Elementary school has only one IEP class per grade

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wtf, that sucks and is totally unfair for the non-IEP kids

It sucks for the iep kids with mild needs who get ignored because they don’t have enough help and they get ignored.

…then surely it sucks even more for the normal kids who are getting ignored even further…?

Normal kids.. our kids are normal kids. The normal kids should do just fine with basic teaching. It's ours who get ignored.

Should do just fine? How would you know? The truth is you really don't care. As long as you get yours, you care not about the rest of the kids. Everyone wants what's best for their kids, not just you.

+1 "with basic teaching" - what does that even mean and how do you know that's what is happening?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sped teachers are in such short supply that schools can’t hire more and can’t do anything about your complaints. Teachers can’t be let go either because see above. But you are welcome to complain anyway.

Yeah, the issue here isn't the IEP kids. My kid is an IEP kid and the thought that he somehow makes life unfair and bad for your child is heartbreaking and insulting. You probably don't mean it to be, but it is. I will also say that we need to decouple IEP from Behavior Issue. Like PP with a dyslexic child, my kid has no behavior issues. The law is the law and it's not the IEP kids' fault that the adults are cheap and local governments won't cough up funds for more teachers. Those are the people you get angry at.

Thank you. Unfortunately there are a number of posters here who live for a chance to insult people with disabilities.

I don’t know if advocating/wishing to lock them up and throw away the key is an insult per se…

[Anonymous]

I think FCPS must read DCUM. Now as part of the IEP meeting there was one new form with FCPS verbiage already in it saying that sometimes your DC will not be in LRE.

[Anonymous]

We've done this before and each time, the teacher quit. It's too much even with a special ed teacher in there.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s very obvious that the laws need to be changed. They were designed with completely different kids in mind, and far fewer of them. Nobody back then expected a third or more of every classroom in America to be kids who are completely incapable or unwilling to follow simple classroom rules or be able to follow even a basic curriculum.

Laws can easily be changed. It’s just a matter of voting.

[Anonymous]

My kid has an IEP. He is very quiet and not at all a behavior problem. He gets stuck in an IEP class each year. It is the same kids every year. I don’t like it either. Limits friend group. Does not help those with social problems.

They aren’t supposed to do that, but they do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think FCPS must read DCUM. Now as part of the IEP meeting there was one new form with FCPS verbiage already in it saying that sometimes your DC will not be in LRE.

What!? How is that legal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think FCPS must read DCUM. Now as part of the IEP meeting there was one new form with FCPS verbiage already in it saying that sometimes your DC will not be in LRE.

What!? How is that legal

There is always a flip side to the coin. In my DS's case, he started in a more restrictive placement offered only at a different school than his base school. Fast forward a couple of years and he's made great progress, and his teachers want to start integrating him into GenEd more. To do that, you have to amend the IEP. But according to FCPS, since that amended placement could be met at his base school, that is his LRE. So that would mean uprooting him from his school, teachers, and friends he's made over the years in order to satisfy a purely technical interpretation of LRE. Your only recourse is to do the Pupil Placement process which requires a fair bit of medical documentation and a $100 application fee.

All we want to do is keep doing what is working and let the school and medical pros continue their good work. But no, it's not considered his LRE so nope! Luckily, we have admin at our ES with a Sped background, and they have told me he will be welcome every year. I just wish I didn't have to pay over $200 in fees, copays, and commuting costs every year to make that happen.

So, I welcome a caveat that the best placement may not always be the textbook definition of LRE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sped teachers are in such short supply that schools can’t hire more and can’t do anything about your complaints. Teachers can’t be let go either because see above. But you are welcome to complain anyway.

Yep. In my school district (Howard County, MD) they recently cut the number of SPED teachers. Our school has 3-5 classrooms per grade for K-5 so about 20-25 classes. With only around 10 SPED teachers, they just can't be in every classroom, so they have most of the kids in 1-2 classrooms per grade. Even still, the SPED teachers can't be everywhere they are needed.

