Virgin Group invests in Auticon to help employ more adults with autism in the UK

London, 20 October 2016 – Following Auticon’s recent launch in the UK, Auticon Group CEO Kurt Schöffer is delighted to announce Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Group and UK charity Esmée Fairbairn Foundation as new investors in Auticon.
The investment will help enable Auticon, which exclusively hires IT consultants on the autism spectrum, to accelerate its growth in the UK IT market. Originally founded in Germany in 2011, Auticon only launched its UK office in spring 2016, and is already working with UK companies on IT projects with its newly recruited consultants.
The investment by Sir Richard Branson and Virgin Group also offers Auticon a chance to promote social change in attitudes towards autism and employment. Auticon was founded on the knowledge that autistic adults often have extraordinary cognitive abilities, yet many find it difficult to secure or maintain mainstream employment...

http://auticon.co.uk/blog/virgin/

STOP Proposed Changes to Maryland's Community Pathways Waiver!

The Developmental Disabilities Administration (DDA) has proposed changes to the Community Pathways waiver which limit options and flexibility of services provided to our most vulnerable population, resulting in potential loss of existing programs and services.

(1) Eliminate access for disabled children under age 21 to critical disability services;
(2) Prevent individuals who receive day habilitation from opportunities to work or receive job training;
(3) Prevent individuals in Community Development services to receive sustained therapeutic activities, instructional classes, or job skills in ANY facility operated by a service provider;
(4) Limit essential behavioral support services for severely impacted persons with disabilities to an insufficient few hours per year, as a stand-alone service requiring a separate license; and
(5) Impose complex and burdensome billing procedures increasing the risk of errors and repayment claims.

A dedicated group of parents in the County provided DDA with specific recommendations and suggestions for the draft amendment #2, as solicited by DDA itself. These parents have reached out to DDA in person and in writing. However, to date no recommendations have been accepted by DDA. As currently proposed, amendment #2 will mean a more restricted day, with less choice of activities each day, for persons with disabilities in Maryland.

We are asking that DDA modify the draft amendment #2 to ensure:

(a) Services for children under 21 through the Community Pathways waiver to continue.
(b) A model of Adult Day services which allows people to choose a mix of varying hours of paid and/or volunteer work; therapeutic and/or instructional classes; and recreation, fitness, and social activities in locations of their choice.
(c) Funding for Adult Day services sufficient to provide enough staff support, transportation, activity expenses and facility costs.
(d) Critical behavioral supports to be integrated with other services, provided by service providers, and adequate to meet the urgent needs of people with intensive challenging behaviors.
(e) Documentation and billing procedures designed to ensure accuracy and efficiency (i.e., daily billing for a single service category).

The current DDA-proposed amendment #2 DOES NOT accomplish these objectives. The DDA needs to address the deficiencies in their draft; listen to the public comments which DDA itself solicited; and modify their proposal to better serve our most vulnerable Marylanders. Persons with developmental disabilities deserve to move forward not backwards.

Please CLICK HERE TO SIGN THE PETITION, which will be delivered to:
Bernard A. Simons
Maryland Developmental Disabilities Administration

College Board faces rocky path after CEO pushes new vision for SAT

David Coleman spearheaded a sweeping redesign of America's oldest college entrance exam. His plan to act fast – and tie the test to the controversial Common Core - stirred up internal resistance and created new problems.

NEW YORK - Shortly after taking over the College Board in 2012, new CEO David Coleman circulated an internal memo laying out what he called a “beautiful vision.”
It was his 7,800-word plan for transforming the organization’s signature product, the SAT college entrance exam. The path Coleman laid out was detailed, bold and idealistic - a reflection of his personality, say those who know him.
Literary passages for the new SAT should be “memorable and often beautiful,” he wrote, and students should be able to take the test by computer.
Finishing the redesign quickly was essential. If the overhaul were ready by March 2015, he wrote in a later email to senior employees, then the New York-based College Board could win new business and counter the most popular college entrance exam in America, the ACT.
Perhaps the biggest change was the new test’s focus on the Common Core, the controversial set of learning standards that Coleman himself helped create. The new SAT, he wrote, would “show a striking alignment” to the standards, which set expectations for what American students from kindergarten through high school should learn to prepare for college or a career. The standards have been fully adopted by 42 states and the District of Columbia - and are changing how and what millions of children are taught...

