Going Local: Virginia - Special Education Action

Fairfax County Students & Educators in Crisis; FCPS Delays Release of Damning Data

Fairfax County Public Schools educators and students are in crisis as FCPS withholds damning data from the public and students with disabilities continue to be disproportionately disciplined.

Data collected from a survey of administrators and staff at FCPS’s five day schools—Burke, Cedar Lane, Key Center, Kilmer School, Quander Road—indicates the schools are understaffed, under-resourced, and woefully unable to meet the academic, functional, and behavioral needs of their students. In addition, staff are struggling on a day-to-day basis with their workloads, while simultaneously being concerned about the safety of the students and of themselves.

Virginia Remains Outlier as U.S. Dept. of Education Announces Close-Out of Monitoring in Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, and Arizona

March 27, 2023, U.S. Department of Education (USDOE) publicly released the status of various monitoring activities, citing closure of monitoring of Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, and Arizona, and expanded monitoring of Virginia.

USDOE announced monitoring of Hawaii in 2019; of Arizona, Florida, and Virginia in 2020; and of Delaware in 2021. USDOE closed out monitoring of four of the five states within one-to-three years.

In the case of Virginia, it is on track to take more than three years to come into compliance with Individuals with Disabilities in Education Act (IDEA).

Office for Civil Rights vs. Virginia Dept. of Ed: Two Agencies, Two Investigations, Two Very Different Outcomes, Part I

In 2020, Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) received a systemic complaint against Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS). In response, it refused to investigate some of the allegations, changed and/or ignored other allegations, and ultimately found FCPS in compliance.

In 2022, Office for Civil Rights (OCR) found FCPS at fault for years-long systemic noncompliance, based on some of the very allegations filed in the 2020 systemic complaint.

What happened? How could VDOE make a finding of compliance in 2020, while OCR made a finding of noncompliance in 2022?

The answer: VDOE failed to investigate credible allegations of noncompliance and failed to comply with 300.152(4), which requires it to “review all relevant information and make an independent determination as to whether the public agency is violating a requirement of Part B of the Act or of this part”, and FCPS withheld information.

FCPS Reports List 400+ Special Education Violations; VDOE Refuses to Investigate

7.17.20: Article first published. 1.18.23: New introduction added (in italics below). 3.15.23: Updated to include a third paragraph to the introduction below, addressing the U.S. Department of Education’s decision to expand monitoring of Virginia Department of Education and its continued noncompliance.

As I type this, oral arguments for the case Perez v Sturgis are being held in the Supreme Court. Reading about Sturgis Public Schools’ failures to address the unique needs of Miguel Luna Perez is both heartbreaking and horrifying. It is a reminder, too, that the special education system is broken. The recourse offered isn’t adequate and the agencies and individuals responsible for holding state and local education agencies accountable continuously fail children themselves.

Almost five years ago, the Virginia Department of Education refused to investigate 400+ cases of noncompliance in Fairfax County Public Schools. To date, that hasn’t changed. The article below was written in 2020, a month after the United States Department of Education released a Differentiated Monitoring Support letter on Virginia. VDOE had 90 days to come into compliances. Almost three years later, the noncompliance continues, as does USDOE’s failure to hold VDOE accountable and VDOE’s failure to hold FCPS and other counties state-wide accountable for their noncompliance. November 30, 2022, Office for Civil Rights found FCPS in massive noncompliance, yet even as it was investigated, even as it negotiated its resolution agreement with OCR, and even as its findings released, FCPS continued its noncompliance—and VDOE has remained silent.

U.S. Dept. of Education Puts Virginia on Notice: Get into Compliance or Face Sanctions

***BREAKING NEWS***

Just weeks before Jillian Balow announced her resignation as Virginia Superintendent of Public Education, United States Department of Education Office of Special Education Programs put Virginia Department of Education on Notice: Get into compliance or face sanctions.

In a January 17, 2023, letter from USDOE OSEP to Balow (obtained today via a FOIA request), USDOE OSEP warned VDOE:

“If VDOE is unable to demonstrate full compliance with the IDEA requirements identified in OSEP’s monitoring report, this could result in the imposition of Specific Conditions on VDOE’s IDEA Part B grant award and could affect VDOE’s determination under section 616(d) of IDEA.”

Fairfax County Public Schools Continues to Violate FERPA; FCPS Released Personally-Identifiable Information for 110 More Students

Fairfax County Public Schools continues its longstanding noncompliance of Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act regulations by once again failing to maintain the security of personally identifiable information related to students.

This time, it released unredacted records for the 2022-23 math and reading SOL records for 74 students and the reading records for 36 students.

FCPS Ignores Office for Civil Rights; Noncompliance Continues, Part VII

This is part VII in a series about Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) ignoring Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) November 30, 2022, letter of findings and resolution agreement with FCPS. The series discusses noncompliance that occurred before OCR’s findings, OCR’s findings, noncompliance that continues to occur, FCPS’s open defiance of OCR’s findings, FCPS modeling continued noncompliance to staff, and what FCPS is supposed to be doing pursuant to its own resolution agreement with OCR.

