Best public school district for special needs services?

[Anonymous]

Move to a Florida

[Anonymous]

Please do not leave FFX county quietly. Speak at school board meeting, write a letter, contact ACSD, contact school board member-please. The school board cares and really need to know. Perhaps they can help now.Share your concerns. If not in time to help your student, for others. FFX county has deterorated rapidly. The pandemic helped to show parents how bad it truly was for our students. I am sorry for your family's experience. Hope that there is improvement wherever you land.

[Anonymous]

Newton, MA. Locally I’ve heard great things about Boonsboro, MD. It is going to have to be either small and wealthy or small and caring. To me small is more important. These massive multi-billion dollar districts like FCPS and MCPS love special Ed kids for the federal money they bring in. That’s it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS.

But. You need to do your research into that vast system, and pick out the school or the program that you think will best meet your child's needs.

We moved inbounds for the Bethesda Elementary school in part because it has a great reputation regarding special needs.

Then my child got into the GT/LD program (gifted talented / learning disabled), which is out of our cluster, but still local. My son is bused there. It has been a life-saver for him, because he has access to advanced classes, but with support.

In your case, I would first think hard about your child's needs, and whether they would be better addressed in the general education classroom, in which case you need a school with an experienced special needs team and a supportive administration; or a special program (there are Asperger's and autism programs in certain schools). Perhaps your child could also do well in a magnet school or the GT/LD program.

This is so wrong. Look at the facts. ‘Dr’ Jack Smith has cut special education budgets in MCPS for five straight years. The school flat out ignores blocks of kids with certain disabilities (dyslexia). He destroyed the ‘magnet’ model of GT/LD by reverting to a ‘home school’ model. The only program parents like is the original ‘magnet’ cluster (North Bethesda Middle/Walter Johnson). He has one GT/LD coordinator for over 200 schools. The elementary schools that are supposed to be small and assist kids with learning issues (dufief) have untrained resource teachers doing the pull outs. He gives a week intro class of Orton-Gillingham and now the system ‘does’ OG (yeah right). Most disturbing, the county spends in the tens of millions to fight parents of children on IEPs. This is a despicable school system worthy of contempt due to its structural corruption. (90% for pensions, salaries, overly generous healthcare benefits). Either the above poster works for MCPS (which she should note) or she had kids go through the system in a much earlier time. Likely, children suffered then because MCPS has at its core an utter contempt for these children after Shaffer v. Weast.

+1 - If you move to Montgomery County, be prepared to pay for private re-evaluations and services. MCPS spends more time stalling and fighting parents vs. serving the needs of children with disabilities.

Take the pandemic closures as an example. Students with IEPs were told to be patient because MCPS could not provide services during digital learning. MCPS promised compensatory services to make up for the learning lost. The conversations were originally supposed to take place at IEP meetings. Some schools now are telling parents to wait up to next December for a plan for compensatory services. The determinations are mostly being done outside of the IEP meetings. Total BS and MCPS is just stalling past the statuary deadlines for filing a State Complaint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS.

But. You need to do your research into that vast system, and pick out the school or the program that you think will best meet your child's needs.

We moved inbounds for the Bethesda Elementary school in part because it has a great reputation regarding special needs.

Then my child got into the GT/LD program (gifted talented / learning disabled), which is out of our cluster, but still local. My son is bused there. It has been a life-saver for him, because he has access to advanced classes, but with support.

In your case, I would first think hard about your child's needs, and whether they would be better addressed in the general education classroom, in which case you need a school with an experienced special needs team and a supportive administration; or a special program (there are Asperger's and autism programs in certain schools). Perhaps your child could also do well in a magnet school or the GT/LD program.

This is so wrong. Look at the facts. ‘Dr’ Jack Smith has cut special education budgets in MCPS for five straight years. The school flat out ignores blocks of kids with certain disabilities (dyslexia). He destroyed the ‘magnet’ model of GT/LD by reverting to a ‘home school’ model. The only program parents like is the original ‘magnet’ cluster (North Bethesda Middle/Walter Johnson). He has one GT/LD coordinator for over 200 schools. The elementary schools that are supposed to be small and assist kids with learning issues (dufief) have untrained resource teachers doing the pull outs. He gives a week intro class of Orton-Gillingham and now the system ‘does’ OG (yeah right). Most disturbing, the county spends in the tens of millions to fight parents of children on IEPs. This is a despicable school system worthy of contempt due to its structural corruption. (90% for pensions, salaries, overly generous healthcare benefits). Either the above poster works for MCPS (which she should note) or she had kids go through the system in a much earlier time. Likely, children suffered then because MCPS has at its core an utter contempt for these children after Shaffer v. Weast.

+1 - If you move to Montgomery County, be prepared to pay for private re-evaluations and services. MCPS spends more time stalling and fighting parents vs. serving the needs of children with disabilities.

