Category: News (page 22)

Dear Taxpayers:

Does anyone think it a good use of taxpayer money to bcc Fairfax County Public School (FCPS) lawyers on emails as benign as:

1) an email from a teacher to her student, about an assignment; and

2) an email from an IEP case manager introducing herself to the student’s family?

About three dozen emails, spanning this past year, have been uncovered, with bcc’s to Blankingship & Keith attorneys Wesley Allen and/or John Cafferky.

As of 2018, John Cafferky’s billing rate was $295/hour and Wesley Allen’s was $245/hour.

Do we really need to pay $4-to-$5 a minute for lawyers to read emails, when there are greater needs within the school system?

Technology has come a long way for students with special education needs. It’s revolutionized the school experience for many of these students.

I can’t thank the assistive technology specialists within the school system enough.

But . . . There’s another group we need to ensure the overall infrastructure is in place and running. In Fairfax County Public Schools, these individuals are often referred to as SBTS (School-Based Technology Specialists).

And this past spring, when teachers and students were sent home, the SBTS worked overtime to clean-up a mess that to-date has not been explained.

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.