News - Special Education Action

Fairfax County Public Schools Found at Fault for Systemic Noncompliance: Local Administrative Review/Procedural Safeguards

June 6, 2023: Article Published.

UPDATE: July 17, 2023, article updated to include Complainant’s appeal to a portion of VDOE’s Letter of Findings, as well as documents FCPS was required to address in response to the Corrective Action Plan (CAP) required by VDOE. July 12, 2023, in an email to Complainant, VDOE provided Complainant FCPS’s CAP Letter to Parents and FCPS’s Student Rights & Responsibilities Manual Revisions, as well as CAP Update Letter from VDOE. In its email to Complainant, VDOE said, “Attached are the documents which were included as part of FCPS’ Corrective Action. The only portion not included with this email is a list of the students (5) who were the subject of the administrative review. This list is not included as it contains personally identifiable information. The Corrective Action Update letter provided to FCPS is also attached.” In a county the size of FCPS, it is surprising that just five students “were the subject of the administrative review.”

June 6, 2023, Virginia Department of Education found Fairfax County Public Schools at fault for systemic noncompliance regarding FCPS’s local administrative review process.

The complaint on which VDOE’s findings are based was filed April 7, 2023, and alleges FCPS for years misled parents about their procedural safeguards, by leading them to believe a local administrative review within FCPS, done by a hearing officer that is an employee of FCPS, is in compliance with IDEA and implementing state regulations. Hence, parents have taken this local administrative review route, at which there is no impartial hearing officer and no hearing in compliance with IDEA or implementing state regs.

In addition, the complaint alleges FCPS believes it can operate outside of federal and implementing state regs by forwarding an appeal option that 1) is not in compliance with IDEA, Sec 504, or VAC, and 2) by its own existence in FCPS’s student rights & responsibility manual, and on the FCPS site, falsely lead parents to believe that they are accessing procedural safeguards under federal and state implementing regs.

FCPS Knows Its IEPs Are Noncompliant, Leads Hearing Officer, Virginia Dept. of Ed., Staff, and Parents to Believe Otherwise

Dawn Schaefer, director of Fairfax County Public Schools’ (FCPS) Office of Special Education Procedural Support and Michelle Boyd, FCPS’s former assistant superintendent for the Department of Special Services (from 2020 through July 2023) and now assistant superintendent of region six, have a history of advising parents, staff, Virginia Department of Education (VDOE), and/or Virginia hearing officers that FCPS’s IEPs are in compliance with IDEA and implementing state regulations—even though VDOE’s state complaint letters of finding and its 2022 monitoring report, and the two-year special education audit FCPS commissioned itself, indicate otherwise.

September 14, 2022, Michelle and Dawn admitted FCPS’s IEPs are in noncompliance with IDEA and state regulations, that FCPS was changing the PLOP page in the IEP to a Present Level of Academic Achievement and Functional Performance (PLAAFP) page, and moving meeting notes to a different section. This contradicts Dawn’s 2020 testimony to Due Process Hearing Officer Rhonda Mitchell.

U.S. Department of Education Releases Update on Arkansas Monitoring; Noncompliance Continues in 8 out of 9 Areas Identified

July 5, 2023, U.S. Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs issued a “close-out letter” to Arkansas Division of Developmental Disabilities Services, regarding OSEP’s IDEA Part C Monitoring of Arkansas.

Although OSEP characterizes such letters as “close-out” letters, they are more status reports than close-out letters, since the latter infers close-out of all monitoring, rather than one of nine issues being closed out in this case, with eight of nine remaining in noncompliance.

Office for Civil Rights Opens Investigation Into Virginia Department of Education; Did VDOE’s COVID-19 Guidance Lead School Divisions to Deny FAPE to Students Who Have Disabilities?

June 7 and June 9, 2023, Office for Civil Rights issued letters for cases 11-23-4044 and 11-23-4004 to Virginia Department of Education and stated OCR was opening the following legal issues for investigation:

June 7, 2003, Case No. 11-23-4044:

“Complainant alleged that VDOE discriminated against students with disabilities by failing to provide an audio the accommodation for a Standard of Learning (SOL) reading and writing field test assessment for the 2022-2023 school year.”

June 9, 2003, Case No. 11-23-4004:

“Whether the VDOE’s guidance regarding the provision of special education and related services during the COVID-19 pandemic led school divisions to deny FAPE to students with disabilities.”

U.S. Dept. of Education Releases 2023 Determination Letters; Virginia Failed to Meet Requirements, While States Like Alabama Climbed Out of Years of “Needs Assistance” Determinations

June 26, 2023, U.S. Department of Education released its annual determination letters.

While a few states improved their performance, others continued to fail.

In 2023, 23 states or entities met requirements, as compared to 22 in 2022; six states need assistance (one year) in 2023, compared to 3 in 2022; 29 need assistance (two or more consecutive years) in 2023, compared to 35 in 2022; and two states need intervention in 2023, compared to zero in 2022.

Fairfax County Public Schools Provided False Information to Office for Civil Rights

Fairfax County Public Schools provided Office for Civil Rights false information in response to an OCR investigation.

Dawn Schaefer, director of FCPS’s office of special education procedural support admitted FCPS’s action this past month in a letter to Virginia Department of Education.

Systemic Noncompliance: VA Dept. of Education finds Fairfax County at Fault for Refusing to Provide Related Service of Vision Therapy

6.20.22: Article published. 6.22.22: Article updated to include information provided 6.16.23 by FCPS’s ESY coordinator and by OSEP Director Valerie Williams in the June edition of OSEPS Monthly Update email.

Fairfax County Public Schools is in hot water again for another count of refusing to provide services to students. About six months after Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found FCPS at fault for systemic noncompliance between April 2020 and June 2022, and required FCPS to meet with the families of 28,000+ current and graduated students to determine compensatory services for students enrolled during the time period investigated by OCR, Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) found FCPS at fault for more systemic noncompliance. Like OCR, VDOE is requiring FCPS to meet with the families of students impacted and address compensatory education owed to the students.

U.S. Dept. of Education Releases Monitoring Close-Out Letters for Bureau of Indian Affairs, Louisiana, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas

U.S. Department of Education (U Office of Special Education Programs released Differentiated Monitoring and Support close-out letters under IDEA Part B for Bureau of Indian Education, Louisiana, North Carolina, and Texas, and under IDEA Part C for New Jersey, South Carolina, and Texas.

The letters were issued between 2021 and May 2023, however OSEP waited until the past two months to publicly release them on USDOE’s website.

They detail years of monitoring, corrective actions required by OSEP, continued noncompliance, and the states eventually satisfying the action required by OSEP. However, in states like North Carolina and Texas there are a few caveats. caveats.

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