Serious Problems with Phase Out of Secondary Learning Centers

The long awaited Montgomery County Public Schools report on the phase out of the Special Education - Secondary Learning Centers has finally been released and presents a picture far from that of a glowing success.

MCPS made the decision to close the Secondary Learning Centers two years ago, despite loud community protest. The decision was made without community input or involvement, using a process later found by the State Board of Education to have violated MCPS policy. This report is the first to look at how well the phase out of the Learning Centers has progressed.

Among the group of students transitioned from the Learning Centers to their home schools in 2007/2008, despite all the focus and extra attention showered upon this group, fewer than 1 in 5 achieved proficiency on the statewide assessment (MSA). By contrast, among the group of disabled students MCPS selected as comparable more than ½ achieved proficiency and 1 in 14 scored as advanced on the same assessment. In other, words the transitioned Learning Center students performed much worse than expected.

Given these test scores we should not be surprised to read from the accompanying survey of teachers that almost half of 6th grade teachers failed to attend the MANDATORY summer training designed to support this program closure. The report included no information as to how this failure of management and oversight has been addressed.

Further, direct classroom observations by assessors reveal differentiated instructional activities were found in only 1 out of 4 of the observed Grade 6 classrooms. The report also noted widespread failure to take advantage of technology, including the Kurzweil Readers.

The MCPS report noted multiple times that co-teaching was not properly implemented. In addition, 7 out of 10 Guidance Counselors and 1 in 3 Principals indicated they received little or no support for the inclusion of the transitioned Students.

In the one apparent bright spot parents were quite pleased with the Case Management services provided by the Central Office. However a very low response rate was noted in the report, as well as staff resorting to telephone calls in order to pump up this response rate. Such practices may seriously bias survey results.

Of particular interest in assessing the quality of Case Management only 36% of teachers indicated the Case Manager attended the IEP meeting, while 95% of parents responded that the Case Manager was at the IEP meeting. This can only mean that parents must have been confused or misinformed as to who was providing this central office case management. In stark contrast to the parents positive impression, the survey of staff shows sizeable dissatisfaction with the central office Case Management and support.

But don’t just take my read of this report. Check it out for yourself;

http://www.montgomeryschoolsmd.org/departments/sharedaccountability/reports/2009/LC%20Transition%20Final%20Report%20Feb%2009%2009.pdf

Bob Astrove

988 people were right!

988 people signed a Petition to Save the Secondary Learning Centers in February of 2007. Those 988 people were opposed to the sudden, surprise announcement to close these special education programs in Montgomery County Public Schools.

Turns out, those 988 people had valid concerns.

The closing of the MCPS Secondary Learning Centers DID violate MCPS policy.
Read the State Board of Education decision here.

The closing of the MCPS Secondary Learning Centers DID evidence a lack of preparation. Read the MCPS report here.

Those 988 people are a problem! They did a better job of understanding MCPS Policy than the Board of Education, and a better job of understanding how important preparation is to a major program change in a school system. And so, the MCPS Board of Education went on a "retreat" on Friday, May 8, 2009, to discuss how to deal with those 988 people. From the "retreat" agenda:

How can “reframing the terms of engagement” with our community, including both our vocal critics and our “silent” constituents, help us to move from where we are now, to where we want to be, in a way that is aligned with (“stays true to”) our core values?

Don't expect to read the minutes from this "retreat" to find out how the Board answered this question. The two year Navarro Board of Education didn't put out minutes from retreats, and the Brandman Board of Education hasn't put out any from its first January retreat either.

Maybe instead of "reframing the terms of engagement" the Board of Education should just start listening to what parents and guardians are saying, and start discussing program changes in public, at the Board table, before the changes are made.
Petition Slc

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Jerry Weast's Budget Video

For everyone who has followed the issue of the Secondary Learning Centers being phased out and closed:

As you may know, this year Superintendent Jerry Weast did not have the big budget presentation at Rockville High School (complete with taxpayer-purchased poinsettias). Instead, he did a video presentation. CLICK HERE to watch the Superintendent's video of his budget sales pitch is featured on the MCPS website.

