Fairfax County Public Schools, Sands Anderson, and Blankingship & Keith Breach Privacy During Due Process

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) and two law firms with which it works—Sands Anderson and Blankingship & Keith—failed to secure personally identifiable information on seven occasions in just a four-month period, between June and October of 2020.

During this period, four due process complaints were filed on behalf of four children. Their parents requested that their children’s full records be provided. They didn’t request unredacted information about other children (or adults). However, that’s what they received.

Due Process Diaries: Hearing Officer Confirmation, Pre-Hearing Scheduling, Granting Control to LEA Lawyers

The hearing officer’s confirmation letter and her notice of pre-hearing letter fall on the benign side, with a few exceptions:

Metadata lists them as being associated with the U.S. Army.

They included incorrect information related to the parents.

They granted the LEA’s lawyer control of the conference platform.

Prepare for Due Process by Tapping into the Training Provided to Hearing Officers

Did state hearing officers receive training related to COVID and/or compensatory or “recovery” services?

Can a hearing officer force a family to meet in person, rather than virtually, even though the family and/or witnesses fall into the category of at-risk?

Can their training help parents prepare for due process?

These are just a few of the questions running through my mind when I submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) for “all of the training materials that VDOE provides to hearing officers, as well anything else related to their training.”

Why did HO Morgan Brooke-Devlin Work Out of the Office of Blankingship & Keith During a Due Process Hearing?

Due Process Hearings are supposed to be impartial—at least that’s what federal regulations state (See §300.511).

Does the Following Smell Neutral?

Virginia Hearing Officer Morgan Brooke-Devlin worked in a Blankingship & Keith office during a due process hearing for which she was assigned to be the hearing officer.

In addition to its lawyers being bcc’d on e-mails from teachers to students, Blankingship & Keith lawyers, among other things, represent school divisions during due process hearings.

Feel the Need to Include Judgement of an Advocate’s Skin Color in Your Legal Decision? You Might Be A Virginia Hearing Officer

Virginia Hearing Officer Frank Aschmann thought it appropriate to judge the skin color of a parent’s advocate, and include his judgement of his interpretation of her appearance in his due process decision.

Why?

FOIA Release: Compensatory Services and Governor Northam’s Staff; Please Tell Us Our Tax Dollars Didn’t Pay For This

Governor Northam’s office provided the document below, in response to a FOIA request.

It reads like a report modeled on a deflated balloon. “Full” isn’t a word to associate with it.

At this point in the game, states across the nation have been facing this topic since Spring 2020. Fingers crossed that a) more research is being done and b) that any related charges are minimal (or waived).

Save the Date: JLARC Live Presentation of Report on Special Education in Virginia

December 14, 2020, the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission (JLARC)—the oversight agency of the Virginia General Assembly—will present its report on Special Education in Virginia.

The report will be presented live. A dedicated YouTube link will be made available for public viewing of the live event. (link to come)

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.”