Think twice before hiring an advocate…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the 2e kids who ARE quite close to grade level but could be doing much more if they weren't managing to create their own supports. Also, they are probably struggling with a lot of issues that are non-academic.

I agree that the public school probably can't offer what is actually needed, and I feel for the teachers who are stuck in the middle. We ended up having to go private to get what we need - to a private SN school, even though our kid would have fallen into the category you describe with being almost at grade level.

On the other hand, of course, I agree you need to assume good intent. We went into our first IEP meeting with an advocate because our neuropsych basically told us we would need one, and I felt like she was way too antogonistic.

You actually found a private that supports 2e kids well? In the DC area?

DP. Commonwealth Academy in Alexandria for ADHD and giftedness

Interesting. When we looked at it a couple of years ago the academics didn’t seem that strong.

My kid was “a couple of years ago”. His class went to Brown, MIT, UVA etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised about how little parents of SN kids know about how those programs are funded. Theres is a huge discrepancy between what’s needed and what’s funded. There’s nowhere near enough money to provide the needed services. At our school the PTA main job is to raise money for special ed, roughly 65k out of the 100k yearly budget so it is literally funded through charity. The interventionist is split between the school because in some years she might not be covered.

Another uncomfortable truth, the services your kid gets are the services another SN kid won’t, because money doesn’t appear based on what’s in the IEP, it’s just that the pie is cut in different slices.

I’m not commenting if it’s fair or not, it’s just the way things are.

I'm surprised that you have never looked at the budget.

Mine has over 10% of funding go to central administration. 1% to special ed

I was the treasurer of the PTA and know what the budget was. $65k out of $100k was spent on reading and math intervention and a on site counselor for support. The rest was to fund field trips for everyone, 10k, about 10k was for classroom supplies, library etc, and the rest was to run events and the organization.

I seriously doubt that your PTA had 10% go to central office and 1% to special ed, that just seem like some made up numbers. No PTA sends money to the central office, maybe you are referring to the membership fee split with the national PTA parent organization, about $12/member.

What the heck!? I have never heard of PTAs raising money and paying for actual staff salaries. Or raising 100k/year to spend!?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents are unrealistic about what public schools can provide. There are finite resources. Everyone is fighting for a bigger slice of pie for their child. Fair enough but something has to give. And neurotypical kids need resources + time and attention as well.

Schools get additional funding for SN kids. For each SN child coded in a specific way (which is why they push specific diagnosis) they get more funding for sped teachers. So, yes, it's reasonable to expect support given they are using our kids for those additional resources.

Do you know how much is spend per student, and how much additional funding is allocated to your SN child? Somehow that amount needs to be balanced with the services provided.

The issue is not the travel basketball team or the central office salaries, or the federal government etc. The issue is that one on one instruction most SN kids need is very expensive. But that isn’t news to anyone because if it were cheap parents would just get those services privately. Most people don’t. Even if SN kids get double the funding allocation (unheard of), at roughly $200 an hour your child will get 1-2 hours a week over the school year.

There was a mom on this thread that got 60 minutes a week reading intervention, that’s about $7500 that someone has to pay. I agree you should advocate for your child, but don’t assume the people across the table are malicious.

1-2 hours a week was more than we got. We got 30 minutes of help with a group of six kids with unrelated needs.

Our school lost sped teacher as a few families left the school and sone of us dropped the ieps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If school staff met kids needs parents and advocates would not need to step in to advocate. Our principal was a huge bully as was the special education teacher. They did not get my child. Some teachers tried and went above and beyond, but most didn’t get our child. The principal would scream at us about things in our iep meetings that made no sense acting like we were dumb and had no clue. We had our child in many many hours of private services starting at age two, multiple private evaluations, which we gave them. Our private therapists reached out multiple times to school staff to coordinate services and school staff refused to meet with them. They tried to bully us onto a false school diagnosis so they could keep their special education teachers but would not offer more services based off the diagnosis. In hindsight I should have hired an advocate but instead we walked away from the useless iep that they did not follow and was recycled from another child, whose name was in it with multiple careless mistakes and continued in private services. In the end our efforts paid off without school help but most people cannot or will not do what we did nor would that work for the majority of kids.