It is a short video, only three or four minutes, but interestingly, during the discussion of the employee unions who agreed to forego their cost-of-living increase in order that MCPS can serve 2800 more students, a clip of a student, working at a computer with an adult, is shown.

How ironic, Dr. Weast! Did your video editors realize that the clip is an old one of a SECONDARY LEARNING CENTER STUDENT at Walter Johnson (the very program you are trying to phase out, and close)!

Did your video editors realize that the clip of the secondary learning center student was shot in the "Loft" at Walter Johnson....one of the unique qualities of the secondary learning center at Walter Johnson that enabled students to have access to assistive technology, and ongoing adult support?

The "Loft" was the unique thing about Walter Johnson and its Learning Center that made the program so different than inclusion programs at other high schools. The "Loft" in fact is a model that is used in college settings with students who continue to need accommodations, assistive technology, scribes, quiet test rooms, etc.

So, Dr. Weast, you use a video clip of a successful Learning Center student, in the Loft, doing well, in a program that you are trying to phase out and close in this year's budget.

How do I know this?

The student in your budget video is my son, who is now a junior in college on the Dean's List.

Lyda Astrove

Mason Mum at SEAC Meeting

At the March 26 meeting of the Special Education Advisory Committee, the Montgomery County Public Schools Director of Special Education, Gwen Mason, informed the committee that she would not answer any questions concerning the evening's discussion topic – the Office of Shared Accountability Report on the Closure of the Secondary Learning Centers. Ms. Mason stated plainly to those in attendance, including many parents and Board of Education member Phil Kauffman, that they could ask questions, and she would write them down, but she would not answer them. Ms. Mason went further to say that she had been advised to deploy this strategy. When challenged, Ms. Mason refused to identify who within the MCPS administration had provided that advice. Ms. Mason went further to state that she had discussed this approach, relying only upon one way public communication, with the current President of the Board of Education, Shirley Brandman. A member of the Advisory Committee spoke this morning to Ms. Brandman. Ms. Brandman claimed that Ms. Mason's conversation with her was only in passing while they were both at a conference. Furthermore, it was Ms. Brandman’s understanding that while Ms. Mason may be unable to answer some of the questions, Ms. Mason would attempt to be as responsive as possible. Two years ago when the closure of this major special education program, the Secondary Learning Centers, was first approved by the Board of Education, there was a major negative public reaction, and legal action, specifically centered around the lack of public input concerning the decision. Since that time the Board of Education has claimed to make improved communication with the Disability Community a focus area, and pledged to do better. Based upon Ms. Mason's performance last night, it is clear that there is a major disconnect between those wishes of the Board of Education and the School System Administration. One cynic wonders whether Mason's action in refusing to answer questions about the Learning Center report is specifically to avoid talking about the rampant problems with the new model until after Spring IEP season is finished. And of course, some of the first questions for Mason, when she decides she's good and ready to answer questions, are (1) "Why was the report 'sat on' for six months after it was finished before being released to the community?" and (2) "When BOE member Laura Berthiaume specifically asked for a copy of this report before the vote on the next year's budget, why wasn't it released to the public at that time?" ----complied by report from Bob Astrove

Differentiated Instruction Doesn't Happen, MCPS Reports

When Superintendent Jerry Weast, and Board of Education members Nancy Navarro and Shirley Brandman moved full steam ahead with their plan to phase out and close the Secondary Learning Centers, parents of affected students were given lots of promises about how regular classroom teachers would be trained to provide "differentiated instruction" in order to meet the needs of students whose reading abilities could be two or more years below grade level.

Promises, Promises.

The Montgomery County Public Schools Office of Shared Accountability has now released their report on the evaluation of the phase out of the secondary learning centers. Page 14 of their report contains this electrifying statement:

"With the inclusion of the transition students, it was expected that teachers would need to provide more differentiated instruction (e.g., different activities, formats, or outcomes). Only 27% of the grade 6 classes and 27% of the grades 7-11 classes displayed any differentiated activities at any time during the lesson. Only 8% of the grade 6 classes and none of the grade 7-11 classes included differentiated activities throughout the lesson."

Even worse, knowing that the students in their classrooms did not have grade-level reading abilities, less than one third of classroom professionals responding to the OSA survey reported that their students had access to materials re-written at an appropriate reading level (page 15).

