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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Didn't MCPS dramatically increase the budget number for special ed in last year's budget to hire a large number of personnel to fill the gap in the school setting? Is it possible that, with that, the overall special ed level of effort at central became less necessary, and that these cuts reflect that?

I think that was a big marketing ploy honestly. And even when Taylor was pushing that he admitted that MCPS was understaffed and this was a push to get special education staffing where it should be, not that they'd have extra resources. If you look at last year's budget you can see they did add more special education teachers than the year before- 170 for FY26 compared to 46 for FY25, but that's not even enough to put one more special education teacher in each school. Part of that number will just be normal staffing allocations every school gets if their special ed numbers increase as well. Also, the big paraeducator increase in the budget is mainly from transitioning part time staff to full time staff with benefits so there aren't actually 500 more paras in the schools.

The teachers will only be as good as the training and support they get. Taylor has continuously cut the central office support staff, and it was pretty offensive how he vaguely characterized it as getting rid of extra bloat when the high level admin who aren't in schools stayed or were increased and the people actually going IN the schools to directly help got cut. We see it happening again with the social workers this year. The attitude from Dr. Cage from the get-go has been that special ed is a mess and she's here to fix it- no interest or curiosity in how things are done or figuring out what has worked well. Just a dismantling because they think they know better.

Page 26-27: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/departments/budget/fy2026/fy2026_boe_operatingbudge_final_03_05_2025.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't MCPS dramatically increase the budget number for special ed in last year's budget to hire a large number of personnel to fill the gap in the school setting? Is it possible that, with that, the overall special ed level of effort at central became less necessary, and that these cuts reflect that?

You're talking about kids with very different levels of needs. Plus there's very little indication the number of special education staff actually increased. Some positions were just a change in the classification- temporary to permanent- and others simply went unfilled.

OK, but is is possible that, in adding resources to address the one set of needs, personnel who previously had to cover both were able to shift to better address the second set of needs, resulting in less need for central office personnel for that group?

Perhaps I misunderstood, but I didn't think this was just central office staff. They've been getting rid of the autism programs at the schools, so I suppose they wouldn't need as much central office staff to oversee a dismantled program.

Any staff who are not permanently assigned to a specific school are considered central office staff. It doesn't just mean "People who never physically leave Central Office."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This could not be a more shirt-sighted decision by the Taylor administration. The schools serving special needs children need way more support, not less! Cannot imagine what that CO brain trust is thinking! 🤬

Follow the money… it all leads to the pockets of Peter O. Moran.

Oh please, here is the ubiquitous Moran-basher making hyperbolic and flimsy allegations again!

Hi Moran! You failed many of our kids and now are doing serious harm. Enough is enough. Time for you to leave MCPS!

Not Moran…but what did he do to you???

He had an affair with a colleague, and then blackmailed her to maintain her job. Everything he does is dishonest.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't MCPS dramatically increase the budget number for special ed in last year's budget to hire a large number of personnel to fill the gap in the school setting? Is it possible that, with that, the overall special ed level of effort at central became less necessary, and that these cuts reflect that?

You're talking about kids with very different levels of needs. Plus there's very little indication the number of special education staff actually increased. Some positions were just a change in the classification- temporary to permanent- and others simply went unfilled.

OK, but is is possible that, in adding resources to address the one set of needs, personnel who previously had to cover both were able to shift to better address the second set of needs, resulting in less need for central office personnel for that group?

Perhaps I misunderstood, but I didn't think this was just central office staff. They've been getting rid of the autism programs at the schools, so I suppose they wouldn't need as much central office staff to oversee a dismantled program.

Any staff who are not permanently assigned to a specific school are considered central office staff. It doesn't just mean "People who never physically leave Central Office."

This

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This could not be a more shirt-sighted decision by the Taylor administration. The schools serving special needs children need way more support, not less! Cannot imagine what that CO brain trust is thinking! 🤬

Follow the money… it all leads to the pockets of Peter O. Moran.

Oh please, here is the ubiquitous Moran-basher making hyperbolic and flimsy allegations again!

Hi Moran! You failed many of our kids and now are doing serious harm. Enough is enough. Time for you to leave MCPS!

Not Moran…but what did he do to you???

He had an affair with a colleague, and then blackmailed her to maintain her job. Everything he does is dishonest.

