It just depends on your kids' diagnosis. One of my ND kids has been served fine. That one has moderate dyscalcula, anxiety and ADHD. The 504/ private tutoring supports and meds work pretty well.

The kid with autism/ADHD/dyslexia was like already two grades behind by first grade, and she got her IEP in PreK 3. She got services they just weren't nearly enough for her needs.

Not a SN parents but have advocated for some things in schools on both sides. I agree with many of the comments here that it's not a perfect system and it's one that needs a lot more people/money/resources. We like the idea of a. system where every kid is served to the best of their ability, but as a country don't want to fund that idea. Most SN and even General Educators/Counselors/Administrators are well intentioned, but they can only do so much within the constraints of the resources and time available. These people also have kids and families, and unfortunately your kid is 1 of X where X is usually a pretty large number.

I've also seen people get caught up in the school districts budget. They hear amounts like a billion or hundreds of million, and it makes it seem like a lot of money, but in reality it isn't. Sure we could strip schools and education back to its bare minimums, I mean you can teach kids sitting outside in the grass with clipboards, but I assure you folks don't want that.

Anonymous wrote:My local public isn't even serving the NT kids well, how on earth could they be serving any kids with special needs?

Exactly. Classes are too big. Poor and ineffective controls on technology (kids on YouTube, games, streaming, social media). Many kids with disruptive behaviors take the attention from the 1-2 teachers in the room and others are neglected. Teachers who aren’t actual teachers (warm bodies to fill vacancies). Changing curriculums and silly FCPS goals (like all students take Algebra 1 by 8th grade). Unsafe schools with understaffed SROS and security guards (fighting, vaping is very common in MS/HS and FCPS denies and does nothing). Bubble kids can’t get intervention so they struggle. Now there is basically no dress code abd MS/HS girls wear skimpy clothes with booty cleavage at school. Kids can identify as cats and that’s normal now. Kids can go to whatever MS/HS locker room for PE and kids aren’t comfortable changing into PE clothes. I could go on and on.

FCPS has a lot of money, and it’s not spent on the best things. Top priorities should be more adults in all classes, more security guards/SROs, better technology controls that monitor the computers or get kids off the computers.