Special Education Action is a 501(c)3 nonprofit publisher covering special education.
Its mission is to ensure parents, educators, and students have the information and tools necessary to fully understand, address, and safeguard the unique needs of all students who require special education.
Recent Articles
FCPS Reports List 400+ Special Education Violations; VDOE Refuses to Investigate
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.
The Language of IEPs and 504s: Yes, You Have to Define “Accessible”
If something is accessible, it is often an alternative method of access.
For example, a student might need a ramp and an elevator as alternatives to the stairs used by his peers.
Another student might need Braille or large text as an alternative to the text provided to her peers.
U.S. Dept. of Education Puts Virginia on Notice: Get into Compliance or Face Sanctions
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.”
How to Unredact the Redactions
How do you access what’s behind the redactions?
Often, the answer is: You can’t. The redactions aren’t reversible. But, sometimes . . .
Fairfax County Public Schools Continues to Violate FERPA; FCPS Released Personally-Identifiable Information for 110 More 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
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.