MCPS Changing 504 policy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Gen Ed teacher, I don’t feel qualified to do that.
As a parent of a kid with a 504, I don’t want an unqualified person managing my child’s case.

Counselors aren’t qualified to case manage either. It’s an “other duty as assigned” that was thrown at counselors years ago when 504s were far less complex than they are now. The problem is that there’s no funding allocated for section 504, it’s a civil rights law that schools are expected to comply with. 504s should be case managed by special educators because they’re the ones with the real training in how to determine which specific accommodations are best for individual students, but that would require funding, and schools aren’t allocated funds to comply with section 504 as they are with IDEA.

This is a crisis of MCPS’s own creation. Over the years, students who have diagnosed disabilities face roadblocks when requesting special education services. In my child’s case, MCPS kept adding accommodations to a 504 plan instead of teaching him skills for independence. This creates learned helplessness for the child.

MCPS doesn’t have a long term plan to address shortages of general education teachers, para educators, special education teachers, counselors, and school psychologists. Their short term solution is to push more responsibilities on general education teachers. If the general education teacher who teaches the student and is the student’s case manager advocates for the student to be evaluated for an IEP because the 504 is not meeting the child’s needs, then perhaps the student’s needs could be met.

This isn't an MCPS issue. It's a nationwide issue. There are shortages everywhere. Congress either needs to massively increase the funding for the law they wrote creating all these entitlements so they can actually attract employees to fulfill them, or they need to rewrite the law to reduce the unlimited entitlements. No other country runs special education like this with all these unfunded mandates and promising that the school will meet every need and be everything to everyone, and it's all falling apart.

I can't see the GOP funding anything related to public education anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Gen Ed teacher, I don’t feel qualified to do that.
As a parent of a kid with a 504, I don’t want an unqualified person managing my child’s case.

Counselors aren’t qualified to case manage either. It’s an “other duty as assigned” that was thrown at counselors years ago when 504s were far less complex than they are now. The problem is that there’s no funding allocated for section 504, it’s a civil rights law that schools are expected to comply with. 504s should be case managed by special educators because they’re the ones with the real training in how to determine which specific accommodations are best for individual students, but that would require funding, and schools aren’t allocated funds to comply with section 504 as they are with IDEA.

This is a crisis of MCPS’s own creation. Over the years, students who have diagnosed disabilities face roadblocks when requesting special education services. In my child’s case, MCPS kept adding accommodations to a 504 plan instead of teaching him skills for independence. This creates learned helplessness for the child.

MCPS doesn’t have a long term plan to address shortages of general education teachers, para educators, special education teachers, counselors, and school psychologists. Their short term solution is to push more responsibilities on general education teachers. If the general education teacher who teaches the student and is the student’s case manager advocates for the student to be evaluated for an IEP because the 504 is not meeting the child’s needs, then perhaps the student’s needs could be met.

This isn't an MCPS issue. It's a nationwide issue. There are shortages everywhere. Congress either needs to massively increase the funding for the law they wrote creating all these entitlements so they can actually attract employees to fulfill them, or they need to rewrite the law to reduce the unlimited entitlements. No other country runs special education like this with all these unfunded mandates and promising that the school will meet every need and be everything to everyone, and it's all falling apart.

The NYT claimed there had been a 300% increase in reported cases over the last decade, especially in the wealthier schools. School districts just can't keep up with the demand.

Can you provide a cite for the NYT article you describe?

I could only find an article that describes tripling of special education rates in Orthodox and Hasidic community private schools due to fraud.

NYT wrote a number of articles about that special education increase, here is just one citation: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/29/nyregion/hasidic-orthodox-jewish-special-education.html

That story is completely inapplicable to this thread and MCPS schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a Gen Ed teacher, I don’t feel qualified to do that.
As a parent of a kid with a 504, I don’t want an unqualified person managing my child’s case.

Counselors aren’t qualified to case manage either. It’s an “other duty as assigned” that was thrown at counselors years ago when 504s were far less complex than they are now. The problem is that there’s no funding allocated for section 504, it’s a civil rights law that schools are expected to comply with. 504s should be case managed by special educators because they’re the ones with the real training in how to determine which specific accommodations are best for individual students, but that would require funding, and schools aren’t allocated funds to comply with section 504 as they are with IDEA.

This is a crisis of MCPS’s own creation. Over the years, students who have diagnosed disabilities face roadblocks when requesting special education services. In my child’s case, MCPS kept adding accommodations to a 504 plan instead of teaching him skills for independence. This creates learned helplessness for the child.

MCPS doesn’t have a long term plan to address shortages of general education teachers, para educators, special education teachers, counselors, and school psychologists. Their short term solution is to push more responsibilities on general education teachers. If the general education teacher who teaches the student and is the student’s case manager advocates for the student to be evaluated for an IEP because the 504 is not meeting the child’s needs, then perhaps the student’s needs could be met.

Well, that may be true, but at least we have the most well-staffed central office!