MCPS is executing significant changes to special education that directly affect autistic students and their families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion from a parent of a student with Autism- I see students with autism who are working on alternative learning outcomes and a high school certificate in services that have a similar profile as autism services. I believe the autism specific service and specialist exploded in the county and got too specific for public education. Many families from all over the country moved here for these specific autism services and demands, staffing, and programs exploded to something unrealistic for a public school system. Students in self contained special education can benefit from the best practices offered and used in the autism specific programs. I believe the county got too specific, created too many individual set of services that are not realistic to maintain with the funding and staffing of a large public school system.

Then your opinion is that no one should be able to serve these children. If one of the largest school systems in the country can't do it, who do you think is going to do it?

Nothing os changing on terms of real world support.
There has never been enough funding for special needs students. No one has ever cared. Bare minimums have applied to meet the law. The only real change is that now you lnow that no one cares.

That’s even if you can get an iep.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion from a parent of a student with Autism- I see students with autism who are working on alternative learning outcomes and a high school certificate in services that have a similar profile as autism services. I believe the autism specific service and specialist exploded in the county and got too specific for public education. Many families from all over the country moved here for these specific autism services and demands, staffing, and programs exploded to something unrealistic for a public school system. Students in self contained special education can benefit from the best practices offered and used in the autism specific programs. I believe the county got too specific, created too many individual set of services that are not realistic to maintain with the funding and staffing of a large public school system.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you think more kids could benefit from the expertise of the autism programs then why is cutting their support the answer? This seems like a very Taylor response- everyone should get a piece of this special thing, so we'll spread it around until it isn't special or useful anymore! The different alternate learning outcomes programs do serve different profiles of kids. You may look at them and see they're all cognitively disabled but kids in LFI vs Autism learn very differently.

Because there is not funding to support going deep in autism and still be able to deliver baseline basics for everything/everyone else.

Ah, and there the real answer is given away. Taylor and many people don't care about these kids, better to take away what little support they have so others get theirs. There certainly is enough funding if it is prioritized. And as stated by others before- it'll cost us more money in the end to not serve these kids appropriately.

DP. Interesting take, here, when PP was suggesting basics for others. Really, whether shortage or plenty, there isn't much of an ethical basis for meeting the needs of one group better than another.

That's not to say that, for this group, many might underestimate the relative level of need/costs of meeting that need with reasonable equivalence.

This is the whole point of being equitable. Kids with more needs get more resources. I think it's unfair to say other kids in special education don't get "basics." Most of the complaints here are more about process than services. Improving the process of qualifying for an IEP is definitely a good idea. Honestly, the idea that taking away a handful of Autism support positions is going to equal enough money to fix all the other problems is incredibly disingenuous. These positions are a small part of the system but have a huge impact on the quality of the Autism programs and these students.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion from a parent of a student with Autism- I see students with autism who are working on alternative learning outcomes and a high school certificate in services that have a similar profile as autism services. I believe the autism specific service and specialist exploded in the county and got too specific for public education. Many families from all over the country moved here for these specific autism services and demands, staffing, and programs exploded to something unrealistic for a public school system. Students in self contained special education can benefit from the best practices offered and used in the autism specific programs. I believe the county got too specific, created too many individual set of services that are not realistic to maintain with the funding and staffing of a large public school system.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you think more kids could benefit from the expertise of the autism programs then why is cutting their support the answer? This seems like a very Taylor response- everyone should get a piece of this special thing, so we'll spread it around until it isn't special or useful anymore! The different alternate learning outcomes programs do serve different profiles of kids. You may look at them and see they're all cognitively disabled but kids in LFI vs Autism learn very differently.

Because there is not funding to support going deep in autism and still be able to deliver baseline basics for everything/everyone else.

Ah, and there the real answer is given away. Taylor and many people don't care about these kids, better to take away what little support they have so others get theirs. There certainly is enough funding if it is prioritized. And as stated by others before- it'll cost us more money in the end to not serve these kids appropriately.

DP. Interesting take, here, when PP was suggesting basics for others. Really, whether shortage or plenty, there isn't much of an ethical basis for meeting the needs of one group better than another.

That's not to say that, for this group, many might underestimate the relative level of need/costs of meeting that need with reasonable equivalence.