People like op need to be fired. No services are sometimes better than bad services, which really hurt my child as they were pulled out of class for groups that did not work on my child’s needs but focused on other higher needs kids.

Op, not being cold, but staffing issues are not parents problems. Other kids are not our problem too. We want all kids to get the help they need but as parents our focus is getting our kids the help they need so they can be successful now and in the future.

And, thank you to the amazing teachers and staff who do go above and beyond to help our kids be successful. Don’t think for a moment we don’t see what you do but sometimes parents are just trying to survive and things like a simple thank you get forgotten, especially when we hit that stage in life with our kids, aging parents, work and our own health issues.

I’d encourage any parent who can afford it to get an advocate. It’s very hard going into meetings where the focus is to get out of helping vs helping.

I have never experienced this in FCPS. I have worked with wonderful, caring, professional, intelligent, accountable, staff. I believe that there are bad apples out there. But the OP said a family had an advocate for a team tjhey have never met before. Many families come with an advocate or an attorney to an initial referrral or meeting. They have no trust or respect and aren't assuming good will. OP said "assume good will." Families are never assuming positive intent of staff anymore. This is why staff don't want to work for FCPS.

And yes- you should care about other kids. You should care about staff. It IS your problem. It DOES affect your child and all children and the future of our country. You are responsible to more than just your child.

You wrote "the focus is to get out of helping vs helping." I have never once experienced that or seen that by FCPS staff. I have seen many families expect special education services for their children who do not meet DOE requirements, and get mad at FCPS or a school for following DOE guidelines, and it goes to battle with an advocate until FCPS gives in to make the battle and hostility stop.

FCPS schools have finite resources. There simply are not enough hours available to give every kid the IEP they need and to meet the requirements. Principals know this and push where they can get away with it. Blame the county, state, and federal governments for not adequately funding special education.

Bingo. The vast majority (99%) of SPED educators absolutely want to support kids to the best of their ability. However, they are extremely limited by lack of funding/workload.

We need a shift in our country to prioritize - and fund - education, including SPED.

I fully believe this. I have never met a special educator who truly believed they were doing "enough," although many felt they were doing all they could. The funding situation is pathetic and until SPED gets all of the funding promised in IDEA, we're going to keep having these massive issues. That being said, I'll keep my attorney on retainer. Because the only time the school listened was when I brought her. The "system" isn't my concern. My child is. And if the system has to suffer to get him the education he's entitled to, so be it. Parents and their hired advocates/attorneys are the only force keeping these programs marginally compliant.

Yes, unfortunately the funding/staffing levels just aren't there to provide all of the legally-required services. Some kids will get a boost from advocates, but the vast majority won't.

It's a terrible situation that no one wants to address.

Most of these school systems have plenty of money, its how they choose to spend it.

What specifically do you suggest they cut?

DC can start by cutting the listening sessions to re-imagine high schools?
Maybe the Foreign Language instruction early elementary that is for 45 min a week but does not continue to upper elementary?
The travel basketball league for elementary school (as well as the cross country for elementary school)

I just found you at least 1 head count for every elementary school

Public’s don’t have travel teams or foreign language in es.

[Anonymous]

FCPS definitely has foreign language in elementary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's the 2e kids who ARE quite close to grade level but could be doing much more if they weren't managing to create their own supports. Also, they are probably struggling with a lot of issues that are non-academic.

I agree that the public school probably can't offer what is actually needed, and I feel for the teachers who are stuck in the middle. We ended up having to go private to get what we need - to a private SN school, even though our kid would have fallen into the category you describe with being almost at grade level.

On the other hand, of course, I agree you need to assume good intent. We went into our first IEP meeting with an advocate because our neuropsych basically told us we would need one, and I felt like she was way too antogonistic.

You actually found a private that supports 2e kids well? In the DC area?

