The $60,825 Question: Should Fairfax County Public Schools Invest in Special Education or Pay Hazardous Waste Management Fines?
"Special Education" and "Hazardous Waste" should never appear in the same sentence, but here I find myself typing them into this opening line. The two shouldn't have anything in common, either, but . . . I live in Fairfax County, Virginia, and strange things occur in our neck of the woods. Candide's garden, Fairfax County is not.
I'm about to bounce around a bit, so please stick with me until I go full circle.
It Takes a Commitment
April 6, 2021, at the Board of Supervisor’s Environmental Committee (BOSEC) meeting, Fairfax County and FCPS staff presented a joint response to The Joint Environmental Task Force's (JET) October 2020 report. According to Fairfax County Board Docs, "JET was formed in April 2019 by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors and the Fairfax County School Board" and its "mission is to join the political and administrative capabilities of the county and the school system to proactively address climate change and environmental sustainability."
Page 8 of the joint response states:
"If the JET has identified a timeline for this recommendation, is this timeline feasible? Why or why not?
"Achieving a 50 percent reduction in emissions in less than a decade is potentially feasible, but only if numerous prerequisites are met. These include compliance by Dominion with its statutory and regulatory obligations under the Clean Economy Act, a commitment by the Fairfax entities to the extraordinary effort and resources that will be required to transform current operations, satisfaction of supporting or related JET recommendations, appropriate changes to federal and state law and regulation, and a market response that makes necessary goods and services available in a timely manner and at reasonable cost."
SpEd parents, can you guess where I'm going with this?
Please re-read the following bit of the response:
"Achieving . . . is potentially feasible, but only if numerous prerequisites are met. These include . . . a commitment by the Fairfax entities to the extraordinary effort and resources that will be required to transform current operations. Fairfax entities to the extraordinary effort and resources that will be required to transform current operations"
May 3, 2021, 27 days after the joint response was presented at the BOSEC meeting, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) issued a consent order for FCPS to pay a civil charge of $60,825 after it found FCPS in noncompliance of numerous state regulations in regard to hazardous waste. The document lists a number of violations, but the following violation is a stand out (and could be argued to be the root of the other violations):
"No person in charge of hazardous waste management was trained in hazardous waste procedures."
40 CFR §262. 1 7(a)(7)(i)(B) requires that a hazardous waste program be directed by a person trained in hazardous waste management procedures. Yet . . .
"No person in charge of hazardous waste management was trained in hazardous waste procedures."
Commitment Requires Commitment
This is where I swing over to special education.
Commitment "to the extraordinary effort and resources that will be required to transform current operations" is not FCPS's forte. One would be hard pressed to find it in FCPS's repertoire period.
FCPS and failures related to special education and fully training staff go together like peas and corn.
Reading instruction is just one area that comes to mind per training issues.
FCPS's failure to train up teachers has been such a problem that even Dottie Skrincosky, considered by some to be a Dyslexia "expert," expressed the following concerns during one of the IEP meetings she attended before her retirement from FCPS in 2020:
". . . we are also building up our core of teachers and getting trained in Orton Gillingham approach. Um, that is that that training is being done solely by our Dyslexia specialists. So, it’s happening slowly. We’re a big county, but you know, we are getting teachers trained so that they can deliver that.
"But we do we are training up teachers as quickly as we can, of course, COVID interrupted the flow. Um, I have made, you know, requests that we try to get more people to be trained in this so that we could- I mean- We’re- How are we going to train all these teachers in Fairfax, you know, at the rate that we need it? We need to build that capacity. Some teachers are going to struggle even with Orton Gillingham, because it does require teachers to be very prescriptive and, well diagnostic first and then prescriptive in how they tailor their lessons. Karen, did you know do you have anybody who attended recent trainings with Carrie Leestma?" [emphasis added]
Noncompliance & Lack of Training are Problems Across the Board
Managing hazardous waste is serious business
Educating children is serious business.
Yet . . . FCPS has been found in noncompliance of regulations related to both.
If FCPS can't provide the training necessary to do both in compliance with state and/or federal regulations, it is difficult to believe it can ever exist in complete compliance in just one of these areas.
*This isn't a dig at teachers. It is a comment on the system—a system with too much money to fail in such basic ways.
$60,000+ Salt on the Wound
Per DEQ's order, FCSB agreed to pay a civil charge of $60,825. That's chump change when it comes to FCPS's overall budget.
However, when it comes to the life of a child who has special education needs, it could pay for enough one-on-one tutoring that could be a game changer for the child.
Please join me in advocating for FCPS to be held accountable, to be forced to stop its repeat violations.
End of day, compliance is cheaper in time, money, and headaches than noncompliance—which should mean more time and money and fewer headaches for children, families, and teachers.
Click on the image below to view the Department of Environmental Quality's May 3, 2021, order by consent letter and FCPS's signed consent.
Click on the image below to view Fairfax county and school staff joint response.
