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
Robinson Secondary School Privacy Breach: FCPS Released Names, ID Numbers of Students Receiving Special Education
This time, the breach is related to class of 2023 at Robinson Secondary School.
The list provides full names, student identification numbers, classes, interventions, recommendations, and class teachers and periods for the students.
Fairfax County Public School Lawyer bcc’d on Email between Teacher and Student; Why?
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?
FCPS Teachers; Pay Inequity in a Time of COVID
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.
More Words on “Just Words”; When the Student has Dyslexia and the School Chooses a Program that the Publisher of the Program Doesn’t Endorse for Dyslexia
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.
Language Live, Part Deux; When the Data Collected Doesn’t Belong on IEPs
“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.
What’s on the IEP PLOP Page—and What Should Actually Be on the IEP PLOP Page?
“The term “individualized education program” or “IEP” means a written statement for each child with a disability that is developed, reviewed, and revised in accordance with this section and that includes—
(I) a statement of the child’s present levels of academic achievement and functional performance, including . . .”
It doesn’t state that it should include present levels from a year ago or two years ago. It states present levels—as in, where is the student NOW.
And yet . . . There are IEPs that don’t have baseline data at the start of each year to measure progress. They are void of PRESENT levels.
If you happen to have a child in Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS), there is an IEP page that is actually titled, “Information Related to Present Level of Educational Performance”.
The Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) has called out FCPS on its use of the page.