Take the pandemic closures as an example. Students with IEPs were told to be patient because MCPS could not provide services during digital learning. MCPS promised compensatory services to make up for the learning lost. The conversations were originally supposed to take place at IEP meetings. Some schools now are telling parents to wait up to next December for a plan for compensatory services. The determinations are mostly being done outside of the IEP meetings. Total BS and MCPS is just stalling past the statuary deadlines for filing a State Complaint.

MCPS did not stop providing services during this period of virtual learning. It is simply not true. For some kids the changes in delivery were not ideal and not successful, for some it was fine and for some, it was better than in person. I’m sorry that PP’s experience was not good but the comments above are just not true.

As for schools, you may want to look into Bridge and SESES programs. Entry requires a Central IEP which is a time consuming process so you may want to start now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:MCPS.

But. You need to do your research into that vast system, and pick out the school or the program that you think will best meet your child's needs.

We moved inbounds for the Bethesda Elementary school in part because it has a great reputation regarding special needs.

Then my child got into the GT/LD program (gifted talented / learning disabled), which is out of our cluster, but still local. My son is bused there. It has been a life-saver for him, because he has access to advanced classes, but with support.

In your case, I would first think hard about your child's needs, and whether they would be better addressed in the general education classroom, in which case you need a school with an experienced special needs team and a supportive administration; or a special program (there are Asperger's and autism programs in certain schools). Perhaps your child could also do well in a magnet school or the GT/LD program.

This is so wrong. Look at the facts. ‘Dr’ Jack Smith has cut special education budgets in MCPS for five straight years. The school flat out ignores blocks of kids with certain disabilities (dyslexia). He destroyed the ‘magnet’ model of GT/LD by reverting to a ‘home school’ model. The only program parents like is the original ‘magnet’ cluster (North Bethesda Middle/Walter Johnson). He has one GT/LD coordinator for over 200 schools. The elementary schools that are supposed to be small and assist kids with learning issues (dufief) have untrained resource teachers doing the pull outs. He gives a week intro class of Orton-Gillingham and now the system ‘does’ OG (yeah right). Most disturbing, the county spends in the tens of millions to fight parents of children on IEPs. This is a despicable school system worthy of contempt due to its structural corruption. (90% for pensions, salaries, overly generous healthcare benefits). Either the above poster works for MCPS (which she should note) or she had kids go through the system in a much earlier time. Likely, children suffered then because MCPS has at its core an utter contempt for these children after Shaffer v. Weast.

+1 - If you move to Montgomery County, be prepared to pay for private re-evaluations and services. MCPS spends more time stalling and fighting parents vs. serving the needs of children with disabilities.

Take the pandemic closures as an example. Students with IEPs were told to be patient because MCPS could not provide services during digital learning. MCPS promised compensatory services to make up for the learning lost. The conversations were originally supposed to take place at IEP meetings. Some schools now are telling parents to wait up to next December for a plan for compensatory services. The determinations are mostly being done outside of the IEP meetings. Total BS and MCPS is just stalling past the statuary deadlines for filing a State Complaint.

MCPS did not stop providing services during this period of virtual learning. It is simply not true. For some kids the changes in delivery were not ideal and not successful, for some it was fine and for some, it was better than in person. I’m sorry that PP’s experience was not good but the comments above are just not true.

As for schools, you may want to look into Bridge and SESES programs. Entry requires a Central IEP which is a time consuming process so you may want to start now.

You must work for MCPS. With a very few exceptions, online delivery of IEP services was at best inadequate and at worst a disaster for kids. For those few kids who benefited, don’t fool yourself into thinking it was the virtual services that were the reason. More likely, it was removing the stress of a dysfunctional and poorly supported classroom environment. Any school that plans to continue trying to do IEP hours virtually in 2021-2022 is going to be staring down the barrel of a class action lawsuit.

[Anonymous]

I am not a MCPS employee- just a parent of two kids with SN. Like I said I’m sorry for your difficulty but that doesn’t mean your experience is universal or even the majority experience.

Personally I found MCPS to be impressive in terms of services during the pandemic. We got an increase in services, home visits, etc. and the staff was amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am not a MCPS employee- just a parent of two kids with SN. Like I said I’m sorry for your difficulty but that doesn’t mean your experience is universal or even the majority experience.

Personally I found MCPS to be impressive in terms of services during the pandemic. We got an increase in services, home visits, etc. and the staff was amazing.

I’m not in MCPS so I can’t say. But I can say that most SN kids need to be in school around other adults and kids, and most SN parents had to work and couldn’t adequately supervise DL. All the problems with DL fell more heavily on SN families. You’re delusional to think otherwise based on your very unique situation. Online SN services are a joke, and online instruction is just even worse for most SN.