According to the OSA, "very little differentiation was observed in classrooms." (page 32)

And what was the outcome of the Weast-Navarro-Brandman plan?

Maryland School Assessment scores (MSA scores) tanked for these students. According to the report,

"Achievement of the transitioned students on standardized tests was weaker than that of students with similar disabilities. Their mean scores were lower than comparison students on the MAP-R reading test and on the MSA tests in Mathematics and reading. Also, a higher percentage of transitioned than comparison students scored at the basic level on each MSA test. (page 33).

It is time to end the experimentation with our students and make available a full continuum of special education options once more.

Lyda Astrove

988 Sign Petition to Keep the Secondary Learning Centers Open

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/keep-the-secondary-learning-centers-open.html

That was then: this is now

Montgomery County middle schools score poorly on tests | Washington Examiner

A blast from the not-so-distant past (August 09): in the few short years since the Montgomery County Board of Education voted to close the secondary Learning Centers (starting with Middle School), special needs students showed their worst performance on state tests yet. Many members of the current Board of Education share responsibility for this performance, as they were on the Board that voted to eliminate the Learning Centers. The Office of Shared Accountability issued a report detailing the numerous problems. The Deputy Superintendent apologized for the way MCPS went about hiding their plans from the disability community.

Now the Board of Education has voted to effectively eliminate the Montgomery Primary Achievement Center, a preschool program for children with disabilities. There was some hand-wringing at the Board table today about "building trust with the community" and "the need for better communication with the community" but they didn't let it get in the way of voting to eliminate another special education program.

But a couple of years from now, there won't be OSA reports or test scores to show that the parents and community members were right all along. These children are young, and don't take the state-mandated standardized tests. Is that perhaps why it was so easy for the BOE to eliminate the program? Because it has no relevance to the "Seven Keys to College Readiness?"

Do children with disabilities matter anymore to the current Board of Education? Or is special education just a vehicle to get federal stimulus money to spend on high-tech gadgets like Promethean Boards under the guise of "Universal Design for Learning?" (which in supreme irony, the BOE opposes being required to implement as an "unfunded mandate!)

Options, fallbacks, choices. Going going gone. The list of disappearing programs lengthens yearly. The number of children pushed into "above-grade-level" math, who are unprepared, correspondingly increases. The public relations budget gets larger and larger, the money spent fighting families of children with disabilities runs into the hundreds of thousands of dollars, and the Seven Keys are touted as the Educational Holy Grail.

But for those of us with kids that don't fit on the Seven Keys superhighway, we feel like the Board of Education tells us, over and over, that our kids don't matter. Our opinions don't matter. The Board of Education is "offended" by our advocacy.

Who in this county is willing to stand up for children with disabilities, or, alternatively, to sit down with families and listen to what they have to say, and then act on it?

What MCPS said THEN vs. what they say NOW

CLICK HERE to see a question and answers sheet about the phase-out of the secondary learning centers that made the following promises:

"During the summer of 2007, 3 days of mandatory training will be provided to general and special education teachers who will be working with grade 6 students coming from learning centers. (page 2)

Did parents of the transitioned students have a right to expect that "mandatory" meant "mandatory?" Apparently not! See page 17 of the OLA report on the LC phase-out, where it is reported:

"An item on the survey of classroom professionals asked teachers if they had attended the mandatory summer training. Sixty one of the 132 Grade 6 teachers who responded to the survey indicated that they did not attend the mandatory summer training...." (page 17, OSA report)

And what happens when classroom professionals either don't go to the "mandatory training" or the training is not productive?

Almost half of all the survey respondents rate themselves as only "somewhat prepared" to meet the needs of these students. See Table F-5, on page 93 of the OSA report:

"How prepared are you to:"

Implement assistive technology in your classroom: Somewhat prepared: 56%
Implement co-teaching strategies: somewhat prepared: 45%
Provide differentiated instruction: somewhat prepared: 47%
Understand characteristics of disabilities: somewhat prepared: 47%
Implement behavioral strategies: somewhat prepared: 47%

Did parents and students have the right to expect that the receiving classroom professionals would be "fully prepared" to implement assistive technology, and provide differentiated instruction? Advocates urged the Board of Education to delay the plan, saying that three days of training were not enough. Apparently, the advocates were correct.

