Children are our priority. Ensuring their needs are met is our goal.
A FOIA request was submitted to obtain the guidance document. After receiving Boyd’s June 14, 2023, guidance email to FCPS staff, another FOIA request was submitted, to obtain access to documents hyperlinked within Boyd’s email.
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.
1) any forms, letters, or documentation that address FCPS advising parents to pick their own recovery services and/or comp ed provider
2) any forms, letters, or documentation that address FCPS advising parents FCPS will reimburse parents for recovery services and/or comp ed.
3) any forms, letters, or documentation that address FCPS capping the service provider payment amount to a certain amount of dollars per hour and/or per service.
I know the above has already been provided to parents. I’m not asking for their educational records.
I know FCPS has internal records and form letters it developed.
I know that responsive records that are not also educational records exist.
This should include but not be limited to any training materials, slides, videos, presentations, too.
The findings aren’t surprising. They paint the portrait of a state that ignored the warning bells (even though it had almost 15 years to prepare for COVID)—and that to this day has failed to implement practices that ensure past mistakes don’t run into the future.
However, the report falls short in regard to data collection and interpretation.
According to VDOE, “Prior to the pandemic, the number of students statewide who failed an SOL reading test but showed growth — and therefore counted toward their school’s accreditation rating — ranged from 19,000-20,000. With this latest round of accreditation calculations, the number has more than tripled to 61,000.
“Similarly, the number of students who failed a math SOL test before the pandemic but showed growth and counted toward their school’s rating was about 20,000. This year the number has quadrupled to more than 88,000.”
A FOIA request FCPS is still heading to court over, and records collecting digital dust in Fairfax County School Board’s collection of online documents, comprise the bulk of the records.
In 2006, the United States Department of Education (USDOE) warned school districts that pandemics were on the horizon and advised them to prepare pandemic plans.
FCPS took heed and had a plan in development by 2007.
Between 2007 and now, a portrait emerged of leaders who were dazzled by themselves and their colleagues, “how extraordinary they were, each brighter than the next . . .”