http://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/college-sat-coleman/

New federal class-action suit claims FieldTurf stonewalled N.J. customer #MDLovesDefectivePlasticGrass

The drumbeat of legal action against the nation's leading maker of artificial sports fields intensified this week when a national class-action lawsuit landed in New Jersey.
The suit, filed on behalf of Carteret, claims FieldTurf sold the borough fields that failed to meet exaggerated promises and then stonewalled officials' complaints until warranties expired.
The allegations made by Carteret directly refute FieldTurf's assertions that premature deterioration with a brand of high-end turf known as Duraspine had not affected New Jersey customers.
The national complaint was filed late Wednesday in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, 10 days after NJ Advance Media published an investigation revealing FieldTurf sold Duraspine for years after executives knew it was falling apart. Last week, the Newark school system filed the first class-action lawsuit against the company in state Superior Court in Essex County, and state authorities in New Jersey and New York also began examining the business practices of the company...

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/12/nj_borough_files_federal_class-action_suit_against.html

State Delegate Wants To Require Lessons about Affirmative Consent in County Classrooms

State Delegate Wants To Require Lessons about Affirmative Consent in County Classrooms: Kelly is offering legislation to expand curriculum for sex education classes

2 US Senators call for FTC to Hold FieldTurf Accountable #notMD #notMikulski #notCardin #notFrosh

Booker, Menendez say FTC must hold top U.S. turf company accountable
In a letter sent Sunday to the Federal Trade Commission’s chairwoman, and obtained by NJ Advance Media, Sens. Cory Booker and Robert Menendez (both D-New Jersey) said the government must be "vigilant against deception and misuse of taxpayer dollars."
Read the letter and their call for action on NJ.com.

MCPS Superintendent wants $62.4 million Increase in MCPS Operating Budget

MCPS Superintendent Advances .5 Billion Budget Aimed at Racial, Economic Disparities: Smith says he’s looking to move more students to a ‘high level of learning’

Proposed School Calendar Would Shorten Spring Break if Snows Force Class Cancellations

Proposed School Calendar Would Shorten Spring Break if Snows Force Class Cancellations: Superintendent Jack Smith to present his drafted schedule to school board Tuesday

Should Ice Cream be Available 5 Days a Week in MCPS Elementary Schools?

A parent had not realized that MCPS allows ice cream to be served daily in the lunchroom.  The parent set up an online poll on this topic. 

How many days/week do you think it's appropriate for RCES to serve ice cream to the kids at lunch?  Click link below to vote.  Thank you!

https://fans.vote/vote/ACnkNKPeCl4/rces-capacity-discussion/how-many-days-week-do-you-think-it-s-appropriate-for-rces-to-serve-icecream-to-the-kids-at-lunch 

#MCPS Legal Fees Continue to Balloon Out of Control

Remember when Montgomery County Public Schools hired a General Counsel? Taxpayers obviously assumed that the new General Counsel would take over some of the legal work in-house, promoting cost efficiencies. Special education advocates were hopeful that a new era of focusing on what is best for special education students and their families would begin, and that the money bleeding out to pay for outside special education counsel could instead be spent on actual special education services for children.

Nope.

Non-special Education Legal Expenses

The total charges for non-special education legal expenses in September 2016 were $152,305.
The year-to-date total of $465,675 is $164,776 (54.8 percent) more than the same period
in the previous year. The non-Capital Improvements Program year-to-date portion totals
$441,947. This is $219,097 (98.3 percent) more than the same period in the previous year.

Special Education Legal Expenses

Special education legal fees for outside counsel for September 2016 totaled $2,980, all of which
were for Jeffery A. Krew. The year-to-date total of $33,698 is $6,608 (24.4 percent) more than
the same period in the previous year.

Assault at Whitman HS

Robert Dyer @ Bethesda Row: Assault at Whitman HS, cars stolen from Taylor St....: Here's a roundup of crimes reported across Bethesda on December 8, according to crime data: Drug arrest. Old Georgetown Road at Wood...