Can't comment about this, but he's the guy who did a performative raking of Wootton and Sherwood for perceived racism. Meanwhile, other high schools have actual safety issues, and we never hear about those.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Most concerning, the Autism Unit has been reduced by roughly half. Two positions were eliminated, and five psychologists with autism-specific assessment expertise were reassigned to general caseloads, dispersing specialized knowledge that has long supported schools and IEP teams. At its peak, the Autism Unit included 21 full-time specialists serving 73 schools. The unit’s longtime supervisor, Kristin Ericson, is also departing after 43 years at MCPS, representing a major loss of expertise and institutional knowledge.

https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2026/01/breaking-taylor-proposes-major-cuts-to.html?m=1

Is it good news or bad news?

My sis lived in a town that won award for best public school system in USA for this. It attracted parents from all over who moved to town for the services in school. My sister had to move as her 2,000 sf house on a 70x100 plot shot up to $24,000 a year property taxes mainly school taxes. Eventually they had to cut services as a house lites say on a 100x120 plot that was 5,000 sf got up to $48,000 in a year in property tax. Someone has to pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't MCPS dramatically increase the budget number for special ed in last year's budget to hire a large number of personnel to fill the gap in the school setting? Is it possible that, with that, the overall special ed level of effort at central became less necessary, and that these cuts reflect that?

I think that was a big marketing ploy honestly. And even when Taylor was pushing that he admitted that MCPS was understaffed and this was a push to get special education staffing where it should be, not that they'd have extra resources. If you look at last year's budget you can see they did add more special education teachers than the year before- 170 for FY26 compared to 46 for FY25, but that's not even enough to put one more special education teacher in each school. Part of that number will just be normal staffing allocations every school gets if their special ed numbers increase as well. Also, the big paraeducator increase in the budget is mainly from transitioning part time staff to full time staff with benefits so there aren't actually 500 more paras in the schools.

The teachers will only be as good as the training and support they get. Taylor has continuously cut the central office support staff, and it was pretty offensive how he vaguely characterized it as getting rid of extra bloat when the high level admin who aren't in schools stayed or were increased and the people actually going IN the schools to directly help got cut. We see it happening again with the social workers this year. The attitude from Dr. Cage from the get-go has been that special ed is a mess and she's here to fix it- no interest or curiosity in how things are done or figuring out what has worked well. Just a dismantling because they think they know better.

Page 26-27: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/departments/budget/fy2026/fy2026_boe_operatingbudge_final_03_05_2025.pdf

+1 This

As a parent who has interacted with that office - it was pretty apparent that she thought parents here all paid for diagnoses to get special treatment. She distrusts parents - particularly the more affluent vocal ones (like aforementioned Wooton crowd). Hence, she’s “here” to whip us into shape because she knows better than us whiny parents.

As for private placement comments - there is a supply and demand issue. Not enough supply, way too much demand because MCPS competes with DCPS, FCPS, and into Virginia for the same small amount of spots. Also,the State cut their contribution which has raised the cost for mcps. Most of the existing in-house programs in MCPS have been eliminated or “watered down” in the past decade so there is nowhere to go.

The state has goals to have at least 71% of students in mainstream. MCPS does not meet this — because they can’t provide services students and teachers need in mainstream. But, the incentive is there to push more kids into mainstream classes whether they should be there or not. So, the law is kind of in her favor….

Doesn’t make it right.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most concerning, the Autism Unit has been reduced by roughly half. Two positions were eliminated, and five psychologists with autism-specific assessment expertise were reassigned to general caseloads, dispersing specialized knowledge that has long supported schools and IEP teams. At its peak, the Autism Unit included 21 full-time specialists serving 73 schools. The unit’s longtime supervisor, Kristin Ericson, is also departing after 43 years at MCPS, representing a major loss of expertise and institutional knowledge.

https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2026/01/breaking-taylor-proposes-major-cuts-to.html?m=1

Is it good news or bad news?

My sis lived in a town that won award for best public school system in USA for this. It attracted parents from all over who moved to town for the services in school. My sister had to move as her 2,000 sf house on a 70x100 plot shot up to $24,000 a year property taxes mainly school taxes. Eventually they had to cut services as a house lites say on a 100x120 plot that was 5,000 sf got up to $48,000 in a year in property tax. Someone has to pay.