This is the whole point of being equitable. Kids with more needs get more resources. I think it's unfair to say other kids in special education don't get "basics." Most of the complaints here are more about process than services. Improving the process of qualifying for an IEP is definitely a good idea. Honestly, the idea that taking away a handful of Autism support positions is going to equal enough money to fix all the other problems is incredibly disingenuous. These positions are a small part of the system but have a huge impact on the quality of the Autism programs and these students.

Negative. They have very little impact on the quality of the Autism programs except to act as barriers to stop the majority of autistic children from accessing them. Only the parents with advocates and lawyers get into them currently

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion from a parent of a student with Autism- I see students with autism who are working on alternative learning outcomes and a high school certificate in services that have a similar profile as autism services. I believe the autism specific service and specialist exploded in the county and got too specific for public education. Many families from all over the country moved here for these specific autism services and demands, staffing, and programs exploded to something unrealistic for a public school system. Students in self contained special education can benefit from the best practices offered and used in the autism specific programs. I believe the county got too specific, created too many individual set of services that are not realistic to maintain with the funding and staffing of a large public school system.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you think more kids could benefit from the expertise of the autism programs then why is cutting their support the answer? This seems like a very Taylor response- everyone should get a piece of this special thing, so we'll spread it around until it isn't special or useful anymore! The different alternate learning outcomes programs do serve different profiles of kids. You may look at them and see they're all cognitively disabled but kids in LFI vs Autism learn very differently.

Because there is not funding to support going deep in autism and still be able to deliver baseline basics for everything/everyone else.

Ah, and there the real answer is given away. Taylor and many people don't care about these kids, better to take away what little support they have so others get theirs. There certainly is enough funding if it is prioritized. And as stated by others before- it'll cost us more money in the end to not serve these kids appropriately.

DP. Interesting take, here, when PP was suggesting basics for others. Really, whether shortage or plenty, there isn't much of an ethical basis for meeting the needs of one group better than another.

That's not to say that, for this group, many might underestimate the relative level of need/costs of meeting that need with reasonable equivalence.

This is the whole point of being equitable. Kids with more needs get more resources. I think it's unfair to say other kids in special education don't get "basics." Most of the complaints here are more about process than services. Improving the process of qualifying for an IEP is definitely a good idea. Honestly, the idea that taking away a handful of Autism support positions is going to equal enough money to fix all the other problems is incredibly disingenuous. These positions are a small part of the system but have a huge impact on the quality of the Autism programs and these students.

Negative. They have very little impact on the quality of the Autism programs except to act as barriers to stop the majority of autistic children from accessing them. Only the parents with advocates and lawyers get into them currently

I'm assuming you're just a bitter parent. As an Autism Program teacher I receive a lot of training and support from the Autism specialists and I'm really worried how that's going to be impacted next year. None of my students have ever had an advocate or lawyer. A lot of the families are low income and have a lot of needs actually...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion from a parent of a student with Autism- I see students with autism who are working on alternative learning outcomes and a high school certificate in services that have a similar profile as autism services. I believe the autism specific service and specialist exploded in the county and got too specific for public education. Many families from all over the country moved here for these specific autism services and demands, staffing, and programs exploded to something unrealistic for a public school system. Students in self contained special education can benefit from the best practices offered and used in the autism specific programs. I believe the county got too specific, created too many individual set of services that are not realistic to maintain with the funding and staffing of a large public school system.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you think more kids could benefit from the expertise of the autism programs then why is cutting their support the answer? This seems like a very Taylor response- everyone should get a piece of this special thing, so we'll spread it around until it isn't special or useful anymore! The different alternate learning outcomes programs do serve different profiles of kids. You may look at them and see they're all cognitively disabled but kids in LFI vs Autism learn very differently.

Because there is not funding to support going deep in autism and still be able to deliver baseline basics for everything/everyone else.

Ah, and there the real answer is given away. Taylor and many people don't care about these kids, better to take away what little support they have so others get theirs. There certainly is enough funding if it is prioritized. And as stated by others before- it'll cost us more money in the end to not serve these kids appropriately.

DP. Interesting take, here, when PP was suggesting basics for others. Really, whether shortage or plenty, there isn't much of an ethical basis for meeting the needs of one group better than another.

That's not to say that, for this group, many might underestimate the relative level of need/costs of meeting that need with reasonable equivalence.

