Fairfax County Public Schools FOIA Responses and Other Stuff

Email from Stephen Hunt to Alice Farling

Your Fairfax County School Board Member: Stephen Hunt

Stephen Hunt served as an at-large member of the Fairfax County School Board (FCSB) between 2004-2007.

Why bring him up now?

For over 15 years, Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) has been failing students who have special education needs. FCSB and FCPS knew this 15 years ago and they know it now.

August 21, 2006, Stephen sent an email to Alice Farling, who at the time was the assistant superintendent of FCPS’s Department of Special Services. The subject of the email?

Problems with FCPS’s special education program.

10.1.21 Karen Keys-Gamarra Twitter follower

Your Fairfax County School Board Member: Karen Keys-Gamarra

This marks the launch of a new series that will feature information, documents, emails, recordings, and so on, related to Fairfax County School Board members and Fairfax County Public Schools’ (FCPS) special education program.

I’m starting with Karen Keys-Gamarra for no other reason than that I happened to tap into an email of hers for another article I posted today.

FOIA Release: Fairfax County Public Schools’ 4.1.20 Special Education Department Chair and 504 Meeting

The video, video chat, and video transcript in this article are from Fairfax County Public Schoolsâ€™ (FCPS) 4.1.20 Special Education Chair and 504 Meeting.

FOIA Release: Fairfax County Public Schools’ 9.21.20 Special Education Chair Meetings

The documents and videos in this article relate to the morning and afternoon sessions of Fairfax County Public Schools’ (FCPS) 9.21.20 Special Education Chair Meeting.

Both meetings cover the following topics:

FCPS Online Campus

Data Collection

Sharing Successes

Career and Transition Services

Recovery Services

Due Process & Eligibility and SEA-STARS

OSEI Updates

Related Services

View Fairfax County Public Schools’ “Concurrent Instruction Professional Development Guidebook”

This post shares Fairfax County Public Schools’ (FCPS) “Concurrent Instruction Professional Development Guidebook”.

Documents, images, and videos noted within the guidebook are included as well.

Fairfax County Public Schools Special Education Department Chair Meeting

This post features videos, video chats, and slide shows related to Fairfax County Public Schools special education instruction.

It includes information about IEP development, too, such as Lourrie Duddridge correcting the use of the PLOP page for present levels instead of a place used to document meeting minutes.

At about the 1:54:56 time mark, Lourrie Duddridge states: “We’ve been looking at a lot of present level of performance pages (PLOPS) and we need to just remind everybody that those documents are really for documenting the student’s present level of performance. How are they doing in their educational environment and what we propose as a team, and that those statements are written in objective measurable terms, and that we’re using appropriate data on those pages. What the page is not for is summaries of what happened–minutes of the meeting. And we’re seeing a lot of that on our present level of performance pages and what it does is clutter the IEP, and then we get present level of performance pages that are 20 pages long, because we have documented so much stuff that really isn’t relevant to the proposal itself.”

Return to School Virtual IEP Guidance Document

Whether you live in Fairfax County, Virginia, or in a different county or state, view this video.

It’s an opportunity to 1) learn what another school division is doing; 2) identify behind-the-scenes practices that are a) problematic and/or b) not occurring according to the training; and 3) to compare against your own division’s practices to a) bring ideas to them and/or b) ask about problem areas behind-the-scenes in your school division.

This presentation was developed by Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS).

There are a few stand-out comments to considerâ€”and to contact FCPS (or your school division) about if these items weren’t discussed with you.

Here’s one for now, and then the video and transcript follow:

“The first thing the case manager needs to do is to review the IEP and determine whether or not the goals, accommodations, and services can be delivered in a virtual format.”

If yes, did the case manager actually take an action outside of “review” and “determine”?

FOIA Release: Scott Brabrand to James Lane, Trying to Figure How to Open Schools for 2020-21

You know the saying about throwing spaghetti at wall to see if it sticks?

That’s what came to mind after reading this email exchange between Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) Superintendent Scott Brabrand and Virginia Department of Education Superintendent of Public Instruction James Lane.

Category: Fairfax County Public Schools FOIA Responses and Other Stuff (page 3)