Experience with mediation in FCPS?
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Anonymous
| DS will be entering 4th grade. We work with a well respected advocate on all IEP matters. We are in a disagreement with the school regarding DS's needs, specifically the number of special ed/related services hours. We believe DS needs far more. DS has no cognitive/intellectual disabilities but does have severe language based LDs. We went through the IEE process and the recommendations in the IEE support our position. The school team doesn't agree with the recommendations/conclusions and are proceeding with the smae level of special ed/services they originally proposed. Our advocate has given us our options. One of them is to go mediation with FCPS. If you have any experience with it, I'd appreciate hearing about it. Thanks. |
Anonymous
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Who is the name of your advocate? Some create more problems than they are worth. Some parents have had to hire lawyers. We used our psychiatrist, tutors, and testers at the IEP meeting and had no problem, although the high school "gateway person" (the one whose job apparently to to ensure that your kid doesn't get the benefits they are entitled to under federal law) did show up and started making claims that were unsubstantiated. Our shrink blew her away.
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Anonymous
| How many hours does your child get now? Are you looking for push in or pull out? I ask because my child gets tons of hours but mostly pushin which is put preference anyway. |
Anonymous
OP here. The school is proposing 15 hours of special ed per week - 12 hours pull out/3 hours push in - and 1 hour of speech per week (pull out). We are requesting all subjects be taught by a special educator/SLP either pull out or push in (would require team teaching). In addition to his language based learning disabilities, DS has at least a three year expressive/receptive language delay. Chronologically, he is a 10 yo. Intellectually, he is a 10 year old. However, he has the language capability of a 6 year old. Those facts are not in dispute. What is in dispute is the number of special education hours. We believe it is unreasonable to expect a child with the language capability of a 1st grader to be able to learn in a class of 4th graders unless the instructional delivery is modified in such a way he can understand it. |
Anonymous
But isn't there value in working alongside peers who are speaking/understanding appropriately? He needs models other than his teacher. And he needs opportunities to engage in academic conversations with his peers, yes? Learning isn't just about being fed information by an adult. It is highly social. |
Anonymous
| We have 16 hours all together on my kid's iep. We have 210 minutes of instruction in core subjects daily and 30 minutes enrichment time, 60 of those minutes are math. Are they proposing to have math taught in the class without supports? I guess I would understand that since it is not necessarily language based. |
Anonymous
| It also would make sense if you did not have a specific math goal on iep as the school will posit that LRE needs to be considered? What subjects are your child's goals in? |
Anonymous
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OP again. DS is at least 2 years behind in every subject. He entered K with an IEP. Since first grade, we have asked for additional special ed/services hours. We've not been able to ever get more than 15 hours total of special ed or more than 6hrs/mo speech. As he's progressed through the grades, he's gotten further and further behind. At the end of first, he was 6 months behind, at the end of 2nd he was 1 year behind, at the end of 3rd, he was 2 years behind. DS is making progress but we don't consider it reasonable progress. That was one of the reasons we requested the IEE - it did more thorough testing than the school did. The test scores were congruent with what the school testing had shown but the recommendations were vastly different than what the school was proposing. Among other things, the IEE stated that school interventions to date weren't sufficient in duration or intensity. Which makes sense, why would continuing to do what they've been doing yield results different from the last 4 years?
I understand the concerns about LRE. However, DS is not able to access the curricula in the general ed classroom. His instructional and social language is so much lower than his peers that he can't keep up during instruction or in interactions with his classmates. In fact, his classmates aren't his peers anymore. This isn't just our observations, it's borne out by all the testing that's been done as well. Can you imagine being asked to spend hours in an environment where you only understand 25% of what is said? Not only is it difficult, it's exhausting. It's no wonder DS hates school (BTW, he's the youngest of 4 kids so I've got some perspective). We've been asking ourselves for a while if general ed really is the LRE for DS. As much as I hate to say it, I don't think gen ed is the LRE for him anymore. But what is the LRE for him? It would be a special ed school where the kids have language based LD but do not have ASD, intellectual disabilities or emotional disabilities. The instruction in all subjects would be provided by a special educator. Yeah, I understand that's the ideal and the reality is that there are always kids with ASDs, intellectual disabilities and emotional disabilities in a classroom The point is that he doesn't belong in an 'ASD classroom' or an 'ID classroom' or an 'ED classroom'. He needs to be in a program for kids with language based LDs. FCPS doesn't have those kinds of schools and we can't afford private. So where does this leave us? Mediation? That's why I'm asking if people have any experience with it. |
Anonymous
OP here - DS has academic and non-academic goals. He's always had academic goals in language arts and math. He is able to do straight computation but he is unable to do story problems. I don't know how old your kids are but story problems being in about grade 1 and the language load in them increases as they progress through the grades. We are seeking goals in history/social studies. |
Anonymous
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Unfortunately I don't have advice to offer, but I wanted to encourage you to go to mediation if your advocate and others advise you to do so.
