FCPS is in big trouble

[Anonymous]

So how are sped teachers supposed to go find every kid who graduated in the last two years and hold an IEP meeting for them A general Ed teacher has to be there. As well amd try to remember the student from up to 2 1/2 years ago? Who is getting subs for these teachers to hold these meetings?

The logistics to do this are so time consuming and for what? What compensatory services? More speech sessions? Well the speech teachers are going to be busy holding IEP meetings. And the only way to do this is to add even more kids to speech groups so how effective is a 30 min speech session with 5-6 kids? Same for academic compensatory services? It’s an awful cycle- the current kids in special Ed are going to suffer while this is cleaned up. So will they get compensatory services too?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can’t believe they are going to overburden everyone with more stupid iep and 504 meetings.

Yup-what parents don't take in consideration is all these meetings take teachers away from the kids.

It’s the agreement between FCPS and the US Department of Education driving the need for additional IEP meetings. As a parent, I have found over and over these meetings are meaningless because the school does not follow through with implementing the services. Also as a parent, attending IEP meetings can cause conflicts with my job and I loose income for the meetings.

Don’t blame parents for the IEP meeting requirement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So how are sped teachers supposed to go find every kid who graduated in the last two years and hold an IEP meeting for them A general Ed teacher has to be there. As well amd try to remember the student from up to 2 1/2 years ago? Who is getting subs for these teachers to hold these meetings?

The logistics to do this are so time consuming and for what? What compensatory services? More speech sessions? Well the speech teachers are going to be busy holding IEP meetings. And the only way to do this is to add even more kids to speech groups so how effective is a 30 min speech session with 5-6 kids? Same for academic compensatory services? It’s an awful cycle- the current kids in special Ed are going to suffer while this is cleaned up. So will they get compensatory services too?

MCPS would solve this problem by holding the IEP meeting, acknowledging the denial of FAPE, but as a”team” say no need for compensatory services because the student graduated. FCPS will just check the box that a meeting was held.

[Anonymous]

Most parents agree with teachers that the needs for students exceeds the availability of special education staff to provide current services let alone compensatory services.

Could some compensatory services be offered in a group setting? If done outside the school day, could a provider meet with small groups of students with similar needs? What about offering compensatory services over breaks and summer? Could the ESSR unspent funds be used to pay for the staffing for compensatory services?

There’s a huge problem that FCPS needs to come up with unique solutions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I just can’t believe they are going to overburden everyone with more stupid iep and 504 meetings.

Yup-what parents don't take in consideration is all these meetings take teachers away from the kids.

It’s the agreement between FCPS and the US Department of Education driving the need for additional IEP meetings. As a parent, I have found over and over these meetings are meaningless because the school does not follow through with implementing the services. Also as a parent, attending IEP meetings can cause conflicts with my job and I loose income for the meetings.

Don’t blame parents for the IEP meeting requirement.

I will. Parents brought it to this. Maybe it's not you but there are parents who want this. And they aren't all pointless.... but these will be.

[Anonymous]

Forcing all these pointless meetings on staff and parents os so stupid. This "deal" just passes the buck back to families and teachers when the SCHOOL ADMIN and school board are to blame.

Just award families lump sums to hire private tutors and therapists to compensate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If fcps doesn't hire or can't retain staff , give them vocuhers to chose a competent private school

I wonder if that’s what they’ll have to do for those who no longer live in Fairfax County.

Because private schools are really eager to take SN students with 10k vouchers?

Who knows? We had a parent email earlier this week wanting to know how FCPS is going to pay for or provide compensatory services. They are no longer in the county.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it is laughable that everyone is going to get a new IEP meeting. Those meetings are a horrible waste of time and it is not going to do anything productive. We paid a fortune for private speech and tutoring during the pandemic- can FCPS just pay me back for a small fraction of it?

This. Who cares about the meeting when the child needs help. What is the cost of the meeting? Send every family a check. Done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like all FCPS focuses on now is special Ed. They just spent hours this week on special Ed, they had multiple long work sessions this fall on the special Ed audit and paid who knows home much for that study. Now they’re gearing up for more special Ed planning based on the results of that study. I guess this will just be another special Ed issue that the system focuses on. Forget about everyone else.

GMAFB. You need to check yourself when you have no idea what is happening to our children in this system. Pathetic to come onto the SN Forum to make this comment when you have no clue. Maybe the reason they need to focus on special education now is because they have failed tremendously and are being called to the carpet. My kid cannot write one darn word never mind a sentence. Not one. He is an otherwise bright and charming kid. We spend a ton of money on outside services to try to help him partly because FCPS has allotted him 15 minutes of OT a MONTH. They might as well have given him nothing. So, probably you need to march right back over to the FCPS Forum and start another thread complaining about the SN kids in your precious child's class.

So even with your expensive outside services, he can't write and you want to somehow blame that on FCPS?

Did I blame FCPS or did I say they allotted him 15 minutes a month with that kind of disability and might as well give him nothing. Which, it appears, is what people like you want so that you can press your kid into AAP with onward travel to some Ivy. Congrats on your future success while stomping on everyone who only wants equal education for their kid.

The denegration of all other student needs is so toxic and frequent. Everyone should advocate for federal funding to support thr mandates of federal law. It’s too much on local districts (especially with staffing challenges and the higher numbers of identified students).

In the end it won't be Republicans that finally "defeat" public schooling, it'll be sped parents who believe that their child deserves $100k worth of continuous one-on-one attention. Then we all lose. (member of a sped family)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is laughable that everyone is going to get a new IEP meeting. Those meetings are a horrible waste of time and it is not going to do anything productive. We paid a fortune for private speech and tutoring during the pandemic- can FCPS just pay me back for a small fraction of it?