Middle School MSA Scores: Special Ed Testing to Blame, Weast Whines

July 21, 2009: Weast issues a press release with the following information:

"At the middle school level, 26 out of 38 schools met AYP—an overall success rate of 68 percent, compared with 86 percent in 2008. Three of the 12 schools not making AYP would have achieved it had the same process used in 2008 been used in 2009. The implementation of Modified Maryland School Assessments (Mod-MSAs) and the low pass rate (38.9 percent in reading and 23.1 percent in mathematics) on this new assessment likely contributed to the increased number of middle schools not meeting AYP in 2009."

Yet when the Report on the Phase-Out of the Secondary Learning Centers was finally released, earlier this year, it contained the following statements:

"Additionally, the Modified-Maryland School Assessment (Mod-MSA) which is designed for students whose regular coursework is modified significantly to address their disabilities, was not available from the Maryland State Department of Education (MSDE ) in the spring of 2008. The Mod-MSA will be administered for the first time in spring of 2009 for middle school students with disabilities. However, these students took the regular MSA which was not an appropriate assessment for reporting their outcomes."

So which is it? In case you haven't noticed, the special education students in the middle schools did extremely poorly on BOTH the MSA and the Mod-MSA.

Perhaps Jerry Weast would prefer that special education students not participate in any accountability testing at all!

The disability community can look specifically to SHIRLEY BRANDMAN, who voted to phase out the middle school secondary learning centers. You now see the fruits of her efforts. And, by the way, they are rotten.

Report: Special ed integration fails expectations

by Leah Fabel Examiner Staff Writer

In the Montgomery County schools, phasing out of segregated classrooms for students with significant learning disabilities has been met with a districtwide report raising serious questions about its success.
The report showed that 100 percent of the students in transition out of the segregated classrooms scored at the lowest level on the Maryland state math exam, and 81 percent of them fared equally poorly on the reading portion...A mandatory training for teachers receiving special-needs students into regular classrooms saw little more than 50 percent attendance... (Click here to continue reading Examiner article.)

Read Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland blog articles on Secondary Learning Centers Report.

U.S. Department of Education Releases Webinar, Fact Sheet for Protecting Students' Civil Rights During COVID-19 Response

WASHINGTON — The Office for Civil Rights (OCR) at the U.S. Department of Education released today a webinar on ensuring web accessibility for students with disabilities for schools utilizing online learning during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. In addition, OCR published a fact sheet for education leaders on how to protect students' civil rights as school leaders take steps to keep students safe and secure. These resources will assist education leaders in making distance learning accessible to students with disabilities and in preventing discrimination during this Administration-wide response effort.

As more schools across the nation shift to distance learning, OCR's webinar reminds decisionmakers of their responsibility in making distance learning accessible to students with disabilities, unless equally effective alternate access is provided. Online learning tools must be accessible to students with disabilities, and they must be compatible with the various forms of assistive technology that students might use to help them learn. The webinar advises school leaders to routinely test their online activities to ensure accessibility.

"OCR's accessibility webinar is intended to remind school leaders at the elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels of their legal obligations to ensure that all students, including students with disabilities, can access online and virtual learning programs," said Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kenneth L. Marcus. "Students with disabilities must have access to educational technology utilized by schools, and OCR will continue to work to ensure that no student is excluded from utilizing these important tools."

In addition, the new fact sheet released by OCR presents information on the rights of students with disabilities during school closures and includes tips for preventing incidents of discrimination.  It also includes information on ensuring that no student is discriminated against based on race, color, or national origin. The document reminds schools of their legal obligation to comply with non-discrimination obligations under civil rights laws, including Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act, and provides tools to assist schools in facilitating distance learning for all students.

These communications follow a previous letter from Assistant Secretary Marcus to education leaders on preventing and addressing potential discrimination associated with COVID-19.  The Department continues to update www.ed.gov/coronavirus with information for students, parents, educators and local leaders.

For additional resources from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, please visit: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/index.html

https://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-releases-webinar-fact-sheet-protecting-students-civil-rights-during-covid-19-response

Take This Quiz!