DP. Commonwealth Academy in Alexandria for ADHD and giftedness

Interesting. When we looked at it a couple of years ago the academics didn’t seem that strong.

My kid was “a couple of years ago”. His class went to Brown, MIT, UVA etc

I’m sure they would have shared this info with us since we were specifically asking about STEM offerings. Maybe it’s stronger now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised about how little parents of SN kids know about how those programs are funded. Theres is a huge discrepancy between what’s needed and what’s funded. There’s nowhere near enough money to provide the needed services. At our school the PTA main job is to raise money for special ed, roughly 65k out of the 100k yearly budget so it is literally funded through charity. The interventionist is split between the school because in some years she might not be covered.

Another uncomfortable truth, the services your kid gets are the services another SN kid won’t, because money doesn’t appear based on what’s in the IEP, it’s just that the pie is cut in different slices.

I’m not commenting if it’s fair or not, it’s just the way things are.

I'm surprised that you have never looked at the budget.

Mine has over 10% of funding go to central administration. 1% to special ed

I was the treasurer of the PTA and know what the budget was. $65k out of $100k was spent on reading and math intervention and a on site counselor for support. The rest was to fund field trips for everyone, 10k, about 10k was for classroom supplies, library etc, and the rest was to run events and the organization.

I seriously doubt that your PTA had 10% go to central office and 1% to special ed, that just seem like some made up numbers. No PTA sends money to the central office, maybe you are referring to the membership fee split with the national PTA parent organization, about $12/member.

What the heck!? I have never heard of PTAs raising money and paying for actual staff salaries. Or raising 100k/year to spend!?

In some states (VA), PTAs are not permitted to pay for salaries.

Where was it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If school staff met kids needs parents and advocates would not need to step in to advocate. Our principal was a huge bully as was the special education teacher. They did not get my child. Some teachers tried and went above and beyond, but most didn’t get our child. The principal would scream at us about things in our iep meetings that made no sense acting like we were dumb and had no clue. We had our child in many many hours of private services starting at age two, multiple private evaluations, which we gave them. Our private therapists reached out multiple times to school staff to coordinate services and school staff refused to meet with them. They tried to bully us onto a false school diagnosis so they could keep their special education teachers but would not offer more services based off the diagnosis. In hindsight I should have hired an advocate but instead we walked away from the useless iep that they did not follow and was recycled from another child, whose name was in it with multiple careless mistakes and continued in private services. In the end our efforts paid off without school help but most people cannot or will not do what we did nor would that work for the majority of kids.

People like op need to be fired. No services are sometimes better than bad services, which really hurt my child as they were pulled out of class for groups that did not work on my child’s needs but focused on other higher needs kids.

Op, not being cold, but staffing issues are not parents problems. Other kids are not our problem too. We want all kids to get the help they need but as parents our focus is getting our kids the help they need so they can be successful now and in the future.

And, thank you to the amazing teachers and staff who do go above and beyond to help our kids be successful. Don’t think for a moment we don’t see what you do but sometimes parents are just trying to survive and things like a simple thank you get forgotten, especially when we hit that stage in life with our kids, aging parents, work and our own health issues.

I’d encourage any parent who can afford it to get an advocate. It’s very hard going into meetings where the focus is to get out of helping vs helping.

I have never experienced this in FCPS. I have worked with wonderful, caring, professional, intelligent, accountable, staff. I believe that there are bad apples out there. But the OP said a family had an advocate for a team tjhey have never met before. Many families come with an advocate or an attorney to an initial referrral or meeting. They have no trust or respect and aren't assuming good will. OP said "assume good will." Families are never assuming positive intent of staff anymore. This is why staff don't want to work for FCPS.

And yes- you should care about other kids. You should care about staff. It IS your problem. It DOES affect your child and all children and the future of our country. You are responsible to more than just your child.

You wrote "the focus is to get out of helping vs helping." I have never once experienced that or seen that by FCPS staff. I have seen many families expect special education services for their children who do not meet DOE requirements, and get mad at FCPS or a school for following DOE guidelines, and it goes to battle with an advocate until FCPS gives in to make the battle and hostility stop.

