A: Three Thousand Dollars a Day

Q: What were the special education outside counsel legal fees for the month of November, 2009?

Actually, it was a little more than three thousand dollars a day for the month of November, 2009. The grand total for November was $94,082. Click HERE to read the Jerry Weast memo to the Board of Education detailing these expenditures.

And why did Montgomery County Public Schools spend over three thousand dollars a day during the month of November, 2009? Did they spend three thousand dollars a day to improve instruction? Did they spend three thousand dollars a day to provide specialized tutoring for students who can't read? These cases must have been really, really important to public education in Montgomery County for our Board of Education to spend over three thousand dollars a day. Important enough that the year-to-date outside counsel legal expenditures are 27% over the budgeted amount. Important enough that MCPS couldn't use its own in-house legal staff.

To read a sampling of some Montgomery County administrative hearing decisions, click HERE.

Year to date (November 2009),they've spent $306,000 fighting families.