Are you a "Team Player" or a "Pain in the Ass?"

1. Do you think a $10 million dollar Department of Communications budget is not enough?
2. Have you bookmarked the "Seven Keys To College Readiness" website as one of your "favorite places?"
3. Has your principal invited you to be on a "School Improvement Team?"
4. Do you happily pay the charges for your child's textbooks, lab fees, and classroom supplies?
5. Did you buy a table at the "Champions for Children" gala?
6. Do you keep a copy of the Strategic Plan on your nightstand?
7. Did you keep silent about the decision to phase out the Secondary Learning Centers?
8. Did you ride the Union Bus to the County Council to "support the budget?"
9. Do you think that the people advocating for GT education are just a bunch of elitists or racists?
10. Do you always think every decision made by any administrator at MCPS is automatically the correct one?

**************
Count the number of "yes" answers.

0-3 "yes" answers: Sorry, you are a "Pain in the Ass." You will not be permitted to be on the School Improvement Team (S.I.P.).

4-6 "yes" answers: Team Player in Training. You can still become a "team player", and hence on the S.I.P., by donating to your school's "Educational Foundation" or showing up at a PTA meeting to pack the room to elect the principal's preferred candidate.

7-10 "yes" answers: Congratulations! You are a Team Player! You should be hearing soon about the next SIP meeting!

Martin Luther King Jr. MS and Special Education Students 2012-2014

ALERT: Parents of students who were supposed to receive Special Education Services at Martin Luther King Jr Middle School during school years 2012-2014.



This email was sent to Joshua Civin, General Counsel to the Montgomery County Board of Education and to Chris Richardson, MCPS Associate Superintendent on Friday September 30, 2016.

******************

From: Lyda Astrove [mailto:astrove@aol.com]
Sent: Friday, September 30, 2016 11:10 AM
To: joshua_i_civin@mcpsmd.org; chrisandra_richardson@mcpsmd.org
Subject: Martin Luther King Jr Middle School Special Education

Dear Josh:
I have attached a recent Maryland State Board of Education decision upholding the discharge of a special education teacher at Martin Luther King Jr Middle School.
As part of its decision, the Board attached a copy of the findings and decision from the Office of Administrative Hearings, which also had upheld the discharge. I am writing you because the findings in the ALJ's decision are so disturbing that I think MCPS owes it to the students involved to inform them that they did not receive appropriate special education services and offer them compensatory services.

Some of the findings:

1. When the new principal arrived at MLKJMS, she determined that the special education students "were not making academic progress." Page 14, ALJ opinion.

2. A general education teacher in the "co-taught" class testified that the lessons were not modified for students who needed it.

3. The special educator sometimes slept in class.

4. The general education teacher testified that the special educator was not really a co-teacher because he never led the class.

5. The IEPs were not individualized, not effective, and not flowing from the students' present levels of performance. (p. 18, ALJ opinion).

When the secondary learning centers were closed, the community was assured that the co-teaching model would be effectively implemented. As you can see, it has been years, and at least at MLKJMS, there have been students who did not get the special education services to which they were entitled. How many of these parents were notified that their child didn't have an individualized IEP? How many of these parents were told that the "co-taught" class really wasn't "co-taught" at all? How many children lost academic gains during this time because they didn't receive the proper support?

It shouldn't be the job of the parents to police the implementation of their child's IEP. And I'm sure that if any of these parents DID complain, MCPS would not have hesitated to falsely claim that the students were making "academic progress" and spend $6000 a day to prove it.

Where is the equity here? What, if anything, was done to make it right for these students?

Lyda Astrove

Books or Burritos?

Just listen to the most recent Board of Education meetings, and you'll hear lots of talk about their mission to boost student achievement. Ask to speak at a community forum, or give testimony at a regularly scheduled BOE meeting, and you'll likely be asked whether your topic directly relates to the "Strategic Plan." So everything MCPS administrators do during their workday, on employer time, and paid for by taxpayer dollars must have a direct relationship to the educational mission of Montgomery County Public Schools, right?

Help me out here. How do Burritos fit with the goal to "raise the bar and close the gap?" They must have some relationship, or we taxpayers wouldn't have bought so many of them, courtesy of the employees in the Office of the Deputy Superintendent of Schools and their American Express purchasing cards.