And as I said, in trying to meet the new MD pre-K mandate, which sucks a ton of money out of the school budget, one of the changes that the School Board and Superintendent implemented was a cut to SPED resources across the district. Many schools are losing SPED teachers that they can't afford to lose and they will have an even harder time trying to meet the SPED demands. So, this will only exacerbate the problem and likely the problem that the OP complained about will become more common rather than less.

It's not the school's fault that their budget for SPED support is cut. They can only do what they are budgeted to do. And this is the only way that they can meet the demands with the resources provided for them.

I urge parents to make sure to go to BoE meetings in the Fall to start to lobby for increased funding for special educators so that schools can provide the federally mandated support that these students need. It needs to be emphasized that the school and school district are not provided adequate support for the students who need it and it is hurting non special education students who are becoming casualties of the budget cuts because too many special education students are crammed into limited classrooms because that is what the school can support. Schools need better support for the special education students so that they and the students that they share classes with actually get a comparable eduation to those in other classrooms. Right now the school system is creating a two-tier system within schools by clustering. It needs to be brought to their attention again and again and especially in the months that the advance prep work for the following year's school budget is debated and decided.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think FCPS must read DCUM. Now as part of the IEP meeting there was one new form with FCPS verbiage already in it saying that sometimes your DC will not be in LRE.

Having a single Gen ed room with all IEP students amount non-IEP students does not violate LRE, so I’m not sure why this is relevant to this thread.

[Anonymous]

A policy of placing all students in the same class in a grade sounds like predermined placement.

“ Parents are members of the child's IEP team that decides on services in the IEP, then tackles decisions about the child's placement. Courts have held that schools may not predetermine a child's placement. Placement decision must be made by the team.”.

https://www.wrightslaw.com/info/lre.index.htm

[Anonymous]

In practice this happens to some degree or another because otherwise the students will just get pulled out to get services which is not LRE (if a teacher’s caseload is 10 kids and they are all in 10 different classrooms, reading instruction for 30 minutes a day can’t physically occur at 10 different times). The consolidation of some students with similar needs in the same classroom happens for special education, ESL, etc.

The bigger issue I see is not just funding the SpEd teacher positions or even finding staffing—it’s that the formulas used to determine that staffing is not reflecting the current needs of some students. Some students with intense behavior needs are requiring virtual one on one support, but the staffing formula the state uses assumes they require far less. The needs of some students now are unlike any I have seen in my career, and the formulas need to be modified.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In practice this happens to some degree or another because otherwise the students will just get pulled out to get services which is not LRE (if a teacher’s caseload is 10 kids and they are all in 10 different classrooms, reading instruction for 30 minutes a day can’t physically occur at 10 different times). The consolidation of some students with similar needs in the same classroom happens for special education, ESL, etc.

The bigger issue I see is not just funding the SpEd teacher positions or even finding staffing—it’s that the formulas used to determine that staffing is not reflecting the current needs of some students. Some students with intense behavior needs are requiring virtual one on one support, but the staffing formula the state uses assumes they require far less. The needs of some students now are unlike any I have seen in my career, and the formulas need to be modified.

Same. We're seeing so, so many kids with behavior needs that really need a 1:1 teacher (not TA) or a 1:2 all day. Was it Covid? Screen time screw up kids' brains? Something happening genetically due to PFA's or some other environmental factor? Lead in the water pipes? We need more sped teachers, many more.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A policy of placing all students in the same class in a grade sounds like predermined placement.

“ Parents are members of the child's IEP team that decides on services in the IEP, then tackles decisions about the child's placement. Courts have held that schools may not predetermine a child's placement. Placement decision must be made by the team.”.

https://www.wrightslaw.com/info/lre.index.htm

The one inclusion class per grade is not predetermined. We can put your child in self-contained if you prefer?

[Anonymous]

OP you need to make sure the school knows you will raise a stink if your kid is placed into this class (if he has no IEP I mean). If he does, then it’s up to you to decide if he is better of there or not.