Mcps has the money, it’s being mismanaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most concerning, the Autism Unit has been reduced by roughly half. Two positions were eliminated, and five psychologists with autism-specific assessment expertise were reassigned to general caseloads, dispersing specialized knowledge that has long supported schools and IEP teams. At its peak, the Autism Unit included 21 full-time specialists serving 73 schools. The unit’s longtime supervisor, Kristin Ericson, is also departing after 43 years at MCPS, representing a major loss of expertise and institutional knowledge.

https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2026/01/breaking-taylor-proposes-major-cuts-to.html?m=1

Is it good news or bad news?

My sis lived in a town that won award for best public school system in USA for this. It attracted parents from all over who moved to town for the services in school. My sister had to move as her 2,000 sf house on a 70x100 plot shot up to $24,000 a year property taxes mainly school taxes. Eventually they had to cut services as a house lites say on a 100x120 plot that was 5,000 sf got up to $48,000 in a year in property tax. Someone has to pay.

Mcps has the money, it’s being mismanaged.

That's a cop-out when Montgomery County has failed to increase funding in accordance with historical norms. Whether you're talking about a family budget, a corporation, or a school system, you're always going to be able to find examples of money not going to the most productive uses. Doing better at managing spending and priorities should always be a priority, but it is unreasonable to expect that to make up for years of underfunding.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most concerning, the Autism Unit has been reduced by roughly half. Two positions were eliminated, and five psychologists with autism-specific assessment expertise were reassigned to general caseloads, dispersing specialized knowledge that has long supported schools and IEP teams. At its peak, the Autism Unit included 21 full-time specialists serving 73 schools. The unit’s longtime supervisor, Kristin Ericson, is also departing after 43 years at MCPS, representing a major loss of expertise and institutional knowledge.

https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2026/01/breaking-taylor-proposes-major-cuts-to.html?m=1

Is it good news or bad news?

My sis lived in a town that won award for best public school system in USA for this. It attracted parents from all over who moved to town for the services in school. My sister had to move as her 2,000 sf house on a 70x100 plot shot up to $24,000 a year property taxes mainly school taxes. Eventually they had to cut services as a house lites say on a 100x120 plot that was 5,000 sf got up to $48,000 in a year in property tax. Someone has to pay.

Mcps has the money, it’s being mismanaged.

That's a cop-out when Montgomery County has failed to increase funding in accordance with historical norms. Whether you're talking about a family budget, a corporation, or a school system, you're always going to be able to find examples of money not going to the most productive uses. Doing better at managing spending and priorities should always be a priority, but it is unreasonable to expect that to make up for years of underfunding.

Nobody wants to throw good money after bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Most concerning, the Autism Unit has been reduced by roughly half. Two positions were eliminated, and five psychologists with autism-specific assessment expertise were reassigned to general caseloads, dispersing specialized knowledge that has long supported schools and IEP teams. At its peak, the Autism Unit included 21 full-time specialists serving 73 schools. The unit’s longtime supervisor, Kristin Ericson, is also departing after 43 years at MCPS, representing a major loss of expertise and institutional knowledge.

https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2026/01/breaking-taylor-proposes-major-cuts-to.html?m=1

Is it good news or bad news?

My sis lived in a town that won award for best public school system in USA for this. It attracted parents from all over who moved to town for the services in school. My sister had to move as her 2,000 sf house on a 70x100 plot shot up to $24,000 a year property taxes mainly school taxes. Eventually they had to cut services as a house lites say on a 100x120 plot that was 5,000 sf got up to $48,000 in a year in property tax. Someone has to pay.

Mcps has the money, it’s being mismanaged.

That's a cop-out when Montgomery County has failed to increase funding in accordance with historical norms. Whether you're talking about a family budget, a corporation, or a school system, you're always going to be able to find examples of money not going to the most productive uses. Doing better at managing spending and priorities should always be a priority, but it is unreasonable to expect that to make up for years of underfunding.

Wasting $168M is not a cop out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think in Montgomery County the Autism program was a racket like the Minneapolis fraud.

I think they were labeling kids that weren't autistic as autistic so they could get federal funds. Now they are afraid of getting busted.

OMG this is so wrong. Kids in MCPS are bonkers. They don't belong in a normal school. They keep the other kids from being able to learn. They are so clearly not normal, if you ever spent time in MCPS schools you would never say a thing like that, PP.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Most concerning, the Autism Unit has been reduced by roughly half. Two positions were eliminated, and five psychologists with autism-specific assessment expertise were reassigned to general caseloads, dispersing specialized knowledge that has long supported schools and IEP teams. At its peak, the Autism Unit included 21 full-time specialists serving 73 schools. The unit’s longtime supervisor, Kristin Ericson, is also departing after 43 years at MCPS, representing a major loss of expertise and institutional knowledge.