Baja Fresh is a chain of Mexican-themed fast food restaurants, with several outlets in Montgomery County. The restaurant has a menu featuring burritos, tacos, and salads. Luckily for those underfed administrators, Baja Fresh offers dine-in, carry-out, and "Party Packs." Why hassle telling people to bring their own brown bag lunch for a daytime get-together when you can have the taxpayers buy you a "Fiesta in a Box:" maybe a Burrito Party Pack for $39.95 or a "make your own fajita" kit for $54.95! They'll even make it easy for you: Major Credit Cards Accepted!

1/11/07 Executive Leadership Team $219.30
1/17/07 Secondary Learning Centers $152.12
2/21/07 Churchill Work Group $187.94
3/21/07 Dep. Leadership Team $173.25
6/26/07 MK's goodbye $107.65
6/28/07 Executive Leadership Team $197.94
7/16/07 DMAAC $152.80

So, it remains to be seen whether the dollars spent on Baja Fresh meals have increased achievement. On thing is for sure, those Baja Fresh meals definately have the potential to boost waistlines. According to the website, one "Chicken Baja Burrito" has 790 calories and a staggering 38 grams of fat!

At this point, I'm sure you're wondering, "But what if the folks at 850 Hungerford don't LIKE Italian or Mexican food? Don't they ever have meetings with just coffee and donuts, or cheese and cracker? And what do they do about Birthday Parties?"

Tune in tomorrow for "Giant Food: It's not just a grocery store, it's a Supplier!"

"One-Size-Fits-Nobody"

Testimony given February 23, 2009 to MCPS Board of Education by Eric Marx, Co-President of Gifted & Talented Association of Montgomery County, MD

Good evening.

As Co-President of the Gifted and Talented Association of Montgomery County, I strongly urge you to include in the Committee on Special Populations' work plan a serious review of MCPS' failure to meet the educational needs of gifted and talented and high-achieving students.

Second, I also implore you to postpone the Policy Committee's consideration of Policy IOA until that review has been completed.

It's been more that two years since the Board received the DSAC Report on Gifted and Talented Education -- two years without the Board even publicly addressing the report.

It's been almost a year since the Committee on Special Populations was given a mandate to address GT education -- almost a year without any action.

Many parents say that MCPS is currently gutting GT education -- that's not quite true. Outside of math, in most schools, there is virtually no GT education left to gut. Particularly in elementary and middle schools, the norm long ago became "one-size-fits-nobody."

Instead, MCPS is just attempting to gut the GT POLICY -- ironically, for no reason -- it has ignored the policy since it was adopted. Even under the current policy, MCPS has been more than able to make sure that, in most schools, "no child gets ahead."

In addition to being highly divisive, MCPS' plan to gut the GT Policy would be a repeat of the travesty of the secondary learning centers' closings -- again based only on MCPS' disingenuous promises to provide instructional services that never quite happen -- here as well, there will continue to be no real differentiation in local schools, and no appropriate curricula and training, and real students will really suffer.

This time, please study first and act second, instead of the other way round.

Thank you.

Is inclusion failing in schools?

http://www.spectrumk12.com/blog/is_inclusion_failing_in_schools/

See what Spectrum K-12 said about special education in MCPS in April of 2009, in regards to the report on the closure of the Secondary Learning Centers. The follow quote and the link above is to the spectrum k-12 blog.

"The audit also showed that only about 25% of the teachers were actually providing differentiated instruction to the inclusion students. And a mandatory training for teachers that would be working with these inclusion students was only attended by about 50% of the staff. These numbers are more alarming to me."

Do you think maybe this had something to do with why MCPS dropped their Encore product? Or was it just, as MCPS says, the product didn't do what it was supposed to do?

Pesky Policy on Public Budget Process? Just Delete it.

On Tuesday, March 10th words were exchanged between Superintendent Weast and members of the Board of Education. This March 10th exchange is the aftermath of an August 29, 2007, decision of the Maryland State Board of Education that found that the Montgomery County Board of Education had violated their Policy DBA - Budget Preparation and Procedures.