FCPS schools have finite resources. There simply are not enough hours available to give every kid the IEP they need and to meet the requirements. Principals know this and push where they can get away with it. Blame the county, state, and federal governments for not adequately funding special education.

Bingo. The vast majority (99%) of SPED educators absolutely want to support kids to the best of their ability. However, they are extremely limited by lack of funding/workload.

We need a shift in our country to prioritize - and fund - education, including SPED.

I fully believe this. I have never met a special educator who truly believed they were doing "enough," although many felt they were doing all they could. The funding situation is pathetic and until SPED gets all of the funding promised in IDEA, we're going to keep having these massive issues. That being said, I'll keep my attorney on retainer. Because the only time the school listened was when I brought her. The "system" isn't my concern. My child is. And if the system has to suffer to get him the education he's entitled to, so be it. Parents and their hired advocates/attorneys are the only force keeping these programs marginally compliant.

Yes, unfortunately the funding/staffing levels just aren't there to provide all of the legally-required services. Some kids will get a boost from advocates, but the vast majority won't.

It's a terrible situation that no one wants to address.

Most of these school systems have plenty of money, its how they choose to spend it.

What specifically do you suggest they cut?

DC can start by cutting the listening sessions to re-imagine high schools?
Maybe the Foreign Language instruction early elementary that is for 45 min a week but does not continue to upper elementary?
The travel basketball league for elementary school (as well as the cross country for elementary school)

I just found you at least 1 head count for every elementary school

Ok. And how to fund the rest?

If you had 2 additional people per elementary school to support special education reading instruction, DC would no longer be funding a bunch of private placements at special schools like the Lab School, Siena, Chelsea. This would pay for itself and then some. The teachers would not be pulled away from classrooms because they need to testify and therefore have more hours to provide services to those who need them. The Special Education Coordinator will not need to sit in hearings for weeks on end. DC would not be paying lawyers fees etc.
They would have better outcomes for all students as you would have less disruptions from kids who are frustrated and acting out. They would have lower costs for juvenile crime and the criminal justice system as a whole as if you look at the data many who are incarcerated had learning disabilities that were undiagnosed (and definitely not served).

You need to start somewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If school staff met kids needs parents and advocates would not need to step in to advocate. Our principal was a huge bully as was the special education teacher. They did not get my child. Some teachers tried and went above and beyond, but most didn’t get our child. The principal would scream at us about things in our iep meetings that made no sense acting like we were dumb and had no clue. We had our child in many many hours of private services starting at age two, multiple private evaluations, which we gave them. Our private therapists reached out multiple times to school staff to coordinate services and school staff refused to meet with them. They tried to bully us onto a false school diagnosis so they could keep their special education teachers but would not offer more services based off the diagnosis. In hindsight I should have hired an advocate but instead we walked away from the useless iep that they did not follow and was recycled from another child, whose name was in it with multiple careless mistakes and continued in private services. In the end our efforts paid off without school help but most people cannot or will not do what we did nor would that work for the majority of kids.

People like op need to be fired. No services are sometimes better than bad services, which really hurt my child as they were pulled out of class for groups that did not work on my child’s needs but focused on other higher needs kids.

Op, not being cold, but staffing issues are not parents problems. Other kids are not our problem too. We want all kids to get the help they need but as parents our focus is getting our kids the help they need so they can be successful now and in the future.

And, thank you to the amazing teachers and staff who do go above and beyond to help our kids be successful. Don’t think for a moment we don’t see what you do but sometimes parents are just trying to survive and things like a simple thank you get forgotten, especially when we hit that stage in life with our kids, aging parents, work and our own health issues.

I’d encourage any parent who can afford it to get an advocate. It’s very hard going into meetings where the focus is to get out of helping vs helping.