Wed 12/14: Superintendent Jack Smith to Speak at Taxpayers' League

Meeting Notice       

www.mctaxpayersleague.org

                         Wednesday, December 14, 2016
   6:00 - 7:30 pm
             1st Floor Meeting Room

         Rockville Public Library

21 Maryland Avenue

Rockville, MD 20850

        PLEASE NOTE NEW TIME AND VENUE

             Free and open to the public

                                                                       

Topic:   " The FY 2018 Proposed Budget for the Montgomery County Public Schools"

Speaker:  Dr. Jack Smith, Superintendent, Montgomery County Public Schools

The following questions have been sent to Dr. Smith in advance of the meeting

1.  What are the costs related to the top three academic strategies - Achievement Gap, 21st Century Education and Special Education for FY 2018.  What percentage of increased spending is for these 3 strategies? 

2.  Data from prior superintendents and reports by the Council's Office of Legislative Oversight (OLO) show that MCPS has expended an additional $2,000 per student annually in "targeted" elementary schools to reduce class size and provide supports to low-income learners.  However the achievement gap by student race, ethnicity and income continues to persist and has widened on several measures of college readiness, such as SAT and ACT performance.   How many schools did not meet district-wide performance targets?  Have you set improvement goals for these schools for FY 2018?  As you have highlighted narrowing the achievement gap as a major goal, would you consider sponsoring an independent review by outside specialists of gap closing strategies to determine which approaches are cost-effective - with a report to the public?

3.  Will you consider charter schools as a means of closing the achievement gap?  A review of Baltimore schools in Freddy Gray’s Sandtown neighborhood showed a charter school (Empowerment Academy) not only out-performed his public school (New Song), but out-performed two elementary (Greencastle and Strathmore) and two middle schools with high FARMS rates in Montgomery County - Benjamin Bannecker and Argyle. (see 5/18/15 study posted on MCTL web site).

4.  Will you use Department of Education standards to decide if there is reasonable evidence to deploy a program countywide.  For instance have the Choice Program and the Middle School Magnet Consortium met their performance goals?  If yes, will they be expanded? Will you reprogram funds if goals for these and other programs are are not reached? 

5.  Are performance target improvements planned for special education students in FY 2018 separate from the at risk population at large? How do the marginal costs to achieve these improvements compare to the marginal costs for at risk students in the general student population for the same measures?

6.   Given that the mandated Maintenance of Effort law may not be able to cover both the program needs of our school children and the salaries and benefits of staff which account for 90 percent of the MCPS budget, will you rein in labor contracts so that teacher's salaries and benefits match more reasonably with their counterparts in Howard and Fairfax counties?

7.  How does your FY 2018 budget manage non-instruction overhead ?  Have you considered benchmarking this against other school systems?  For example, the overhead rate at large school districts in California average 32%.  For MCPS it was 45%  in FY 2017.  Lowering this overhead could result in the hiring of thousands more teachers to lower class size and narrow the achievement gap.  Will you use the expertise of the business community to advise on administrative costs?  Will you consider consolidating administrative functions with those of the Montgomery County government.

8.   Language immersion programs are very popular and wildly over-subscribed.  To open the program to a larger school audience, have you considered innovative solutions such as partnering with universities that provide video classroom learning in a wide range of languages.

MCPS high school teacher convicted of ‘up-skirting’ student

BETHESDA — A former Montgomery County teacher has been convicted of sex abuse charges after taking pictures up a student’s skirt with his cellphone.
The Washington Post reports a judge on Tuesday found 38-year-old Todd Michael Scriber of Gaithersburg guilty of two counts of sex abuse of a minor.
Scriber was arrested after a 14-year-old student told investigators that while she was staying after school Oct. 2 to retake a test, she noticed Scriber point a phone under her skirt and take a picture.
Detectives also found several photos of other students on Scriber’s phone that authorities said he had taken without their permission...

http://thedailyrecord.com/2016/12/09/maryland-montgomery-county-upskirt-scriber/

Newark Schools Files Class Action Against FieldTurf #notMaryland #notFrosh

The Newark school system has filed a class-action lawsuit against the nation's leading maker of artificial sports fields, FieldTurf, alleging the company defrauded more than 100 public and private schools and municipalities in the state.
The complaint, filed late Wednesday in state Superior Court in Essex County, capped two days of fast-moving developments following an NJ Advance Media investigation that revealed the company sold high-end turf for years after executives knew it was falling apart.
Lance Kalik -- an attorney with the law firm Riker Danzig, which is representing the schools -- said the news organization's investigation "contained allegations and facts that are quite disturbing."
"If true, it means that many public bodies, not just the state-operated district, but others as well, as well as some private schools, have been sold a product that was based on potentially false and misleading marketing and sales practices," Kalik said....

