A Peek Inside the WestEd Parents' Focus Group

A Peek Inside the West Ed parents' focus group in Silver Spring
by A.J. Campbell

The Montgomery County School Board hired West Ed for the incredible sum of $150,000 to answer why parents are bringing and winning, cases against MCPS on behalf of their disabled children. I would have told the school board what was wrong for free.

I have spent 7 years in the role of parent activist. Every single time I raise an issue, MCPS says there is no problem. I believe it is a reactive statement. Like when someone sneezes, you say, Bless You. Denial is the first line of the defence.

At some point in my latest ongoing disagreement with the Office of Special Education Supervisor Phillip Lynch, I began to wonder if he told me what time it was, would we be able to agree? Or would I play Katherine in Taming of the Shrew, while Lynch, in the role of Petruchio, insist that it is the moon that I see and not the sun.

We seem to have trouble agreeing on basic facts in question. Like at my last meeting with the school, I suggested that a teacher was not following her IEP, by email, two weeks in advance. The school argues that we were there to discuss IEP progress. The school did not even invite the teacher to be at the meeting though he was at school that day.

I have begged to have her primary teacher removed at least 16 times over this school year. I walked into the open house and suggested her seat be moved to comply with her educational plan. He refused. It took the teacher 3 weeks to move her seat. It took him 6 weeks and a meeting to comply with the provision of giving a calculator. To this day he is in non-compliance with some of the attention related accommodations. The school does nothing.

This is not my first rodeo with MCPS, and I have built up a thick rhino skin with an elephantine memory. I could go another 12 rounds of “I wrote this” and “they wrote this” in an email, followed by 5 rounds of let's review the tape from our last meeting (all our meetings are recorded) and MCPS said this, but I didn’t think it is going to work. I think we would be in the same space, with no agreement and I would have bad case of writer’s cramp.

It was with great expectations, that I attended the Silver Spring session held by West Ed’s Steve Ruffini at Northwood High School. There were 12 focus groups planned, two “listening” sessions and interviews with staff.

This focus group was filled to capacity with parents with children who had physical and medical disabilities like Fragile X syndrome, autism, downs syndrome.

Hearing the parent stories was really disturbing. There were about 10 of us. But we all had similar experiences:

● Parents having trouble negotiating with MCPS for services, there is no sense that the child’s needs are tied to the services given.
● Questions about whether the services were actually delivered, or if the quality of the services were just not there.
● No method of complaint or resolution when there are problems in an informal and timely way.
● Most of the parents had not filed a Due Process complaint for fear of reprisals against their children.
● Most did not have advocate, but felt they needed one, and could not afford one.
● The parents felt overwhelmed at IEP meetings by the jargon
● Progress cited were in IEP meets were not felt to be genuine.
● There is no way to verify claims made by MCPS without outside testing.

It was not really surprising, but seeing how some of the new parents were treated reminded me of what it was like to start this process. How alienating it is. How alone you feel. How learning all of this stuff was just overwhelming. I felt like I was taking on a whole band of experts, who kept telling me there is nothing wrong. Every proof I submitted, they dismissed. Nothing was ever a problem. I should feel lucky that they are doing anything at all to help my child.

Being in the focus group was a rare moment when I was able to hear from other parents what it is like for them to deal with MCPS regarding their disabled children. One mother I spoke to cried because she had felt so alone in her fight to get services for her child.

Many of the parents had to pay for outside testing out of their own pockets when MCPS would not pay for it, even though MCPS would eventually have to accept the outside findings. The same thing happened in my daughter’s case. I had to get her tested outside three times, over 6 years, before MCPS would give her an IEP.

As I said before, none of these parents had filed complaints for fear of reprisals against their children. The dissatisfaction of these parents are not counted in the complaint numbers. MCSP Spec Ed is not supporting parents in the communication process in a way that makes them feel included and an equal partner as, I believe they are required to under the law.

Where do parents turn when there are problems? They have to turn first to the school. When they can’t agree the parents can ask for mediation. But I can tell you that, I asked my daughter’s school principal for mediation weeks ago and she didn’t even bother to respond. I wish I could say that response level is not typical but it is.

Due Process complaints are not a complete measure of dissatisfaction as many parents at the focus group were deeply dissatisfied but had not filed complaints.

But MCPS has a big problem with Due Process complaints. These are complaints that a parent would file if they feel the school has violated a procedure regarding the identification, testing or delivery of special ed services. Montgomery County has the highest number, 56 out of 225 total complaints for the entire state of Maryland.

MCPS has tried to divert to Mediation many of the Due Process complaints. For school year 2013-2014 there were 81 requests for mediation in Montgomery County out of 262 complaints for every county in Maryland. For comparison, Frederick, Carroll, Cecil, Garrett and Caroline Counties are in the single digits.
Nearly ⅓ of all the mediation requests for the whole state come from Montgomery County. With 55 mediations held and most settled, it seems as if I am not the only parent who has friction with MCPS.

Complaints and mediation are not cheap. From July 2014-January 2015 MCPS spent $171,063 that is a 22.48% increase over last 2014 year to date. With almost all of the money going to the Legal Services of Jeffrey Krew.

One way that, I feel they try to reduce the number of complaints is to stonewall. Refuse to agree to anything. Refuse to acknowledge there is a problem. But even more important, refuse to identify children as a special education student.

For 7 years I knocked on the door of Special Education, asking for my daughter to be let in. Every year we were denied. Year after year, denial after denial. Three rounds of private testing and nothing doing. That is until we hired an advocate. In 6 weeks, she took us from no to a yes. But not all parents can hire an advocate. They should not have to go broke to get their disabled kid a FREE and APPROPRIATE Public Education

We know what the problems are but how do we fix it? How do we create a new paradigm that can change the adversarial nature of
the relationships to create a new method of dealing with disagreements.

At the focus group, it was suggested that school system be required to provide each special education family with a state appointed independent advocate. The school district has high priced outside council, parents should have the same access.

I thought for a long time that it was my actions or aggressive advocacy that had made the process so difficult. What became clear to me was that my experience was far from atypical.

*********footnotes
(Source: Due Process Complaints Outcome of Due Process Complaints END-Year Report Fiscal Year 2014 (July 1, 2013 – June 30, 2014) Published by the Maryland State Board of Education Data reflects cases received by MSDE as of 7/31/14
http://marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/earlyinterv/complaint_investigation/hearing_decisions/2014/docs/FY14_END_Year_Charts_7_14_14.pdf )
Source for numbers above: Mediations Outcome of Requests for Mediation END-Year Report Fiscal Year 2014 (July 1, 2013 – June 30, 2014) Published by the Maryland State Board of Education. Data reflects cases received by MSDE as of 7/31/14 http://marylandpublicschools.org/MSDE/divisions/earlyinterv/complaint_investigation/hearing_decisions/2014/docs/FY14_med_END_Year_Charts_7_14_14.pdf

Jeffrey A Krew LLC Two addresses were found: 10715 Charter Drive, Suite 260, Columbia, Maryland 21044. 9713 Rugby Ct Ste 100 Ellicott City, MD 21042 Phone: +1 410 997 6900 Fax: +1 301 621 4903