In that decision, the State Board wrote:

Having found a violation of DBA, we look to the consequences of that action...
...While we recognize that the local board's violation of its own policy did not rise to a level of prejudice that would warrant this Board overturning the local board's decision, the local board's actions here in no way meet the spirit or intent of DBA. DBA's existence is rooted in concepts of full disclosure and opportunity for meaningful participation by the public. The compression of time that occurred in this instance is precisely what the DBA was intended to protect against. Although there was opportunity for public comment on the phasing out of the SLCs (Secondary Learning Centers), that compression of time resulted in a diminishment of the opportunity to comment, albeit insufficient to prejudice the Appellants. We believe that the local board should have respected the time frames established by the DBA, especially where the underlying matters at issue are of such a serious nature. We caution the local board to respect the procedural safeguards it has established to avoid future challenges of this nature. (emphasis added)

In response to this decision from the Maryland State Board of Education, the MCPS Board of Education has moved to rescind Policy DBA. No one need worry about any future violations of this Policy, as it is being eliminated.

On March 10, 2009, Board of Education members attempted to preserve some of the procedural safeguards of Policy DBA by moving them to another Policy, but Superintendent Weast advised them not to put procedural safeguards in any Policy, as "this will do damage to children".

The MCPS Board of Education will meet on April 14, 2009, to decide the fate of these "procedural safeguards".

UPDATE: May 12, 2009 - Policy DBA DELETED by unanimous Board action.

Breaking News: Monocacy Parents Save School

This evening, a unanimous MCPS Board of Education rejected Superintendent Jerry Weast's sudden announcement to close Monocacy Elementary School.

Superintendent Weast's recommendation to close the school had been based on surprise enrollment data and a timeline that would have closed the school by next summer.

Board members rejected Superintendent Weast's proposal based on its violation of MCPS' Core Values and its failure to follow the Baldridge process for community involvement.  The proposal was seen as "disrespectful" to the community and creating an "awkward" situation for Board members. 

Board member Berthiaume made the point that long term decisions should not be made in order to support short term operating budget savings.

Board member Barclay said that these types of decisions "erode the trust the community has in us" and alluded to the surprise announcement made a few years ago to close programs. (That would have been Weast's surprise announcement to close the Secondary Learning Centers and the Kingsley Wilderness Center.)

UPDATE:  Video - Barclay: "I see a train wreck"

Bd of Ed: Do we have your attention now?

Article online today on the Washington Post website, about MCPS and PGCPS:

Neither Montgomery nor Prince George's county made Adequate Yearly Progress.

Quoting from the article:

"Montgomery officials were calmer, given that they won't face sanctions unless they turn in a similar performance next year. The county fell short because its elementary, middle and high school special education students failed to meet benchmarks; three other categories of middle school students also failed to meet targets.

"Special education continues to be an area we monitor closely," said Brian Edwards, chief of staff for Montgomery Superintendent Jerry D. Weast. "We made progress on the special education front, but not enough to make AYP. We'll continue to focus on that, and devise the strategies we need to devise to get where we need to be." "

**********************

Memo to "Montgomery Officials:"

1. Instead of "monitoring" special education, how about working to improve what has been destroyed over the past several years: the LAD program, the secondary learning centers, the speech/language classes, etc?

2. Parents told you so.

3. Remember last week's article about Montgomery's graduation rate being the lowest it has been in ten years? Enough with the traveling to conferences all over the country touting how you claim you've closed the gap. Gap hasn't closed. Sure, MPCS has more kindergartners reading than it did before...but is that the measure of a successful school system? Even my son with a severe disability could read at kindergarten level in kindergarten. The proof of success is getting these kids to graduation. Stop tearing down the supports that special education students need to get to graduation!

Gazette letter: Tech savvy superintendent neglects assistive tech

In the March 11 issue of The Gazette, parent Kathleen Gilhooly of Bethesda writes:

Schools Superintendent Jerry Weast's biography touts his award for "tech savvy superintendent." But the tech savvy superintendent fails to see that students with disabilities have access to assistive technology, as demonstrated both by my child's experience in public schools honors classes, and by the February report evaluating the phase out of school system's secondary learning centers that provide special education services to students with disabilities.

For the entire article, click here.