.@MCPS Letter: Extended School Year (ESY) FAILURE. No teachers for students with special education needs. What are over 400 ADMINISTRATORS doing this summer?? Put 'em in classrooms!

What are MCPS' over 400 educational specialist administrators and managers doing this summer? It's time to call them back into the classroom. 

Parents and guardians with children needing special education classes this summer have suddenly received the letter shown below.  Families were given approximately 10 days notice that their child would not be in school this summer and that THE FAMILIES had to quickly find someone to sit with their child each school day for virtual, at home instruction.  

Who is in charge of this failure?  Gwendolyn Mason, brought back from the Superintendent Jerry Weast years in MCPS.  Superintendent Monifa McKnight has been bringing back a lot of administrators from the years of Superintendent Jerry Weast.  Monifa McKnight is a Jerry Weast reboot.  

The failure to plan for students needing special education services over the summer is, therefore, no surprise but a return to the MCPS attitude that students with special education services don't deserve services at all. Superintendent Jerry Weast took a family with a student with special education needs all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 to make his case. 

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June 29, 2022

Dear Parents/Guardians:

On Friday, June XX, 2022, the Office of Special Education (OSE) invited you to a meeting to discuss Extended School Year (ESY) services for your child beginning, July 5, 2022. The purpose of the meeting was to share some very urgent and important information regarding the impact of the special education teacher shortage on delivering in-person ESY services in Summer 2022.

Due to the significant teacher shortage, Montgomery County Public Schools (MCPS) OSE has been unable to hire special education teachers to serve a select group of ESY eligible students in-person. Also, MCPS offered incentive pay to special education teachers in an effort to encourage and attract teachers to work in the ESY program this summer. Unfortunately, not enough teachers indicated an interest in the opportunity.

As a result, MCPS will provide virtual ESY services for your child. To support your child during virtual instruction, MCPS will pay a person that you identify $19 per hour. This person may be a parent/guardian, relative or childcare provider. The person will be paid for working 4 hours daily, with the exception of July 19, 2022, when schools are closed. In order to pay your selected person, please complete the ESY survey by July 5, 2022.

Your child will be attending the morning ESY session that will be held from 1:30 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. You will be sent a link that will enable you to access virtual ESY services at the time referenced in this letter. If there are any concerns about your child’s session or the ESY Provider Survey, please contact Anna_E_Szilagyi-Weichbrod@mcpsmd.org.

You are invited to pick up your child’s Chromebook from their school of enrollment during the 2021–2022 school year from 9:00 a.m. through 2:00 p.m. on Thursday, June 30, 2022, or Friday, July 1, 2022. Chromebooks are expected to be returned to the school from which it was picked up from 9:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. on Monday, August 1, 2022.

Please contact me at Gwendoyn_J_Mason@mcpsmd.org if you have any questions.

Sincerely,


Gwendolyn J. Mason, Ed.D.
Acting Associate Superintendent