I have never experienced this in FCPS. I have worked with wonderful, caring, professional, intelligent, accountable, staff. I believe that there are bad apples out there. But the OP said a family had an advocate for a team tjhey have never met before. Many families come with an advocate or an attorney to an initial referrral or meeting. They have no trust or respect and aren't assuming good will. OP said "assume good will." Families are never assuming positive intent of staff anymore. This is why staff don't want to work for FCPS.

And yes- you should care about other kids. You should care about staff. It IS your problem. It DOES affect your child and all children and the future of our country. You are responsible to more than just your child.

You wrote "the focus is to get out of helping vs helping." I have never once experienced that or seen that by FCPS staff. I have seen many families expect special education services for their children who do not meet DOE requirements, and get mad at FCPS or a school for following DOE guidelines, and it goes to battle with an advocate until FCPS gives in to make the battle and hostility stop.

FCPS schools have finite resources. There simply are not enough hours available to give every kid the IEP they need and to meet the requirements. Principals know this and push where they can get away with it. Blame the county, state, and federal governments for not adequately funding special education.

Bingo. The vast majority (99%) of SPED educators absolutely want to support kids to the best of their ability. However, they are extremely limited by lack of funding/workload.

We need a shift in our country to prioritize - and fund - education, including SPED.

I fully believe this. I have never met a special educator who truly believed they were doing "enough," although many felt they were doing all they could. The funding situation is pathetic and until SPED gets all of the funding promised in IDEA, we're going to keep having these massive issues. That being said, I'll keep my attorney on retainer. Because the only time the school listened was when I brought her. The "system" isn't my concern. My child is. And if the system has to suffer to get him the education he's entitled to, so be it. Parents and their hired advocates/attorneys are the only force keeping these programs marginally compliant.

Yes, unfortunately the funding/staffing levels just aren't there to provide all of the legally-required services. Some kids will get a boost from advocates, but the vast majority won't.

It's a terrible situation that no one wants to address.

Most of these school systems have plenty of money, its how they choose to spend it.

What specifically do you suggest they cut?

DC can start by cutting the listening sessions to re-imagine high schools?
Maybe the Foreign Language instruction early elementary that is for 45 min a week but does not continue to upper elementary?
The travel basketball league for elementary school (as well as the cross country for elementary school)

I just found you at least 1 head count for every elementary school

Public’s don’t have travel teams or foreign language in es.

DCPS has a foreign language (world cultures) requirement in elementary school.
DCPS has an elementary school basketball league where schools play against each other (buses provided by the district) and there is also a championship game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents are unrealistic about what public schools can provide. There are finite resources. Everyone is fighting for a bigger slice of pie for their child. Fair enough but something has to give. And neurotypical kids need resources + time and attention as well.

Schools get additional funding for SN kids. For each SN child coded in a specific way (which is why they push specific diagnosis) they get more funding for sped teachers. So, yes, it's reasonable to expect support given they are using our kids for those additional resources.

Do you know how much is spend per student, and how much additional funding is allocated to your SN child? Somehow that amount needs to be balanced with the services provided.

The issue is not the travel basketball team or the central office salaries, or the federal government etc. The issue is that one on one instruction most SN kids need is very expensive. But that isn’t news to anyone because if it were cheap parents would just get those services privately. Most people don’t. Even if SN kids get double the funding allocation (unheard of), at roughly $200 an hour your child will get 1-2 hours a week over the school year.

There was a mom on this thread that got 60 minutes a week reading intervention, that’s about $7500 that someone has to pay. I agree you should advocate for your child, but don’t assume the people across the table are malicious.

When you get 60 minutes a week - that is typically not 1 on 1.
In my experience, it is small group so 5 students pulled out at the same time working on some decoding skill.
What this really looks like - the teacher walks a picks up the kids from each classroom, the settle into the space they are going to. They start and a kid who was in a special and was not in their classroom comes in 5 minutes later and disrupts what was happening ....
So the kids get about 40 minutes of real instruction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised about how little parents of SN kids know about how those programs are funded. Theres is a huge discrepancy between what’s needed and what’s funded. There’s nowhere near enough money to provide the needed services. At our school the PTA main job is to raise money for special ed, roughly 65k out of the 100k yearly budget so it is literally funded through charity. The interventionist is split between the school because in some years she might not be covered.