The focus of part VII is FCPS’s failure to ensure that placement decisions are made by a group of persons knowledgeable about the students and the meaning of the evaluation data.

Fairfax County Public Schools Recovery Services: Not Ready, Needing Reminders, and “We Are Not Responsible” Are Repeat Themes

2.8.21: Article first published. 3.2.23: Article republished with introduction in italics below.

Past really is precedent. Two years ago, I wrote the article below, yet the headline could be used today. One would just need to add compensatory education to the headline and article below to bring it up to date. In Spring 2022, when Office for Civil Rights released its findings on Los Angeles Unified School District, it was clear Fairfax County Public Schools would face the same findings, given it had engaged in many of the same noncompliant actions. Instead of preparing for OCR to release its findings on it, to include having training programs and plans to address the noncompliance underway, before OCR’s findings were released, FCPS waited. After OCR’s 11.30.22 release of its findings on FCPS, it was clear FCPS wasn’t prepared. Its staff trainings paint a picture of a county caught unprepared again, with thousands of students waiting, again, to have their unique needs addressed. Some of the videos below were later provided to OCR for its investigation into FCPS. The theme: FCPS caught unprepared again.

Fairfax County Public Schools did not have a finalized recovery services in place at the start of the 2020-21 school year.

FCPS stated that it needed to collect nine weeks of data on students in advance of recovery services.

FCPS Ignores Office for Civil Rights; Noncompliance Continues, Part VI

This is part VI in a series about Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) ignoring Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) November 30, 2022, letter of findings and resolution agreement with FCPS. The series discusses noncompliance that occurred before OCR’s findings, OCR’s findings, noncompliance that continues to occur, FCPS’s open defiance of OCR’s findings, FCPS modeling continued noncompliance to staff, and what FCPS is supposed to be doing pursuant to its own resolution agreement with OCR.

The focus of part V is FCPS’s failure to provide the related service of transportation.

FOIA Release: Fairfax County Public Schools “Determining Compensatory Education Training Development” Training Videos and Materials Required by Office for Civil Rights

February 10, 2023: Article first published. February 22, 2023: Article updated to include second training video and transcript (see below). *At about the 20-minute mark of the second video below, Dawn Schaefer mentions that one of the points of contact within FCPS is the ombudsman’s office. Not long ago, Kathy Murphy was announced as FCPS’s new “ombuds”. Previously, Kathy was FCPS’s Section 504 expert, in the same office as Dawn and Dawn’s predecessor Jane Strong. Kathy’s name is all over records FCPS provided to OCR for its investigation and seems to have been FCPS’s contact with OCR. In addition, after OCR made its investigation public, Kathy filed a FOIA request with the U.S. Dept. of Education to obtain, among other thing, information on any parents who might have submitted OCR complaints. Jane left the county, Dawn stepped into Jane’s job, and then Kathy disappeared as the 504 Plan expert, only to reappear later as the ombuds.

Office for Civil Rights found Fairfax County Public Schools in massive noncompliance for denial of FAPE during April 2020 through June 2022.
Following its investigation, OCR entered into a resolution agreement with FCPS. As part of the agreement, FCPS is required to meet with families of the 28,000+ students who were enrolled in FCPS during the time period investigated, to determine compensatory education.

In this article, you’ll be able to access some of the training materials and one of the training videos FCPS provided to staff.

FCPS Ignores Office for Civil Rights; Noncompliance Continues, Part V

This is part V in a series about Fairfax County Public Schools ignoring Office for Civil Rights’ November 30, 2022, letter of findings and resolution agreement with FCPS. The series discusses noncompliance that occurred before OCR’s findings, OCR’s findings, noncompliance that continues to occur, FCPS’s open defiance of OCR’s findings, FCPS modeling continued noncompliance to staff, and what FCPS is supposed to be doing pursuant to its own resolution agreement with OCR.

The focus of part V is FCPS’s practice of equating provision of a computer with provision of a Free Appropriate Public Education—and then denying compensatory education.

FCPS Ignores Office for Civil Rights; Noncompliance Continues, Part IV

This is part IV in a series about Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) ignoring Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) November 30, 2022, letter of findings and resolution agreement with FCPS. The series discusses noncompliance that occurred before OCR’s findings, OCR’s findings, noncompliance that continues to occur, FCPS’s open defiance of OCR’s findings, FCPS modeling continued noncompliance to staff, and what FCPS is supposed to be doing pursuant to its own resolution agreement with OCR.

The focus of part IV is FCPS’s refusal to provide access to educational records, specifically “information recorded by the Division regarding the amount of special education, related aids or services provided during the Pandemic Period, including the option to review IEP or Section 504 service logs.”