What to know as Texas school voucher program opens this week<\/a><\/p>\nLiesl, who was born with Down syndrome, recently won the 50-meter freestyle at a local Special Olympics swim meet. Laura says moments like that highlight her daughter\u2019s abilities \u2014 and the importance of educational environments that meet her needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy daughter taught a neurotypical kid (a child without an intellectual disability) how to swing and how to do a cartwheel,\u201d Laura said.<\/p>\n
But Laura says those abilities were overlooked when Liesl was ready to start school. When it came time for kindergarten, her family\u2019s parish school \u2014 where Liesl\u2019s four older siblings attended \u2014 was unable to accept her.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen it came time for Liesl to go to St. Patrick\u2019s, they refused us,\u201d Laura said. \u201cIt was just heartbreaking because that\u2019s our home. I don\u2019t want to give them a bad name \u2014 they didn\u2019t have the funds.\u201d<\/p>\n
Laura later enrolled Liesl at Fannin Elementary in Corpus Christi ISD, where she says a smaller campus and ample resources for students with disabilities helped her daughter succeed.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was small, so she had the ability to feel success navigating that school independently,\u201d Laura said. \u201cShe could go to lunch in the cafeteria because it wasn\u2019t huge and so loud, and she didn\u2019t have to look different by wearing her headphones.\u201d<\/p>\n
Now in middle school, Laura says the environment has become overwhelming for Liesl. The larger campus led her daughter to refuse to attend school, prompting Laura to begin homeschooling, a decision she says comes with significant costs that could be offset by an education freedom account.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI can now get those services for her privately \u2014 occupational therapy, speech therapy, music therapy, and a specific reading tutor,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Laura hopes Texas\u2019 proposed education freedom accounts, also known as education savings accounts, could help families like hers pay for those services. Even if her family is not among the 50,000-100,000 families to receive funding, she says the program represents something parents of children with disabilities often lack: choice.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just hope that people allow parents to make a better decision for their child,\u201d Laura said. \u201cTo make an individual family decision and still make it affordable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Corpus Christi mother says education freedom accounts could help families of students with disabilities pay for specialized…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":156633,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[155,157,156],"class_list":{"0":"post-156632","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-corpus-christi","8":"tag-corpus-christi","9":"tag-corpus-christi-headlines","10":"tag-corpus-christi-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=156632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/156632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/156633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=156632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=156632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=156632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}