Another uncomfortable truth, the services your kid gets are the services another SN kid won’t, because money doesn’t appear based on what’s in the IEP, it’s just that the pie is cut in different slices.

I’m not commenting if it’s fair or not, it’s just the way things are.

I'm surprised that you have never looked at the budget.

Mine has over 10% of funding go to central administration. 1% to special ed

I was the treasurer of the PTA and know what the budget was. $65k out of $100k was spent on reading and math intervention and a on site counselor for support. The rest was to fund field trips for everyone, 10k, about 10k was for classroom supplies, library etc, and the rest was to run events and the organization.

I seriously doubt that your PTA had 10% go to central office and 1% to special ed, that just seem like some made up numbers. No PTA sends money to the central office, maybe you are referring to the membership fee split with the national PTA parent organization, about $12/member.

What the heck!? I have never heard of PTAs raising money and paying for actual staff salaries. Or raising 100k/year to spend!?

In some states (VA), PTAs are not permitted to pay for salaries.

Where was it?

To circumvent this the money was given to the school as a grant from PTA and the school would use it to pay for special ed. My understanding is that it’s a practice that’s not recommended, and not specifically not permitted. Some people in the PTA had issues with it, because it’s a lot of money that only a small fraction a students benefit from, but a lot of times it’s what historically has been done, what the principal thinks is mostly needed etc.

It’s a school in a wealthy neighborhood with involved parents, the suggested donation per year was about $400 and most people did do that. In our district there were schools raising more and also raising less. Other schools would use the money to make all enrichment classes free for everyone instead of special ed, which in my view is more fair.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised about how little parents of SN kids know about how those programs are funded. Theres is a huge discrepancy between what’s needed and what’s funded. There’s nowhere near enough money to provide the needed services. At our school the PTA main job is to raise money for special ed, roughly 65k out of the 100k yearly budget so it is literally funded through charity. The interventionist is split between the school because in some years she might not be covered.

Another uncomfortable truth, the services your kid gets are the services another SN kid won’t, because money doesn’t appear based on what’s in the IEP, it’s just that the pie is cut in different slices.

I’m not commenting if it’s fair or not, it’s just the way things are.

I'm surprised that you have never looked at the budget.

Mine has over 10% of funding go to central administration. 1% to special ed

I was the treasurer of the PTA and know what the budget was. $65k out of $100k was spent on reading and math intervention and a on site counselor for support. The rest was to fund field trips for everyone, 10k, about 10k was for classroom supplies, library etc, and the rest was to run events and the organization.

I seriously doubt that your PTA had 10% go to central office and 1% to special ed, that just seem like some made up numbers. No PTA sends money to the central office, maybe you are referring to the membership fee split with the national PTA parent organization, about $12/member.

What the heck!? I have never heard of PTAs raising money and paying for actual staff salaries. Or raising 100k/year to spend!?

DC is the only place where PTAs can fund a position.

My kids are in their mid20’s and the ES budget was over $100k back then. It was in McLean though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised about how little parents of SN kids know about how those programs are funded. Theres is a huge discrepancy between what’s needed and what’s funded. There’s nowhere near enough money to provide the needed services. At our school the PTA main job is to raise money for special ed, roughly 65k out of the 100k yearly budget so it is literally funded through charity. The interventionist is split between the school because in some years she might not be covered.

Another uncomfortable truth, the services your kid gets are the services another SN kid won’t, because money doesn’t appear based on what’s in the IEP, it’s just that the pie is cut in different slices.

I’m not commenting if it’s fair or not, it’s just the way things are.

I'm surprised that you have never looked at the budget.

Mine has over 10% of funding go to central administration. 1% to special ed

I was the treasurer of the PTA and know what the budget was. $65k out of $100k was spent on reading and math intervention and a on site counselor for support. The rest was to fund field trips for everyone, 10k, about 10k was for classroom supplies, library etc, and the rest was to run events and the organization.

