Reply to APS Board & Duran Proposing to Dissolve Integration Station

Forum Index » VA Public Schools other than FCPS

Reply to "APS Board & Duran Proposing to Dissolve Integration Station"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]They are proposing to end the Integration Station program, an inclusive special education preschool program that has served Arlington, VA for over 25 years. In its current form, it is cohoused in a private facility run by The Children’s School, a co-op started by APS teachers and staff, to provide inclusive opportunities for APS students receiving special education services.

APS recently paid for a private study by a private firm to look at how to reduce costs and the firm believes that disbanding IS will save APS $1 million. The reality is that a good chunk of those funds would need to be accounted for anyways, since these students are entitled to receiving a free and appropriate public education (FAPE) under federal law (IDEA).

The problems that leadership have yet to address are: (1) do they have enough space to house these students elsewhere? (2) With current CPP programs under-enrolled with community peers, how would they find peers for additional CPP classes to provide the appropriate least restrictive environment (LRE) to these students without violating their IEPs?[/quote]

Preschool? Federal laws? Those are both not domain of k-12 education in 2025. APS has. $35M shortfall, this is what is cut. [/quote]

This is why budgets are never significantly reduced despite shortfalls. There is nothing everyone is willing to eliminate. Something and somebody is always going to be impacted, and people speak up for their program/interest - but never offer alternatives to balance the budget. So how to people propose finding $35m additional funding, or $35m worth of cuts? What CAN we cut? (Besides a few positions at bloated Syphax, and besides construction costs which don't come out of the regular operating budget).[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics