Category: Going Local: Virginia (page 25)

Wilson, the publisher of the program “Just Words” has stated that the program is not for children with Dyslexia, and yet Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia (and other school divisions) continues to recommend the program for students who have Dyslexia.

In two previous articles, I shared the article, “When It’s Not Dyslexia”, which appears in Wilson’s “Decoder” Newsletter; a partial IEP transcript, in which a FCPS Dyslexia Resource acknowledges that Wilson does not endorse “Just Words” for students with Dyslexia, and the final decision of a Due Process hearing, in which the hearing officer wrote:

” From the evidence presented at the hearing, I have learned there are several competing methodologies that address learning disabilities associated with dyslexia. But it is clear to this Hearing Officer that JUST WORDS is not one of them.”

If this isn’t enough to convince your school division that “Just Words” isn’t appropriate for your student with Dyslexia, there’s the following, straight from Wilson Reading System Instructor Manual, Steps 1-6.

“I wouldn’t count that”.

~Alicia Kuehn, Curriculum Resource Teacher
Region 1 Point of Contact
Office of Special Education Instruction
Fairfax County Public Schools

This quote refers to data Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) included in IEP Progress reports and in an IEP being developed for the coming year.

Not good.

I share it, and the story behind it (as with the article “If Your Child was Administered the Program Language Live, this Article is for You”), with hope that it will inform other families about data being culled from the program Language Live.

Let’s imagine you have a child who has that oh-so-unique wiring that is Dyslexia

And let’s imagine that the school division denied that child an evaluation three times between first and sixth grades.

And let’s imagine, too, that the child finally received an IEP and that you went to mediation and that the school division enrolled your child in a year-long reading elective during 7th grade and provided tutoring twice a week, one hour each time, after school, for a chunk of the school year.

And, last—but not least—let’s imagine that you uncovered problems with the implementation of that program

And, let’s imagine that after all this, the school has another program for your child.

What would you do?

Riddle me this: Why would you purchase a program to maintain special education records, if the function for tracking files, changes to files, and log-ins would “seriously degrade the operational performance of the system, largely making the system unusable for authorized users”?

Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) did just that.

If you have a child who receives special education via (FCPS), you’re likely familiar with “SEA-STARS”, which is the program FCPS is always logging into to access your students’ information.

What you might not know, is that 10 years ago, FCPS disabled the function that tracks login information, record access, and changes to student data.

“Monies paid out during dispute resolution processes”

This headline appears in an internal FCPS report and precedes the following two entries about two Fairview Elementary School students (Fairfax County Public Schools, Virginia).

For Student One:

“Lack of acceptance of dyslexia by teachers”

For Student Two:

“private dyslexia diagnosis; student parentally placed at ”

August 28, 2020, Daniel Clements, a Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) Assistant Principal at Robinson Secondary School sent a set of IEP meeting rules to the parents of one of the school’s students.

Although parents are considered equal IEP team members, in this case, the “rules” were set without their input and included a threat that the meeting would be shut down if the parents violated the rules.

And yet, some of the rules err on the noncompliance side of state and federal regulations.