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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Don’t forget that the special Ed department is in an actual crisis. Many many schools are left with ZERO certified sped staff (especially in discrete programs such as autism or SCB) and the staff in home school model (general ed inclusion for those who don’t know) are drowning in paperwork and cannot get consults from their instructional specialists or supervisors because there is not enough support in the SPED department. Also- please note that there was ZERO budget for home school model teachers to spend on instructional materials this year. Changes need to made immediately in that department[/quote]

The terrible state of the Office of Special Education is the next big MCPS scandal that should be the focus of investigation. [/quote]

This.  So much this.  [b]Special Education is beyond crisis state, and special ed parents are too exhausted to sound the alarm. [/b] Want to talk about pathetic Central Office staff, every single one of them who claim to work for special education need to go[/quote]

Yes, SN parents are exhausted, but we still sound the alarm all the time. We are ignored, told we should be grateful for the little we do get because there are not enough staff, or we are gaslit. They get away with it because stigma against disabilities still exists. No one thinks that a child with disabilities can learn or succeed. Therefore the school system has NO curriculum packages for even the most basic, well known disabilities like dyslexia (they only have begun to roll out small amounts of OG training). And they have been able to get away with this because until 2017 the standard set by the US Supreme Court for a "free and appropriate public education" was "de minimus", meaning the school merely had to show that a special education student had made a little bit more than "no progress".  Now, after Endrew F., the standard is raised a bit but still a very low bar.

Even given the low bar, I talk to parents frequently who are told, illegally, that their kids don't qualify for services or accommodations - that is a failure of central office to
properly train staff who run and participate in special ed meetings. The lack of any curriculum for common  special ed problems - dyslexia, dysgraphia, ADHD, autistic learning beyond ADA, social lessons, emotional lessons, etc. is also a failure of central special ed. 
[/quote]

The lack of classroom capacity is another big issue. It's difficult enough to get an IEP for students who need accommodations. Once an IEP is provided, many students, especially those whose parents have little social capital, simply stay in their same classroom environments and the classroom teacher is expected to take on the additional work of providing accommodations. Most classroom teachers do not have special education training, much less credentials. Often, no paras are provided. We are just expected to provide the extra (often one-on-one) education to students with IEPs while magically teaching the rest of the class.[/quote]

This is why CO positions need to be cu, especially those thay don't  provide value or work only part kf the time in their full time jobs. Send that funding for more teachers to reduce student/teacher ratios. [/quote]

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