I seriously doubt that your PTA had 10% go to central office and 1% to special ed, that just seem like some made up numbers. No PTA sends money to the central office, maybe you are referring to the membership fee split with the national PTA parent organization, about $12/member.

What the heck!? I have never heard of PTAs raising money and paying for actual staff salaries. Or raising 100k/year to spend!?

In some states (VA), PTAs are not permitted to pay for salaries.

Where was it?

To circumvent this the money was given to the school as a grant from PTA and the school would use it to pay for special ed. My understanding is that it’s a practice that’s not recommended, and not specifically not permitted. Some people in the PTA had issues with it, because it’s a lot of money that only a small fraction a students benefit from, but a lot of times it’s what historically has been done, what the principal thinks is mostly needed etc.

It’s a school in a wealthy neighborhood with involved parents, the suggested donation per year was about $400 and most people did do that. In our district there were schools raising more and also raising less. Other schools would use the money to make all enrichment classes free for everyone instead of special ed, which in my view is more fair.

Which state is this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Parents are unrealistic about what public schools can provide. There are finite resources. Everyone is fighting for a bigger slice of pie for their child. Fair enough but something has to give. And neurotypical kids need resources + time and attention as well.

Schools get additional funding for SN kids. For each SN child coded in a specific way (which is why they push specific diagnosis) they get more funding for sped teachers. So, yes, it's reasonable to expect support given they are using our kids for those additional resources.

Do you know how much is spend per student, and how much additional funding is allocated to your SN child? Somehow that amount needs to be balanced with the services provided.

The issue is not the travel basketball team or the central office salaries, or the federal government etc. The issue is that one on one instruction most SN kids need is very expensive. But that isn’t news to anyone because if it were cheap parents would just get those services privately. Most people don’t. Even if SN kids get double the funding allocation (unheard of), at roughly $200 an hour your child will get 1-2 hours a week over the school year.

There was a mom on this thread that got 60 minutes a week reading intervention, that’s about $7500 that someone has to pay. I agree you should advocate for your child, but don’t assume the people across the table are malicious.

When you get 60 minutes a week - that is typically not 1 on 1.
In my experience, it is small group so 5 students pulled out at the same time working on some decoding skill.
What this really looks like - the teacher walks a picks up the kids from each classroom, the settle into the space they are going to. They start and a kid who was in a special and was not in their classroom comes in 5 minutes later and disrupts what was happening ....
So the kids get about 40 minutes of real instruction.

If it’s just some intervention that your child needs because she’s below grade in reading, then that’s not where most special ed money goes. The real cost comes from supporting a deaf student that needs 1:1 work with specialized staff and it can run up to $100k a year. Or the kid in the hospital doing chemotherapy that has assigned 1:1 instruction because she can’t be in the classroom.

From what you’re describing your child is probably better off with a tutor if you can afford it, or just read with you at home if you have the time. It doesn’t really require narrow specialized training, and the group support she’s getting likely won’t have a huge impact.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m surprised about how little parents of SN kids know about how those programs are funded. Theres is a huge discrepancy between what’s needed and what’s funded. There’s nowhere near enough money to provide the needed services. At our school the PTA main job is to raise money for special ed, roughly 65k out of the 100k yearly budget so it is literally funded through charity. The interventionist is split between the school because in some years she might not be covered.

Another uncomfortable truth, the services your kid gets are the services another SN kid won’t, because money doesn’t appear based on what’s in the IEP, it’s just that the pie is cut in different slices.

I’m not commenting if it’s fair or not, it’s just the way things are.

I'm surprised your PTA group hasn't tapped into their extensive professional network to lobby for more funding. I have no doubt that $65K you 'grant' to the school for special ed could be used more effectively to lobby for funding for all schools. You'd certainly get more bang for the buck. Our PTA budget is about $9K. Our school may get Title 1 support but there's not much disposable income from parents or community.