This is the whole point of being equitable. Kids with more needs get more resources. I think it's unfair to say other kids in special education don't get "basics." Most of the complaints here are more about process than services. Improving the process of qualifying for an IEP is definitely a good idea. Honestly, the idea that taking away a handful of Autism support positions is going to equal enough money to fix all the other problems is incredibly disingenuous. These positions are a small part of the system but have a huge impact on the quality of the Autism programs and these students.

I think we see eye to eye on this. I'm not sure that this amounts to support for the characterization of Taylor/others not caring, though.

That said, I don't preclude that it is possible.

[Anonymous]

Is the school board meeting on this still happening this week? I know this one will be very important for families and teachers to attend, and with the snow and ice, I'm concerned that we won't get the turnout needed. Anyone have any ideas?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion from a parent of a student with Autism- I see students with autism who are working on alternative learning outcomes and a high school certificate in services that have a similar profile as autism services. I believe the autism specific service and specialist exploded in the county and got too specific for public education. Many families from all over the country moved here for these specific autism services and demands, staffing, and programs exploded to something unrealistic for a public school system. Students in self contained special education can benefit from the best practices offered and used in the autism specific programs. I believe the county got too specific, created too many individual set of services that are not realistic to maintain with the funding and staffing of a large public school system.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you think more kids could benefit from the expertise of the autism programs then why is cutting their support the answer? This seems like a very Taylor response- everyone should get a piece of this special thing, so we'll spread it around until it isn't special or useful anymore! The different alternate learning outcomes programs do serve different profiles of kids. You may look at them and see they're all cognitively disabled but kids in LFI vs Autism learn very differently.

Because there is not funding to support going deep in autism and still be able to deliver baseline basics for everything/everyone else.

Ah, and there the real answer is given away. Taylor and many people don't care about these kids, better to take away what little support they have so others get theirs. There certainly is enough funding if it is prioritized. And as stated by others before- it'll cost us more money in the end to not serve these kids appropriately.

DP. Interesting take, here, when PP was suggesting basics for others. Really, whether shortage or plenty, there isn't much of an ethical basis for meeting the needs of one group better than another.

That's not to say that, for this group, many might underestimate the relative level of need/costs of meeting that need with reasonable equivalence.

This is the whole point of being equitable. Kids with more needs get more resources. I think it's unfair to say other kids in special education don't get "basics." Most of the complaints here are more about process than services. Improving the process of qualifying for an IEP is definitely a good idea. Honestly, the idea that taking away a handful of Autism support positions is going to equal enough money to fix all the other problems is incredibly disingenuous. These positions are a small part of the system but have a huge impact on the quality of the Autism programs and these students.

Negative. They have very little impact on the quality of the Autism programs except to act as barriers to stop the majority of autistic children from accessing them. Only the parents with advocates and lawyers get into them currently

I'm assuming you're just a bitter parent. As an Autism Program teacher I receive a lot of training and support from the Autism specialists and I'm really worried how that's going to be impacted next year. None of my students have ever had an advocate or lawyer. A lot of the families are low income and have a lot of needs actually...

As a teacher in a different ALO program, I don't get training and support. Except I've had instructional specialist from the autism programs come out several times to observe kids and they've been helpful with strategies and ideas. But that only happened because I had a RTSE who held sway in the county and got it done. That hadn't been my typical experience. That training and support is needed in other programs as well, especially as our autism numbers rise - currently half my class. And especially since in those cases where they came to observe, not once did they recommend or agree with our recommendation that student should go to an autism program.

I'm not saying those supports should be pulled from the autism program, but it would be helpful to have those same supports in other discreet programs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is the school board meeting on this still happening this week? I know this one will be very important for families and teachers to attend, and with the snow and ice, I'm concerned that we won't get the turnout needed. Anyone have any ideas?

Looks like the budget hearing and budget work session will both be on Monday: https://ww2.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/boe/meetings/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion from a parent of a student with Autism- I see students with autism who are working on alternative learning outcomes and a high school certificate in services that have a similar profile as autism services. I believe the autism specific service and specialist exploded in the county and got too specific for public education. Many families from all over the country moved here for these specific autism services and demands, staffing, and programs exploded to something unrealistic for a public school system. Students in self contained special education can benefit from the best practices offered and used in the autism specific programs. I believe the county got too specific, created too many individual set of services that are not realistic to maintain with the funding and staffing of a large public school system.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you think more kids could benefit from the expertise of the autism programs then why is cutting their support the answer? This seems like a very Taylor response- everyone should get a piece of this special thing, so we'll spread it around until it isn't special or useful anymore! The different alternate learning outcomes programs do serve different profiles of kids. You may look at them and see they're all cognitively disabled but kids in LFI vs Autism learn very differently.

