I feel full of despair and devastation.

This business of not rank-ordering IEPs based on the level of need is beyond insane. Moreover, it undermines the whole point of bringing in the neediest kids.

So a kid who qualifies for an aide doesn’t go back but one with a 15-minute a month OT consult does? Insanity.

Is SWS the only school that didn’t hear yesterday (except for 5th grade) or are there others? Seems so weird that they would tell some schools but not others?

This is so depressing. I haven’t gotten a spot and don’t even know of anyone who did.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Offered an in person spot and will decline. SWS

Didn’t the principal explicitly say you wouldn’t hear today?

Is the principal running the lottery? No, no he is not. Central office is and I received an email from them. Any other questions?

What? Did others hear from SWS?

We have not and we have a kid in the autism program with a 15-hour/week IEP.

We are at SWS too and haven’t heard anything either. I panicked a bit when I saw PP’s note but the principle said we wouldn’t hear until tomorrow so I’m still holding out hope.

Different poster. I heard from a family in 5th grade that received an email about an in person spot at SWS. I think it was a given that 5th grade would be offered to most of those kids, since the class size is so small. Has anyone heard anything about other grades?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Offered an in person spot and will decline. SWS

Didn’t the principal explicitly say you wouldn’t hear today?

Is the principal running the lottery? No, no he is not. Central office is and I received an email from them. Any other questions?

What? Did others hear from SWS?

We have not and we have a kid in the autism program with a 15-hour/week IEP.

We are at SWS too and haven’t heard anything either. I panicked a bit when I saw PP’s note but the principle said we wouldn’t hear until tomorrow so I’m still holding out hope.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Offered an in person spot and will decline. SWS

Didn’t the principal explicitly say you wouldn’t hear today?

Is the principal running the lottery? No, no he is not. Central office is and I received an email from them. Any other questions?

What? Did others hear from SWS?

We have not and we have a kid in the autism program with a 15-hour/week IEP.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Offered an in person spot and will decline. SWS

Didn’t the principal explicitly say you wouldn’t hear today?

Is the principal running the lottery? No, no he is not. Central office is and I received an email from them. Any other questions?

Not sure why the snippy response. It seems weird that the principal spoke out if he wasn’t sure and weird that DCPS would undercut the principal like that needlessly. The sequence of events is newsworthy and I sought to confirm.

Offered in-person for K and will decline. Kid has an IEP for something very minor and is doing ok. Not great but ok. Not worth the risk to me because I don’t trust what other families at our school are doing because of what I see a few posting on social media.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We haven't received notification and are quite heartbroken. My DD has a very extensive IEP so I was hoping she would be offered a seat.

We are in the same situation (Murch). I can't figure out how DC missed out on a spot given the school's priority group profile and the profile of our kid.

I would be on the phone on Monday asking that question to the coordinator of special education at Murch. How can they say that they are providing FAPE to your child when most children at Murch with IEPs will be in person and your child will not be.

That's great advice, thank you! Though I don't blame the school...I think I'd have to aim that question at DCPS Central (and their mysterious algorithm). I'm imagining their response would be, "it's a public health emergency so those rules don't apply right now, blah, blah."

You want it on the record that you believe your child needs in person instruction.
That DCPS making a decision that some students are getting in person - but not yours - even if it is lottery based - is making a decision that FAPE is not being offered to your child.

I would hope there is some lawyer willing to take a class action suit to require DCPS to provide compensatory services to all children with IEPs across DCPS who were not provided in person instruction. If the buildings are open - they should be open for all in this protected class.

Free appropriate public education isn't for parents to decide though. No where does it say, 'must be in person.'

To provide FAPE to a student, schools must provide students with an education, including specialized instruction and related services where necessary, designed to prepare the child for "further education, employment, and independent living."

It doesn't say anything about it being good instruction.

Is it a placement decision? When some children are offered in person - and others are not.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:About the self-contained classrooms and the 50% cap - I remember a slide during Muriel Bowser's news conference when they announced DCPS opening. It said classroom size will be between 5 and 11. Since they included that 5 on the slide, it lead me to believe that for PK3-K autism classrooms they'll go above 50%. Can't imagine them opening such a classroom with 3 randomly selected children and leaving the other 3 at home.

