Montgomery County Mother Cries Foul When Police Called on 10-Year-Old Son Playing With Toy Money

U.S. Education Department investigates Laramie Co. schools

CHEYENNE — Laramie County's largest school district is still being investigated by the U.S. Department of Education a little less than two years after a student filed a complaint accusing the district of discrimination against African-American and disabled students.

In a letter addressed to former LCSD1 Superintendent John Lyttle and dated Dec. 7, 2017, department officials wrote the parties had reached a settlement and would close investigations into whether the district discriminated against the student for his disability and on the basis of sex and race.

But the department is still exploring whether the district "systemically" discriminates against African-American and disabled students, according to the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights' website...

https://www.gillettenewsrecord.com/news/wyoming/article_d83358b4-e621-5969-bec2-7a4fa1aec233.html?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=user-share

Publc School Arrests 10 year old with Autism for Acting Out. Child handcuffed, spends night in detention. #publicschool failure

A Florida mother filmed the arrest of her 10-year-old son as school resource deputies handcuffed him and took him away.
The boy, who has autism, is accused of battery of a school employee in Okeechobee County because he kicked a teacher last November. The offense is a third-degree felony.
His mother Luanne Haygood said her son shouldn’t have been arrested for the incident.
“It was because of his autism that spurred this incident,” Haygood told WPTV. “And he was arrested for that.”
In the video, which Haygood recorded on her cell phone, her son John Benji Haygood is heard as officers place handcuffs on his wrists.
“I don’t want to be touched. Please don’t touch me,” the boy says in the video. “I don’t know what’s going on.”
Not wanting to be touched can be a symptom of autism, according to Autism Speaks.
Haygood said watching her son be cuffed and put in a law enforcement vehicle “broke her heart.” She said the 10-year-old boy then spent the night at a juvenile facility in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Although the incident took place last year, deputies said they couldn’t serve the arrest paperwork until last week.

http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article145281069.html

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article145281069.html#storylink=cpy

 and first court appearance

http://www.wpbf.com/article/child-with-autism-arrested-in-okeechobee/9269563

Must Have 2.0 GPA and Write 3 Essays to Volunteer to Sort School Supplies #discrimination #exclusion #elitist

MCPS Drive for Supplies Corps Application 2015-2016

Application Due: Wednesday, June 3, at 4:00 PMOrientation: Monday, June 8, 6:00-8:00 PM, CESC auditorium
Set-Up: Wednesday, July 8, and Thursday, July 9, 10:00 AM-2:00 PM, Richard Montgomery cafeteria
Press Conference and Distribution: Monday, July 13, 12:00-5:00 PM, Richard Montgomery cafeteria
Clean-Up: Tuesday, July 14, 10:00 AM-3:00 PM, Richard Montgomery cafeteria

Name:

School:

Email:

Phone Number:

Current Grade:

• 11th
• 10th
• 9th
• 8th
• 7th
• 6th
• 5th

Why are you applying to be part of the Drive for Supplies Corps? (200 words or less)

What are three things students can do to improve the environment and encourage recycling? (200 words or less)

How would participating in the Drive for Supplies Corps help you develop your leadership skills? How will you take what you learn back to your school? (200 words or less)

I confirm that I am in compliance with MCPS Policy IQD: Academic Eligibility for Extracurricular Activities. This policy requires students involved in extracurricular activities to have and maintain a 2.0 GPA with no more than one E.

• Yes
• No

MCPS discourages volunteering as public school sports managers by singling them out for severe limitation on SSL hours.

From MCPS SSL Fact Page

 by David Wilkerson

The Montgomery County Service Learning organization has singled out public school sports managers to limit the earned SSL [Student Service Learing] hours to a small fraction of the actual hours worked. No other SSL activities are limited (including other school related activities) and in fact one of the basic requirements of all SSL activities is that Students receive one SSL hour for every hour of service outside of the instructional day. 

Earning SSL hours beyond the graduation requirement doesn’t provide tangible benefits to the student. But the SSL hours are a token of recognition like the gold stars teachers gave in kindergarten. These have no value and cost the school system nothing, but they are used to encourage volunteerism. In this case, they seem to be discouraging volunteers by telling them they don’t deserve the gold stars other people get. They have taken something that is free (SSL hours – gold stars) and decided not to spend it on these sports managers for some unspoken reason which seems on the surface to be a crusade against public school sports. 

This limit doesn’t affect the ability to earn enough SSL hours for graduation, but instead serves no other purpose than to denigrate this volunteer activity. These administrators have gone to an effort to make this distinction but after several months of emails and calls, they are unwilling to explain the true reason for this decision. The only reasons given were complete nonsense. Mrs. Block-Rincan said that it was because they determined 30 hours was enough to meet the graduation requirement (which is of course true of all SSL activities but only applied here). Mrs. Smith told me it was because the managers enjoyed this job – which of course is also hopefully true of all volunteer activities. Mr. Warner scheduled a meeting with me but postponed it numerous times and then cancelled it.  

This SSL organization is part of the Office of Community Engagement and Partnerships – specifically Timothy B. Warner MCPS Chief Engagement and Partnership Officer (301-279-3074, Timothy_B_Warner@mcpsmd.org ), Mrs. Kimberly Block –Rincan Coordinator, student service learning and volunteer programming (301 279 3454, Kimberly_A_Bloch-Rincan@mcpsmd.org ), and Mrs. Cheryl Smith Director, Family and Community Engagement (301 279 3100 Cheryl_l_smith@mcpsmd.org). 

In the SSL brochure issued by the Montgomery County board of education Joshua P. Starr, Ed.D. (The superintendent of schools 301-279-3383, Joshua_Starr@mcpsmd.org) states that “SSL is an opportunity to strengthen character, develop responsibility, learn new skills, explore careers, and develop avenues for civic engagement.” Being a sports manager for a public school team meets ALL of the MCPS documented requirements for earning SSL hours, and frankly I can’t think of any volunteer activity that can do the things mentioned by Mr. Starr better...

...These infections are a huge issue and it requires diligent process and substantial effort to keep the mats and equipment clean. Our managers clean the mats before and after practice every day. If not for the managers doing this job, the schools would need to hire professionals to keep the mats clean using real dollars instead of free SSL hours...

...Personal bias against public school sports cannot be used to drive public policy and to make decisions like this that single out a class of (mostly girl) students doing a valuable volunteer function. Decisions need to be transparent, and must be based on objective criteria. 

full article at this link

MCPS Student with Learning Disabilities Excluded from School Dance .@mcpssuper Please Explain!

Students who earned straight A’s at Eastern Middle School in Silver Spring have been invited to a school dance Tuesday, a celebration that starts during the final period of the school day and includes a DJ, free pizza and a game room.
Students with B’s and C’s may join in later, when classes are over and pizza is no longer served. Students with lower grades are not invited at all.

Eastern’s “Academic Achieve­ment Celebration” is not an entirely new idea in education: Schools commonly reward student success. But the idea of a middle-school party that sets students apart by letter grades — leaving out 306 of the school’s 865 students, or 35 percent of the student body — has raised questions at Eastern and beyond...

...“The students that don’t get to go end up feeling bad,” said parent Karen Hanlon, whose daughter has learning disabilities and was not invited to the party. Hanlon said the dance “separates the students into groups” in a school already divided between a highly competitive magnet program and the students who come from the immediate neighborhood...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/top-grades-open-the-door-to-school-dance-in-montgomery/2014/02/03/3bb75640-89df-11e3-916e-e01534b1e132_story.html