Spotlight on Special Education in Glendale: Resources for Students, Teachers, and Parents

Glendale, California, is the third largest city in Los Angeles County. Being a large city, Glendale offers various resources for special education teachers and parents through online articles, seminars, workshops and meetings.

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Special education students, too, can find programs and other resources designed to help them develop social skills or benefit from various therapeutic approaches. Legal and advocacy services for special needs families are also available in Glendale.

Educational Resources for Special Education Teachers, Students and Parents

The Glendale Unified School District provides a resource specialist for special education students in regular classrooms. Special day classes are also available. The district has an advisory committee to offer support for parents and educators and raise awareness about special education in the community. The school district’s website also includes an online Special Education Glossary and details about IEP development.

The Los Angeles County Office of Education offers several services to special education students, including speech and occupational therapy, counseling, mobility assistance and adapted physical education classes. An Early Start program overseen by the office targets infants and toddlers who might have a development disability.

The Foothill Special Education Local Plan Area (SELPA), which includes the Glendale Unified School District, contains a Community Advisory Committee (CAC) that provides parent training workshops and special education policy review. The CAC also holds quarterly meetings for parents, teachers, administrators and community members.

Foothill SELPA’s website provides several helpful resources, such as online literature regarding parents’ rights, a glossary of special education terms and acronyms, links to advocacy services and a brochure about IDEA’s ChildFind program (which offers evaluation services and public awareness events).

College View School in the Glendale Unified School District provides special education services to students with learning and physical disabilities. Speech therapy, adaptive equipment, swimming therapy and canine therapy are among the services offered in this school.

Tobinworld is another special education school located in Glendale.  The school utilizes a behavior management system to help developmentally disabled students build social, communication and other skills.

Other Special Education Resources for Glendale Students and Parents

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Several nonprofit organizations in Glendale focus mainly on autism. Services include support for both parents and students. These organizations include:

• Foothill Autism Assurance: holds monthly resource meetings with guest speakers for parents of autistic children. The organization also provides workshops and social functions. Links to relevant organizations and blogs are found on the website.
• The Armenian Autism Outreach Project (AAOP): based in Glendale, this organization focuses on raising awareness about autism in the Greater Los Angeles area. The nonprofit organizations hold IEP resource meetings, guest speaker events, panel discussions and parent seminars.
• Autism International Foundation: also based in Glendale, the foundation provides advocacy services to parents of children with autism. The foundation also assists in getting children assessed.
• Actors for Autism:  offers acting, dancing, film making, animation and music programs for special education students. Social skills classes are available at the organization’s Sherman Oaks location, approximately 12 miles from Glendale.

Offering its services throughout California, Pasadena-based California Special Needs Law Group (CSNLG) provides legal support to special education students and their parents. Among the firm’s primary services are IEP development assistance and conflict mediation between schools and special needs parents.