Hello, I am a CES pk teacher, the cap is indeed 3. The other 3 will be doing DL and they'll have the same teacher. I just found this out in an email today. Nice idea DCPS. Very helpful and equitable.

This is brutal. How can DCPS decide to leave behind half of the children in self-contained classrooms, children with 25+ hours in their IEPs, when the reason for "reopening" was that DL really doesn't work for this population?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We haven't received notification and are quite heartbroken. My DD has a very extensive IEP so I was hoping she would be offered a seat.

We are in the same situation (Murch). I can't figure out how DC missed out on a spot given the school's priority group profile and the profile of our kid.

I would be on the phone on Monday asking that question to the coordinator of special education at Murch. How can they say that they are providing FAPE to your child when most children at Murch with IEPs will be in person and your child will not be.

“Most” students won’t - it’s 10 (for PK, K, 1) and 11 for each other grade. No matter the size of the school, it’s still one classroom per school. And Murch, Janney and Lafayette are very large school, so if there are 80 or 100 kids in your grade, your child has a 1 in 8 or 1 in 10 shot. It’s quite possible that a lot of kids with IEPs won’t get in, because, yes, even at Lafayette, Murch and Janney, there are homeless kids or kids who are ELL AND IEP, and so on.

Curious how homelessness is determined for IB schools? There is so much pressure to prove residence. How does it work? Can a student lottery in to lottery to IB schools like Lafayette, Mann, Janney? if they do not live in bounds?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We haven't received notification and are quite heartbroken. My DD has a very extensive IEP so I was hoping she would be offered a seat.

We are in the same situation (Murch). I can't figure out how DC missed out on a spot given the school's priority group profile and the profile of our kid.

I would be on the phone on Monday asking that question to the coordinator of special education at Murch. How can they say that they are providing FAPE to your child when most children at Murch with IEPs will be in person and your child will not be.

“Most” students won’t - it’s 10 (for PK, K, 1) and 11 for each other grade. No matter the size of the school, it’s still one classroom per school. And Murch, Janney and Lafayette are very large school, so if there are 80 or 100 kids in your grade, your child has a 1 in 8 or 1 in 10 shot. It’s quite possible that a lot of kids with IEPs won’t get in, because, yes, even at Lafayette, Murch and Janney, there are homeless kids or kids who are ELL AND IEP, and so on.

A 1 in 8 chance or 1 in 10 chance would only apply if all 80 students/100 students have priority status.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:About the self-contained classrooms and the 50% cap - I remember a slide during Muriel Bowser's news conference when they announced DCPS opening. It said classroom size will be between 5 and 11. Since they included that 5 on the slide, it lead me to believe that for PK3-K autism classrooms they'll go above 50%. Can't imagine them opening such a classroom with 3 randomly selected children and leaving the other 3 at home.

Hello, I am a CES pk teacher, the cap is indeed 3. The other 3 will be doing DL and they'll have the same teacher. I just found this out in an email today. Nice idea DCPS. Very helpful and equitable.

That is absolutely brutal for the three staying in DL. I'm already concerned about how this situation is going to impact dynamics for my child's PK class. Been thinking a lot about how it looks in January or April or next September when all the kids who have been DL-only all along join the 6 kids in the class who have been in person. There is going to be so strangeness for everyone.

Anonymous wrote:Offered an in person spot and will decline. SWS

What grade? That would be most helpful.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, not every parent wants to send their kid back to in-person (for whatever reason) so there will very likely be movement on the waitlist, so you may yet get a spot for your kid with the IEP, and I will keep my fingers crossed that you do. The schools were not allowed to choose who the students for in-person would be; that was all determined by Central Office and their algorithms, so yelling at the SPED coordinator at your school doesn’t actually achieve anything.

No - but it builds the case for when you sue for private placement a few years down the road.

Okay. But I suspect the person who posted is mostly concerned about now? And again yelling at the Murch sped coordinator who had zero input into who was chosen for in-person isn’t going to do anything (either now or in the future); these are issues for OSSE and for Central Office. (I also have have a kid with an IEP - in middle school - so not eligible anyway, but since I know they will not have in-person services regardless of whether you have an in-person spot because, for example, speech and occupational therapists are not going to be IN schools. They can’t go between different classes or schools for safety reasons. So I don’t know how much value just sitting in a room with a non-specialist teacher would have for my kid anyway.) I have no plans to sue the school system in four years or whatever though.