This. Who cares about the meeting when the child needs help. What is the cost of the meeting? Send every family a check. Done.

for how much and from what budget?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is laughable that everyone is going to get a new IEP meeting. Those meetings are a horrible waste of time and it is not going to do anything productive. We paid a fortune for private speech and tutoring during the pandemic- can FCPS just pay me back for a small fraction of it?

This. Who cares about the meeting when the child needs help. What is the cost of the meeting? Send every family a check. Done.

We spent 1000s for a private reading tutor during pandemic because FCPS had completely failed to teach our dyslexic child to read (actually did worse than not teaching but did harm by teaching ridiculous cueing and tapping). I would gladly taken any sort of compensation over yet another useless meeting. I think I am just going to decline whatever they set up because nothing will come out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like all FCPS focuses on now is special Ed. They just spent hours this week on special Ed, they had multiple long work sessions this fall on the special Ed audit and paid who knows home much for that study. Now they’re gearing up for more special Ed planning based on the results of that study. I guess this will just be another special Ed issue that the system focuses on. Forget about everyone else.

GMAFB. You need to check yourself when you have no idea what is happening to our children in this system. Pathetic to come onto the SN Forum to make this comment when you have no clue. Maybe the reason they need to focus on special education now is because they have failed tremendously and are being called to the carpet. My kid cannot write one darn word never mind a sentence. Not one. He is an otherwise bright and charming kid. We spend a ton of money on outside services to try to help him partly because FCPS has allotted him 15 minutes of OT a MONTH. They might as well have given him nothing. So, probably you need to march right back over to the FCPS Forum and start another thread complaining about the SN kids in your precious child's class.

So even with your expensive outside services, he can't write and you want to somehow blame that on FCPS?

Did I blame FCPS or did I say they allotted him 15 minutes a month with that kind of disability and might as well give him nothing. Which, it appears, is what people like you want so that you can press your kid into AAP with onward travel to some Ivy. Congrats on your future success while stomping on everyone who only wants equal education for their kid.

The denegration of all other student needs is so toxic and frequent. Everyone should advocate for federal funding to support thr mandates of federal law. It’s too much on local districts (especially with staffing challenges and the higher numbers of identified students).

In the end it won't be Republicans that finally "defeat" public schooling, it'll be sped parents who believe that their child deserves $100k worth of continuous one-on-one attention. Then we all lose. (member of a sped family)

10k voucher is laughable.
Friend's dc is in a "private" school (not really a private school, just a place a lot of different school systems dump their difficult sped kids.) FCPS pays $300/day plus the child takes fcps transportation over an hour one way. And the school is bare bones-none of the amenities and nice things even low ranked schools have like playgrounds, library, hot lunch, art supplies, etc. Special education is incredibly expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it is laughable that everyone is going to get a new IEP meeting. Those meetings are a horrible waste of time and it is not going to do anything productive. We paid a fortune for private speech and tutoring during the pandemic- can FCPS just pay me back for a small fraction of it?

This. Who cares about the meeting when the child needs help. What is the cost of the meeting? Send every family a check. Done.

for how much and from what budget?

Come up with some formula based on how many hours of special ed time the child was supposed to get. Use the ESSR funds. Cancel the worthless tutor.com contract.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like all FCPS focuses on now is special Ed. They just spent hours this week on special Ed, they had multiple long work sessions this fall on the special Ed audit and paid who knows home much for that study. Now they’re gearing up for more special Ed planning based on the results of that study. I guess this will just be another special Ed issue that the system focuses on. Forget about everyone else.

GMAFB. You need to check yourself when you have no idea what is happening to our children in this system. Pathetic to come onto the SN Forum to make this comment when you have no clue. Maybe the reason they need to focus on special education now is because they have failed tremendously and are being called to the carpet. My kid cannot write one darn word never mind a sentence. Not one. He is an otherwise bright and charming kid. We spend a ton of money on outside services to try to help him partly because FCPS has allotted him 15 minutes of OT a MONTH. They might as well have given him nothing. So, probably you need to march right back over to the FCPS Forum and start another thread complaining about the SN kids in your precious child's class.

So even with your expensive outside services, he can't write and you want to somehow blame that on FCPS?

Did I blame FCPS or did I say they allotted him 15 minutes a month with that kind of disability and might as well give him nothing. Which, it appears, is what people like you want so that you can press your kid into AAP with onward travel to some Ivy. Congrats on your future success while stomping on everyone who only wants equal education for their kid.

The denegration of all other student needs is so toxic and frequent. Everyone should advocate for federal funding to support thr mandates of federal law. It’s too much on local districts (especially with staffing challenges and the higher numbers of identified students).

In the end it won't be Republicans that finally "defeat" public schooling, it'll be sped parents who believe that their child deserves $100k worth of continuous one-on-one attention. Then we all lose. (member of a sped family)

10k voucher is laughable.
Friend's dc is in a "private" school (not really a private school, just a place a lot of different school systems dump their difficult sped kids.) FCPS pays $300/day plus the child takes fcps transportation over an hour one way. And the school is bare bones-none of the amenities and nice things even low ranked schools have like playgrounds, library, hot lunch, art supplies, etc. Special education is incredibly expensive.

I have visited some of these places as an itinerant therapist and they are really sad depressing bare-bones places.

[Anonymous]

I was one of the parents who immediately emailed the email in the announcement and to our kids case manager about- how are these meetings going to be scheduled- just because I wanted to see the response.

Well, just got the response. The school has no guidance and doesn't expect any guidance until January. And the auto-email from the announcement said thet staff will be trained on the meetings and compensatory services in the next "2-3 months."

So short answer- FCPS has no plan for this.