Because there is not funding to support going deep in autism and still be able to deliver baseline basics for everything/everyone else.

Ah, and there the real answer is given away. Taylor and many people don't care about these kids, better to take away what little support they have so others get theirs. There certainly is enough funding if it is prioritized. And as stated by others before- it'll cost us more money in the end to not serve these kids appropriately.

DP. Interesting take, here, when PP was suggesting basics for others. Really, whether shortage or plenty, there isn't much of an ethical basis for meeting the needs of one group better than another.

That's not to say that, for this group, many might underestimate the relative level of need/costs of meeting that need with reasonable equivalence.

This is the whole point of being equitable. Kids with more needs get more resources. I think it's unfair to say other kids in special education don't get "basics." Most of the complaints here are more about process than services. Improving the process of qualifying for an IEP is definitely a good idea. Honestly, the idea that taking away a handful of Autism support positions is going to equal enough money to fix all the other problems is incredibly disingenuous. These positions are a small part of the system but have a huge impact on the quality of the Autism programs and these students.

Negative. They have very little impact on the quality of the Autism programs except to act as barriers to stop the majority of autistic children from accessing them. Only the parents with advocates and lawyers get into them currently

I'm assuming you're just a bitter parent. As an Autism Program teacher I receive a lot of training and support from the Autism specialists and I'm really worried how that's going to be impacted next year. None of my students have ever had an advocate or lawyer. A lot of the families are low income and have a lot of needs actually...

As a teacher in a different ALO program, I don't get training and support. Except I've had instructional specialist from the autism programs come out several times to observe kids and they've been helpful with strategies and ideas. But that only happened because I had a RTSE who held sway in the county and got it done. That hadn't been my typical experience. That training and support is needed in other programs as well, especially as our autism numbers rise - currently half my class. And especially since in those cases where they came to observe, not once did they recommend or agree with our recommendation that student should go to an autism program.

I'm not saying those supports should be pulled from the autism program, but it would be helpful to have those same supports in other discreet programs

This was my experience as well. There was a level of gatekeeping for the programs under the Autism office that I'm sure kept the programs strong, but which was not tolerated for any other IEP programming decisions, and it was irritating. They apparently thought it was just fine for Learning Center, LFI, and SCB to be dumping grounds and to be forced to take students who weren't good fits, but never should a precious program like ARS or Connections (Asperger's in old money) or CAPP have to take any student who wasn't the exact perfect profile.

I certainly oppose disbanding the office or diluting the services. The expertise is crucial for these low-incidence populations and the people trying to destroy it don't actually know what they're doing, or why you need psychologists experienced with this population. You absolutely do. But the extreme gatekeeping and the little fiefdom going on also need to adapt a bit to realities. If anything, programs should be expanded, not watered down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion from a parent of a student with Autism- I see students with autism who are working on alternative learning outcomes and a high school certificate in services that have a similar profile as autism services. I believe the autism specific service and specialist exploded in the county and got too specific for public education. Many families from all over the country moved here for these specific autism services and demands, staffing, and programs exploded to something unrealistic for a public school system. Students in self contained special education can benefit from the best practices offered and used in the autism specific programs. I believe the county got too specific, created too many individual set of services that are not realistic to maintain with the funding and staffing of a large public school system.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you think more kids could benefit from the expertise of the autism programs then why is cutting their support the answer? This seems like a very Taylor response- everyone should get a piece of this special thing, so we'll spread it around until it isn't special or useful anymore! The different alternate learning outcomes programs do serve different profiles of kids. You may look at them and see they're all cognitively disabled but kids in LFI vs Autism learn very differently.

Because there is not funding to support going deep in autism and still be able to deliver baseline basics for everything/everyone else.

Ah, and there the real answer is given away. Taylor and many people don't care about these kids, better to take away what little support they have so others get theirs. There certainly is enough funding if it is prioritized. And as stated by others before- it'll cost us more money in the end to not serve these kids appropriately.

