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

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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m a specials teacher at a high-needs elementary. You would be shocked at what happens when — multiple times per year — an international student arrives who is nonverbal, evidently has autism, cannot communicate with us or understand instructions, and remains in the general ed classroom all year and for the rest of their elementary years. I have never seen a student placed elsewhere. The best outcome has been when they are given a one-on-one. [/quote]

I'm a middle-school teacher who teaches ELD 1 (1st year English learners) at a tier 1 Title 1 school. For international students with significant special ed needs, it takes 18 months to get an IEP and then, the students get no further placement. They spend up to three years in gen ed classes that are inappropriate for their needs. If people wonder why outcomes are poor for Title 1 schools, here is one of the reasons: students needing one-on-one special education support are not provided it in gen ed classes, and teachers have to do the best they can with it all. Instruction for the whole class suffers. [/quote]

Seriously?  Why does it take so long?  That sounds terrible for everyone involved.[/quote]

It takes so long because international families often don't know how to advocate through the thicket of special education. They have no idea that their students may be entitled to something different than what is offered in a mainstream classroom. They don't have the funds to hire an attorney and they would be afraid to cause a stir. These are the students that are very easy for MCPS to ignore. MCPS just directs the mainstream classroom teacher will differentiate. It's obscene for students with needs, exhausting for teachers, and unfair to classmates who deserve an education.[/quote]

But don't the classroom teachers notice and flag that the kids don't belong in a mainstream classroom and get the process started?  Why would that take years rather than months?[/quote]

School based teams are also charged with determining if the challenges are language fluency based or due to a lack of (or inconsistent) schooling, before evaluating for a disability. All the data collected from school based assessments is in English and it’s expected that students not fluent in English will struggle with material/ have academic deficits. I believe the 18 months quoted above aligns with when language learners move from conversational language to academic managed. For better or worse, the intent is to prevent over identification of English Language Learners as special needs students. In practice it’s super frustrating when the whole team knows something big is going on and it can’t be addressed in a timely fashion.[/quote]

You must be from central office with your gaslighting lies. The staff that screens international students in central office doesn't even check for home language literacy, which is an indicator of interrupted education, and will greatly challenge language-learning of a second language. Instead, MCPS staff take a scared parent's word for it that their child has been continually in school until arriving in the US. That is the extent of screening. It takes just a few minutes on the first day in class that a student to determine that, in secondary school, they can't read or respond to "My name is____________," in their home language because they do not possess literacy skills.

It is obvious on day one that some students have significant special education needs. These students with obvious needs, eg, profound intellectual disability, wait 18 months to receive an IEP and then, they are still not placed in the appropriate setting, because they are international students and their parents do not have the social or financial capital to demand better. So these students remain in mainstream classrooms. I remember one father, who could not speak English, had a neighbor write a tortured letter in English to the school begging for his child to get better help, because didn't we realize that she is disabled?

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Mcps should be using translators.  [/quote]

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