FCPS is in big trouble

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was FCPS supposed to conjure teachers from thin air? This is ridiculous.

I know it didn’t seem like it for large part of the pandemic but FCPS was open and teachers were working. The problem was that leadership in FCPS told staff that they didn’t have to follow IEPs because they didn’t have to. That was entirely untrue and they have now gotten busted for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about those whose grades suffered because they didn’t get adequate services and they didn’t get into a college that they could’ve gotten into and instead kids who weren’t disadvantaged in that way, got in?

This would be my DS. Excellent grades pre and post Covid, but grades tanked during distance learning. His college options now aren’t the same caliber as they would have been if schools had not been closed so long. I doubt there’s anything we can do about it, though. Lesson #1 of adulthood is that life isn’t fair.

Same for my son without an IEP or 504. Virtual learning was awful for him and some of his grades suffered. His college options were drastically changed from that year. He is a freshman in college now and it’s fine but not great.

[Anonymous]

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.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Office of Civil Right’s investigation “found that the School Division inappropriately reduced and limited services provided to students with disabilities, based on considerations other than the students’ individual educational needs, and failed to adequately remedy these denials of FAPE.” OCR said it also “identified concerns with staffing shortages and other administrative obstacles that may have limited the School Division’s provision of FAPE, as well as its ability to sufficiently track its FAPE services."

So FCPS was unable to provide FAPE because of staffing shortages and other obstacles - because there was a pandemic.

The crushing scheduling and paperwork burden of having to do an extra IEP meeting for every single current student and a bunch of former students is going to cause even more burnout among the remaining staff and probably feed the spiral.

I don't know what the answer is. Special ed students were failed during the pandemic. They're being failed now. But there are serious, serious structural problems with IDEA, funding, staffing, all of it, and it's coming apart at the seams. OCR's "remedy" is not a solution to any of it and will probably just make things worse. It'll end up with more empty promises and garbage on paper because they can't hire anybody to fill them.

These were my exact thoughts as I read the e-mail. Sped teachers are already pulled constantly for meetings, as are the gen ed teachers in team taught classes. The Sped meeting calendar is already really full at my school. I have no idea how they will accomodate these meetings. Lost instructional hours for these meetings aside, we dont even have enough sub coverage to cover the classes while teachers are in meetings!

[Anonymous]

FCPS is way too large and horribly (and corruptly) managed. At some point maybe it will collapse of its own weight and be broken into smaller, more manageable districts but until then the disasters will just continue to pile up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is way too large and horribly (and corruptly) managed. At some point maybe it will collapse of its own weight and be broken into smaller, more manageable districts but until then the disasters will just continue to pile up.

That's ... not how it works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Office of Civil Right’s investigation “found that the School Division inappropriately reduced and limited services provided to students with disabilities, based on considerations other than the students’ individual educational needs, and failed to adequately remedy these denials of FAPE.” OCR said it also “identified concerns with staffing shortages and other administrative obstacles that may have limited the School Division’s provision of FAPE, as well as its ability to sufficiently track its FAPE services."

So FCPS was unable to provide FAPE because of staffing shortages and other obstacles - because there was a pandemic.

I have saved an email from the school reading specialist who was working 1-on-1 with my daughter per her IEP that basically said she couldn’t do the 1-on-1 virtually because she was watching her own children.

It still makes me laugh that she put it in writing and thought that was a valid reason to not do her job.

Long before the pandemic a colleague of mine was trying to work from home while watching her toddler because her nanny was sick. Her climbed out of a window that day and fell to her death. The teacher was being honest. Give her a break. I am a SN parent too and I didn't expect anyone to be superhuman. Her kids matter too and not every teacher can afford to hire a babysitter during a pandemic!

I think kids with SN suffered terribly, but I think SN teachers will burn out right and left doing these IEP meetings. I have found so much that is already in the IEP a waste. I will probably opt out of an additional meeting. We are lucky we could afford to pay for tutoring and other supplemental services. ST is at the school is totally useless-private has been much better. OT is mediocre. I know many people don't have the option to pay for extra services and I hope the school serves them well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FCPS is way too large and horribly (and corruptly) managed. At some point maybe it will collapse of its own weight and be broken into smaller, more manageable districts but until then the disasters will just continue to pile up.

You think smaller districts don't have corruption and major problems too?

[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?

And 504 meetings. We don’t need another 504 meeting when we already renew his plan annually. I wish that could fix everything.

[Anonymous]

How will they pay for this?

Who will provide the services?

It will take months and months before a single child is helped as result of this. And in the end very little actual progress.

It’s all so depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was FCPS supposed to conjure teachers from thin air? This is ridiculous.

Gen Ed will get even less resources. We’ll see more of kids on grade level being told to read on their own or work on ST math while teachers document IEP goals.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Office of Civil Right’s investigation “found that the School Division inappropriately reduced and limited services provided to students with disabilities, based on considerations other than the students’ individual educational needs, and failed to adequately remedy these denials of FAPE.” OCR said it also “identified concerns with staffing shortages and other administrative obstacles that may have limited the School Division’s provision of FAPE, as well as its ability to sufficiently track its FAPE services."

So FCPS was unable to provide FAPE because of staffing shortages and other obstacles - because there was a pandemic.

The crushing scheduling and paperwork burden of having to do an extra IEP meeting for every single current student and a bunch of former students is going to cause even more burnout among the remaining staff and probably feed the spiral.

I don't know what the answer is. Special ed students were failed during the pandemic. They're being failed now. But there are serious, serious structural problems with IDEA, funding, staffing, all of it, and it's coming apart at the seams. OCR's "remedy" is not a solution to any of it and will probably just make things worse. It'll end up with more empty promises and garbage on paper because they can't hire anybody to fill them.

These were my exact thoughts as I read the e-mail. Sped teachers are already pulled constantly for meetings, as are the gen ed teachers in team taught classes. The Sped meeting calendar is already really full at my school. I have no idea how they will accomodate these meetings. Lost instructional hours for these meetings aside, we dont even have enough sub coverage to cover the classes while teachers are in meetings!

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:MCPS said they would offer compensatory services due to the pandemic.

Technically, they offered some extra hours of "tutoring" with aides or teachers to certain students.

But actually:


It's not working. It couldn't possibly have worked. This is not how disabilities are treated - going for a lengthy period of time with no services or accommodations, then being accompanied a tiny bit more. It doesn't make a dent in the learning delay.

What does reduce the gap?

***Intensive*** work done by parents at home, and/or paid specialists outside of school (yes, the pandemic has increased the inequality gap).

MCPS parents are given the run-around for compensatory services and wait months for something that by definition is not going to help much, when in reality they should be exerting themselves to compensate their kids' accumulated deficits themselves, without waiting.

Please do the same. Don't wait.

This. Search the archives for more info on MCPS compensatory services. They were offered outside school hours, by outside providers, for negligible hours. I'd like to hear from families who were not pressured to reject compensatory services (as some were) and who had a positive experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What about those whose grades suffered because they didn’t get adequate services and they didn’t get into a college that they could’ve gotten into and instead kids who weren’t disadvantaged in that way, got in?

This would be my DS. Excellent grades pre and post Covid, but grades tanked during distance learning. His college options now aren’t the same caliber as they would have been if schools had not been closed so long. I doubt there’s anything we can do about it, though. Lesson #1 of adulthood is that life isn’t fair.

Same for my son without an IEP or 504. Virtual learning was awful for him and some of his grades suffered. His college options were drastically changed from that year. He is a freshman in college now and it’s fine but not great.

Oh please. You have no idea where your son would have gone to college if there had not been a pandemic year. Sorrynotwsorry that your kid is not as entitled as you thought he was.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Office of Civil Right’s investigation “found that the School Division inappropriately reduced and limited services provided to students with disabilities, based on considerations other than the students’ individual educational needs, and failed to adequately remedy these denials of FAPE.” OCR said it also “identified concerns with staffing shortages and other administrative obstacles that may have limited the School Division’s provision of FAPE, as well as its ability to sufficiently track its FAPE services."

So FCPS was unable to provide FAPE because of staffing shortages and other obstacles - because there was a pandemic.

I have saved an email from the school reading specialist who was working 1-on-1 with my daughter per her IEP that basically said she couldn’t do the 1-on-1 virtually because she was watching her own children.

It still makes me laugh that she put it in writing and thought that was a valid reason to not do her job.

Long before the pandemic a colleague of mine was trying to work from home while watching her toddler because her nanny was sick. Her climbed out of a window that day and fell to her death. The teacher was being honest. Give her a break. I am a SN parent too and I didn't expect anyone to be superhuman. Her kids matter too and not every teacher can afford to hire a babysitter during a pandemic!

I think kids with SN suffered terribly, but I think SN teachers will burn out right and left doing these IEP meetings. I have found so much that is already in the IEP a waste. I will probably opt out of an additional meeting. We are lucky we could afford to pay for tutoring and other supplemental services. ST is at the school is totally useless-private has been much better. OT is mediocre. I know many people don't have the option to pay for extra services and I hope the school serves them well.

OMG. Not comparable.