[url]https://parentscoalitionmc.blogspot.com/2026/01/breaking-taylor-proposes-major-cuts-to.html?m=1[/url][/quote]

Is it good news or bad news?

My sis lived in a town that won award for best public school system in USA for this. It attracted parents from all over who moved to town for the services in school. My sister had to move as her 2,000 sf house on a 70x100 plot shot up to $24,000 a year property taxes mainly school taxes. Eventually they had to cut services as a house lites say on a 100x120 plot that was 5,000 sf got up to $48,000 in a year in property tax. Someone has to pay. [/quote]

Mcps has the money, it’s being mismanaged. [/quote]

That's a cop-out when Montgomery County has failed to increase funding in accordance with historical norms. Whether you're talking about a family budget, a corporation, or a school system, you're always going to be able to find examples of money not going to the most productive uses. Doing better at managing spending and priorities should always be a priority, but it is unreasonable to expect that to make up for years of underfunding.[/quote]

Wasting $168M is not a cop out. [/quote]

Call it what you will, but not doing that contract wouldn't have meaningfully changed the programmatic or budget problems we face today. So it is ridiculous to point to electric buses as justification for hurting kids now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Didn't MCPS dramatically increase the budget number for special ed in last year's budget to hire a large number of personnel to fill the gap in the school setting? Is it possible that, with that, the overall special ed level of effort at central became less necessary, and that these cuts reflect that?

I think that was a big marketing ploy honestly. And even when Taylor was pushing that he admitted that MCPS was understaffed and this was a push to get special education staffing where it should be, not that they'd have extra resources. If you look at last year's budget you can see they did add more special education teachers than the year before- 170 for FY26 compared to 46 for FY25, but that's not even enough to put one more special education teacher in each school. Part of that number will just be normal staffing allocations every school gets if their special ed numbers increase as well. Also, the big paraeducator increase in the budget is mainly from transitioning part time staff to full time staff with benefits so there aren't actually 500 more paras in the schools.

The teachers will only be as good as the training and support they get. Taylor has continuously cut the central office support staff, and it was pretty offensive how he vaguely characterized it as getting rid of extra bloat when the high level admin who aren't in schools stayed or were increased and the people actually going IN the schools to directly help got cut. We see it happening again with the social workers this year. The attitude from Dr. Cage from the get-go has been that special ed is a mess and she's here to fix it- no interest or curiosity in how things are done or figuring out what has worked well. Just a dismantling because they think they know better.

Page 26-27: https://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/siteassets/district/departments/budget/fy2026/fy2026_boe_operatingbudge_final_03_05_2025.pdf

+1 This

As a parent who has interacted with that office - it was pretty apparent that she thought parents here all paid for diagnoses to get special treatment. She distrusts parents - particularly the more affluent vocal ones (like aforementioned Wooton crowd). Hence, she’s “here” to whip us into shape because she knows better than us whiny parents.

As for private placement comments - there is a supply and demand issue. Not enough supply, way too much demand because MCPS competes with DCPS, FCPS, and into Virginia for the same small amount of spots. Also,the State cut their contribution which has raised the cost for mcps. Most of the existing in-house programs in MCPS have been eliminated or “watered down” in the past decade so there is nowhere to go.

The state has goals to have at least 71% of students in mainstream. MCPS does not meet this — because they can’t provide services students and teachers need in mainstream. But, the incentive is there to push more kids into mainstream classes whether they should be there or not. So, the law is kind of in her favor….

Doesn’t make it right.

Our school psychologist and ap both think that parents are trying to game the system and deny ieps and 594sand it’s a huge battle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think in Montgomery County the Autism program was a racket like the Minneapolis fraud.

I think they were labeling kids that weren't autistic as autistic so they could get federal funds. Now they are afraid of getting busted.

OMG this is so wrong. Kids in MCPS are bonkers. They don't belong in a normal school. They keep the other kids from being able to learn. They are so clearly not normal, if you ever spent time in MCPS schools you would never say a thing like that, PP.

Not all kids with autism or special needs have behavioral problems.