Virginia State Complaints and Findings
UPDATED 3.29.24—VDOE to Investigate Fairfax County Public Schools for Systemic Noncompliance; District Fails to Implement IEPs in a Timely Manner
This time, Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) is investigating FCPS’ failures to implement IEPs in a timely manner.
Notably, FCPS has failed to ensure timely provision of compensatory education to students and timely reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses to parents, even though both appear in IEPs proposed by FCPS and consented to by parents. The compensatory education and reimbursements at the core of the complaint relate to FCPS’ resolution agreement with Office for Civil Rights (OCR).
In some cases, parents and students have been waiting more than six months for FCPS to provide reimbursements and/or ensure provision of compensatory education.
VDOE Orders FCPS to Stop Delaying Provision of Compensatory Education and Reimbursable Expenses; IEPs Addressing Office for Civil Rights Findings Must Be Implemented
That stops now.
UPDATE: VDOE Opens Systemic Complaint on FCPS: Denial of FAPE to Preschool, Honors, Foreign Language, and Day School Students
July 13, 2023: Article updated to include additional information Complainant submitted to VDOE; FCPS’s response to Complaint’s state complaint; and the timeline extension letter VDOE issued itself July 10, 2023, one day before VDOE’s Letter of Findings was due. VDOE set September 15, 2023, as the new due date.
September 18, 2023: Article updated to include VDOE’s second timeline extension letter, in which it changed its timeline from September 15 to October 31, 2023, as well as additional evidence provided to FCPS by Complainant.
May 23, 2023, Virginia Department of Education opened another systemic complaint investigation into Fairfax County Public Schools, in response to a complaint filed May 12, 2023.
The complaint alleges FCPS is at fault for systemic failures to provide FAPE, to include but not limited to failure to address the unique academic, behavioral and functional needs of its students; failures to appropriately place students; and failures to provide services to students who elect to enroll in Honors classes.
Fairfax County Public Schools Found at Fault for Systemic Noncompliance: Local Administrative Review/Procedural Safeguards
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.
Systemic Noncompliance: VA Dept. of Education finds Fairfax County at Fault for Refusing to Provide Related Service of Vision Therapy
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.
Dear VDOE: Is it Okay for Compliance Specialist to Write “I’m Winging It” in Investigation Letter of Findings?
These are the words of a compliance specialist writing a Letter of Findings in response to a state complaint investigation.
They also are the words that no parent wants to see written by a compliance specialist.