DP. Interesting take, here, when PP was suggesting basics for others. Really, whether shortage or plenty, there isn't much of an ethical basis for meeting the needs of one group better than another.

That's not to say that, for this group, many might underestimate the relative level of need/costs of meeting that need with reasonable equivalence.

This is the whole point of being equitable. Kids with more needs get more resources. I think it's unfair to say other kids in special education don't get "basics." Most of the complaints here are more about process than services. Improving the process of qualifying for an IEP is definitely a good idea. Honestly, the idea that taking away a handful of Autism support positions is going to equal enough money to fix all the other problems is incredibly disingenuous. These positions are a small part of the system but have a huge impact on the quality of the Autism programs and these students.

Negative. They have very little impact on the quality of the Autism programs except to act as barriers to stop the majority of autistic children from accessing them. Only the parents with advocates and lawyers get into them currently

I'm assuming you're just a bitter parent. As an Autism Program teacher I receive a lot of training and support from the Autism specialists and I'm really worried how that's going to be impacted next year. None of my students have ever had an advocate or lawyer. A lot of the families are low income and have a lot of needs actually...

As a teacher in a different ALO program, I don't get training and support. Except I've had instructional specialist from the autism programs come out several times to observe kids and they've been helpful with strategies and ideas. But that only happened because I had a RTSE who held sway in the county and got it done. That hadn't been my typical experience. That training and support is needed in other programs as well, especially as our autism numbers rise - currently half my class. And especially since in those cases where they came to observe, not once did they recommend or agree with our recommendation that student should go to an autism program.

I'm not saying those supports should be pulled from the autism program, but it would be helpful to have those same supports in other discreet programs

Instructional specialists are not being cut. Only the 9 supervisors. Instructional specialists may offer strategies but they do not conduct training (special Ed teacher in mcps )

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unpopular opinion from a parent of a student with Autism- I see students with autism who are working on alternative learning outcomes and a high school certificate in services that have a similar profile as autism services. I believe the autism specific service and specialist exploded in the county and got too specific for public education. Many families from all over the country moved here for these specific autism services and demands, staffing, and programs exploded to something unrealistic for a public school system. Students in self contained special education can benefit from the best practices offered and used in the autism specific programs. I believe the county got too specific, created too many individual set of services that are not realistic to maintain with the funding and staffing of a large public school system.

This doesn't make sense to me. If you think more kids could benefit from the expertise of the autism programs then why is cutting their support the answer? This seems like a very Taylor response- everyone should get a piece of this special thing, so we'll spread it around until it isn't special or useful anymore! The different alternate learning outcomes programs do serve different profiles of kids. You may look at them and see they're all cognitively disabled but kids in LFI vs Autism learn very differently.

Because there is not funding to support going deep in autism and still be able to deliver baseline basics for everything/everyone else.

Ah, and there the real answer is given away. Taylor and many people don't care about these kids, better to take away what little support they have so others get theirs. There certainly is enough funding if it is prioritized. And as stated by others before- it'll cost us more money in the end to not serve these kids appropriately.

DP. Interesting take, here, when PP was suggesting basics for others. Really, whether shortage or plenty, there isn't much of an ethical basis for meeting the needs of one group better than another.

That's not to say that, for this group, many might underestimate the relative level of need/costs of meeting that need with reasonable equivalence.

This is the whole point of being equitable. Kids with more needs get more resources. I think it's unfair to say other kids in special education don't get "basics." Most of the complaints here are more about process than services. Improving the process of qualifying for an IEP is definitely a good idea. Honestly, the idea that taking away a handful of Autism support positions is going to equal enough money to fix all the other problems is incredibly disingenuous. These positions are a small part of the system but have a huge impact on the quality of the Autism programs and these students.

Negative. They have very little impact on the quality of the Autism programs except to act as barriers to stop the majority of autistic children from accessing them. Only the parents with advocates and lawyers get into them currently

I'm assuming you're just a bitter parent. As an Autism Program teacher I receive a lot of training and support from the Autism specialists and I'm really worried how that's going to be impacted next year. None of my students have ever had an advocate or lawyer. A lot of the families are low income and have a lot of needs actually...

