campaign by making an investment in a center that will serve our community. You can also help by sharing this project with your friends and family.  Share it on social media, by email, or call them and let them know there is finally a service that is able to help children with special needs with academic success!

For more information about us, see our Web Site  or call our office at [phone redacted]

Check out the photos (in the Updates) of the incredible work we already do within the community and find it in your heart to help.