Reply to FYI on MCPS middle school magnet appeal with child with IEP

Forum Index » Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS)

Reply to "FYI on MCPS middle school magnet appeal with child with IEP"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]
Ignore this thread if you're not interested in the nitty-gritty nitpicky aspects of magnet selection.
I had appealed our child's rejection, since two of his test scores were well above the median of accepted students, and the third was right at the median. [b]Grades in 4th were poor, and I am sure teacher's rec was lukewarm.[/b] Child has IEP. IEP was not followed in 4th grade, hence poor grades.

Level 1 appeal, with committee selected by the magnet coordinator, just like the general selection committee: rejected. This committee is partly composed of magnet teachers.
Level 2 appeal, with committee selected by the chief academic officer (office of curriculum and instructional programs), presumably not the same people: waitlisted. 
For the Level 2 appeal, we submitted a WISC-V score, which showed a range of above-average and gifted subscores. The letter from the chief academic officer underlined the fact that the committee was unable to use outside testing to decide, but that magnet test scores showed my child should be placed in the waitlist. Which begs the question, why was the child not placed there at once?

My conclusions are:
1. Magnet teachers really don't want to take children with special needs which might disturb the class in academic or other ways. They could have waitlisted my child but chose to reject instead.
2. The office of Curriculum and Instructional Programs is too far removed from direct instruction to have those hang-ups, plus it's illegal anyway to discriminate on IEP status.
3. Everybody knows that at this stage, it is unlikely that any accepted student will decline a spot, and if it happens, and the waitlist is examined again, the magnet coordinator and his selection committee will select the extra student, and will understandably choose someone they placed there themselves, not my child.

My child will therefore not attend a magnet program, which is fine by me!
I just want to let fellow parents know about the appeal process and also express my conviction, borne out by years of communicating with teachers in MCPS, that when you're flagged with an IEP, it is extraordinarily hard to be recognized as a gifted student and receive the correct placement.

[/quote]

As you know, teachers recommendations are not from the child's 4th grade teachers, but the 5th grade teachers.[/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