FCPS has been cutting services exponentially over the past few years. Their special ed programs are archaic and are not meeting the needs of the children of Fairfax County. No one is being held accountable so they keep pushing the line - cutting back on services, refusing to test students, hiring assistants rather than certified special ed teachers, not following ieps, etc. etc. Over and over I hear complaints from parents. Fcps needs to be held accountable. Districtwide changes need to take place and there needs to be accountability. I wish every parent I've spoken with who is discouraged and unhappy with the special ed services would take their cases to due process to get the message to fcps that parents won't stand for the inadequate education the county is providing our children and changes need to be made. Fcps wants to avoid lawsuits as it costs them thousands of dollars. They are betting parents won't go that far. They are gambling on the law of probability. Your case sounds like a guaranteed win. The school has failed your child. He is not meeting grade level benchmarks. It is the schools' responsibility to make sure your son has the accommodations and support to "access the curriculum" and "pass the SOLs". The school is not meeting your son's needs and you have documentation to prove it. Maybe a lawyer would take your case pro bono? Maybe WrightsLaw.org can help. It's worth a call to them. Maybe a local university could help you. If you pursue due process I'll be cheering for you every step of the way. Stay strong. |
Anonymous
| I take issue with the global comment that FCPS is not meeting needs for spec ed students. If you look at the faculty of each HS you will note that the spec ed dept is the LARGEST department in 99% of them. As a long time vet - non spec ed - of FCPS I have noted over the years that most of our students with IEPs have learned to be self-advocates, go on to college and succeed. Become knowledgable of what federal and state mandates insure for your child and then proceed. If having mediation is an option, go with it if it makes you more comfortable. However, having an paid advocate is not always helpful. |
Anonymous
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This is not to dissuade you from mediation and trying to find the best placement for your child. Each child is different and what is the best available path for one is not for another. It is to give you a different perspective.
We did not go through mediation and chose a different route. One of the reasons was that we determined that the private school options were not really better overall than our public school. There are very few private schools that will take on a student with severe LDs- there are many who take mild to moderate cases. At the time we looked (DC was also 7 and we were frustrated with his progress.), only the Lab School took the more severe cases. This was ~7 years ago and a few more schools have started taking more severe cases and a few more schools have been started. The Lab School is very small. At the time, there were about 12 students per grade and the only openings would happened were when someone left. Plus, they wanted to maintain as much as diversity as possible- gender, racial/ethnic, severity of LD and type of LD. 2nd and 3rd grade is a big time when people apply for their child. The chances of acceptance can be slim (he was the most likely applicant- white male in 3rd grade). At the same time, for us, it wasn't a good fit because they do an arts based curriculum and DC is a science and math kid and loathes almost every art activity. FCPS is the place to be for a science and math kid. We decided, for DC, to have him stay in the school where his assets would be addressed and some of his deficits and we would supplement at home with private professional intervention and parent intervention (eg. I learned the Wilson reading program to supplement what he was getting at school and through his reading teacher.) Warning: This path can be more stressful on the parents and requires more one on one parent time and schlepping time. 
Can your DC access the curriculum with audio materials and by dictation? My DC has multiple severe LDs and no intellectual disabilities nor ASD. For accessing the curriculum we used audio materials, read it to him and had him dictate answers. At the same time, we concentrated on bringing his writing and reading skills up. Also, one of the reasons children fall back in grade level reading (or other measurement) as they progress from K to 3rd grade, is that the range of what is considered average is quite wide in K and narrows as they get older. They may be making progress on their own timeline but be not as fast as their peers are progressing (it is a time when NT children are making very rapid progress). Is your DC making progress in reading? Our DC had a similar drop and then the gap leveled off, but he was always making some progress. He is currently in HS. He uses audio books and technology to read pdfs and word documents. He uses a word prediction software program for writing and we rarely use dictation anymore, except in special circumstances. He is still experimenting with speech to text software and hasn't found one that works well for him. He will be taking his first AP class this fall. Good luck with your DC and let us know the outcome! |
Anonymous
One of the things that we've learned in the past year (in Arlington, not in FCPS) is that the system really is stacked against parents and their kids in many ways. We worked with an advocate last year and probably got a somewhat better - on paper - IEP out of it. We wanted a cooperative advocate and this advocate was, but perhaps too nice/cooperative. What hiring the advocate did do for us was really push us as parents to dig a lot deeper and push the school system much harder than we had previously. There is a lot of BS that goes on and in school systems as wealthy as these, it's really disappointing to see. Why do I think the system is stacked? Because due process really isn't an option for parents -- it's basically a lawsuit and you need to hire a lawyer (I am a lawyer), bring in (and pay) witnesses, present evidence. It's expensive and just not an option for most people -- particularly when you are highly unlikely to win. We did speak to a local well-regarded special ed attorney and googled that attorney's cases in VA - very few wins. More broadly, the IDEA needs an overhaul -- the way it's written provides no incentive for school systems to strive for the best -- curriculum, practices -- in special education. "Free, appropriate public education" is a pretty low standard unfortunately and schools act accordingly. We have considered private and continue to do so (DC is now in middle school) but, after spending a lot of money over the years on various services, a tutor, and the advocate, I've become a lot more cynical and we are at the point that we don't want to spend the money because nothing seems to bring lasting improvements (DC has LDs and has a lot of school struggles). We've heard great things about some of the privates but again, we've become a bit skeptical - we have an attorney friend in another state who has practiced some special ed law and he said that, from what he's seen, even special ed schools don't buy the outcomes that you would expect after paying so much money (it's one person's perspective but it was eye-opening - and we've heard criticiques of the various special ed schools locally from helping professionals too) |
Anonymous
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OP again. Thanks for the thoughtful posts - especially about the privates. It really is helpful because DH and I are seriously thinking about privates. We'd have to do some really creative financing but we have come to the painful realization that FCPS is okay with failing him. I think, given the cost of privates and the 'hassle factor' described, we'd be better off searching for a good tutor(s).
I think we will continue with mediation. It won't hurt, right? |
Anonymous
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If homeschooling for a year or two is an option, that is also a worthy consideration. Many families with children with special needs will devote a couple years (or more) to homeschool situations. The money they would have invested in private education is spent on very qualified academic therapy, speech therapy, etc and these professionals are often more available during the day. Once a child's skills are strong enough, a return to public school is an option. Private schools, even those which are designed for students with differences, often cannot match this level of intense remediation, although some will allow therapists to access during the school day. This link describes homeschooling for dyslexic children.
http://www.interdys.org/ewebeditpro5/upload/WhyHomeschool.pdf |