As a teacher in a different ALO program, I don't get training and support. Except I've had instructional specialist from the autism programs come out several times to observe kids and they've been helpful with strategies and ideas. But that only happened because I had a RTSE who held sway in the county and got it done. That hadn't been my typical experience. That training and support is needed in other programs as well, especially as our autism numbers rise - currently half my class. And especially since in those cases where they came to observe, not once did they recommend or agree with our recommendation that student should go to an autism program.

I'm not saying those supports should be pulled from the autism program, but it would be helpful to have those same supports in other discreet programs

This was my experience as well. There was a level of gatekeeping for the programs under the Autism office that I'm sure kept the programs strong, but which was not tolerated for any other IEP programming decisions, and it was irritating. They apparently thought it was just fine for Learning Center, LFI, and SCB to be dumping grounds and to be forced to take students who weren't good fits, but never should a precious program like ARS or Connections (Asperger's in old money) or CAPP have to take any student who wasn't the exact perfect profile.

I certainly oppose disbanding the office or diluting the services. The expertise is crucial for these low-incidence populations and the people trying to destroy it don't actually know what they're doing, or why you need psychologists experienced with this population. You absolutely do. But the extreme gatekeeping and the little fiefdom going on also need to adapt a bit to realities. If anything, programs should be expanded, not watered down.

Yep, plus one

[Anonymous]

Well as you say the solution is not to turn the Autism program into another dumping ground, but that's what's going to happen. Gatekeeping is needed when there are finite resources and the program needs to serve the most neediest kids. The solution would be to give the same support and resources to other ALO programs, but it seems like they would rather every program be watered down. It's odd that their solution to something they see as inequitable, as people seem to be jealous of what Autism has, is to dilute it and drag it down to how other programs struggle.

I finally got to watch the latest budget meeting and the gaslighting from Dr. Cage was insulting. They claim that because more teacher and paraeducator positions are being added to the Autism Program that this means the Autism Program is expanding, not being gutted. Of course more positions are added every year because classrooms for Autism are opened every year to deal with the ever growing autism population. The issue is that there will be no dedicated supervisor and therefore the oversight of these programs will be gone. The specialists still have their positions for now but their jobs are likely going to be very different next year under one central special ed supervisor. She also claimed that the psychologists will now be centralized and get the right kind of supervision under the department of psych services. All psychologists, no matter what department they're in, already get evaluated by the psych supervisors and attend their meetings so it's disingenuous to say they've essentially been acting rogue with supervisors who don't know what they do. It's a blatant lie. They want to just have whatever building psychologist serve all programs in their building versus having psychologists dedicated to any program. It's a huge loss of expertise and will be impossible for dozens of building psychologists who will be less focused on their special programs to collaborate with Autism specialists and understand the unique needs and structure of the program.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well as you say the solution is not to turn the Autism program into another dumping ground, but that's what's going to happen. Gatekeeping is needed when there are finite resources and the program needs to serve the most neediest kids. The solution would be to give the same support and resources to other ALO programs, but it seems like they would rather every program be watered down. It's odd that their solution to something they see as inequitable, as people seem to be jealous of what Autism has, is to dilute it and drag it down to how other programs struggle.

I finally got to watch the latest budget meeting and the gaslighting from Dr. Cage was insulting. They claim that because more teacher and paraeducator positions are being added to the Autism Program that this means the Autism Program is expanding, not being gutted. Of course more positions are added every year because classrooms for Autism are opened every year to deal with the ever growing autism population. The issue is that there will be no dedicated supervisor and therefore the oversight of these programs will be gone. The specialists still have their positions for now but their jobs are likely going to be very different next year under one central special ed supervisor. She also claimed that the psychologists will now be centralized and get the right kind of supervision under the department of psych services. All psychologists, no matter what department they're in, already get evaluated by the psych supervisors and attend their meetings so it's disingenuous to say they've essentially been acting rogue with supervisors who don't know what they do. It's a blatant lie. They want to just have whatever building psychologist serve all programs in their building versus having psychologists dedicated to any program. It's a huge loss of expertise and will be impossible for dozens of building psychologists who will be less focused on their special programs to collaborate with Autism specialists and understand the unique needs and structure of the program.

Well you can thank your fellow parents and teachers who have been shouting that central office needed to shrink and more people needed to be directly in the classroom/on campus. As you noted there is finite resources, so additional people and things can’t be everywhere. But plenty of people are complaining about what they don’t have or what they want. Other people and teams got hit last year, it was inevitable that Special Ed would get hit eventually.