Reply to OFFICIAL MCPS BOE Race & Candidates Discussion

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]Anonymous wrote:
Candidates that I seem to like this far but would like to see in depth interviews from include:

Stephen Austin

Jay Guan

Pavel Sukhobok

Dalbin Osorio

Yes to all but Pavel. Pavel's website looks slapped together and his platform not thought through. Do not like his stance on special needs: "I believe all children in MCPS should be tested for learning differences at a young age by neutral psychoeducational testing professionals, and students' eligibility should hinge upon need, not affluence." How does he propose funding the testing of each and every student "at a young age by neutral psychoeducational testing professionals." And then if testing is not agreeable to the affluent family, they will just challenge it with a paid professional. [/quote]

So this gets one of the hidden problems where schools like MCPS fail special needs kids, especially those with limited resources. MCPS is supposed to identify learning problems and provide in house testing for kids to identify them and get them the services that they need. This hardly ever happens and school principles pressure teachers and special ed teachers to keep the numbers low because it cuts into the budget. Parents who are affluent get outside testing and have the education to fight MCPS so their kids gets the services and accommodations that they need. Kids who aren't from wealthy, educated and ready to fight families simply fall to the bottom of the academic performance pack and MCPS just passes them along. Moving the neuropsychologist and special ed staff into an external independent body is a very interesting idea to break the conflict of interest that is keeping kids from accessing an appropriate education.

Some of the accommodations for various LDs are actual best practices that can benefit all kids. If MCPS were to accurately identify the number of kids with learning disabilities they might get off their butts and require across the board implementation of best practices that benefit all kids.

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Sure, but where is MCPS going to get the money to test all these kids...and then support them?[/quote]

Special Education is partially funded with Federal grants. In return,  MCPS and the State Board of Education are supposed to identify all children with disabilities.

Areas that I see huge waste as compared with other school districts - the number of times a child needs IEP / 504 meetings to identify the child’s needs, the number of meetings held for the same child per year, and the number of staff members who sit for the meetings which last on average 2 hours.  An exhausting and wasteful process of staff and time resources.

For example, to get an IEP in MCPS , it requires at least 3 meetings: a screening meeting,  a meeting to review the neuropsyc testing,  and a meeting to write the actual IEP. Then there might be multiple periodic review meetings every school year.  For the reevaluations that are mandated every 3 years, the screening, testing,  and IEP meetings are redone again.  An exhausting process for all involved. [/quote]

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