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2016/12/newark_schools_file_class-action_lawsuit_against_f.html#incart_river_home

Former B-CC High School Teacher Convicted of Two Counts of Child Sex Abuse

Former B-CC High School Teacher Convicted of Two Counts of Child Sex Abuse: Teacher took surreptitious photos of his students

WJLA: MCPS math teacher/coach accused of buying bottles of liquor for female student

MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (ABC7) – An MCPS teacher is facing criminal charges on accusations of buying whiskey and other types of hard liquor for a female student at Albert Einstein High School in Kensington.
Blaise Delizo, 26, of the 700 block of Landis Way in Rockville, is currently facing charges of furnishing alcohol to someone under the age of 21 and contributing to the condition of a child.
According to Montgomery County District Court paperwork, Delizo exchanged personal cell phone numbers with the 17-year-old high school senior who he’d taught during her junior year. On Friday, November 4, Delizo is said to have offered to purchase bottles of booze for the underage girl. The girl replied via text message, saying Jack Daniel’s Tennessee Honey Whiskey and Hennessy Cognac were her favorite liquors


http://wjla.com/news/local/mcps-math-teacher-accused-of-buying-bottles-of-liquor-for-female-student

10 FieldTurf fields at high schools across Georgia failed. Georgia, athletic directors and coaches saw something strange going on with their FieldTurf artificial football fields.

ATLANTA - All across Georgia, athletic directors and coaches saw something strange going on with their FieldTurf artificial football fields.

“It would be like you walked through freshly mowed lawns. You’d have fibers all over you shoes,” says Carrollton High School Athletic Director David Brooks.



http://www.fox5atlanta.com/news/i-team/218016511-story

Letter: Don’t let children take cellphones to school

I am outraged that Montgomery County Public Schools is even considering changing its cellphone policy to allow elementary school children to carry them to school and use them on the bus. Young students can’t bring stuffed animals or Pokémon trading cards, but they can bring cellphones, some worth hundreds of dollars?

I don’t think the superintendent understands the reality of children bringing phones to school. Middle school students are watching pornography on their phones. Children are cyberbullying each other via text. And some children have an application installed on their phones to get around a school’s “secure” server. The school board should do its homework.

How would allowing elementary school children to bring cellphones to school lower costs, close the achievement gap or help kids focus? The teachers would have one more distraction to deal with. Who asked for this?

I want proof that this is a good idea before it is implemented.
I have been serving my school as a PTA member, board member and volunteer for years. I am discouraged that MCPS does not get the message that devices at school are a social and potential health problem, not to mention a privilege that not all can afford.
I urge MCPS leadership to include parents in decisions that so plainly involve us.

Lisa Cline, Gaithersburg

 https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/dont-let-children-take-cellphones-to-school/2016/12/01/9b35e31e-b73d-11e6-939c-91749443c5e5_story.html?utm_term=.c433c6c0a0c3

Fairfax Parents STOP Cell Tower from being built on Elementary School Playground!

https://www.restonnow.com/2016/11/29/companies-seek-new-crossfield-school-spot-for-cell-phone-tower/

Board of Education REVERSES Ban on cell Towers at Elementary Schools #tricked #vendors1st

Daly Elementary School playground (Red Zone/Title 1)

Remember back in 2012, when the Board of Education instituted a ban on cell towers on elementary school playgrounds? Well, it is 2016, and that ban is over.

Our "new" Board of Education is in place and the "old" Board of Education practices are back in use.

Tomorrow, the Agenda for the Montgomery County Tower Committee shows that the Board of Education is going to permit a LARGER cell tower to be built on to the Daly Elementary School cell tower.

You remember the Daly cell tower? That's the one the PTA and neighbors OPPOSED, but the Board of Education built anyway.

Get ready MCPS elementary schools! This opens up ALL elementary school playgrounds to new cell towers! The 2012 ban on cell towers is gone. Read: MCPS Bans Cell Towers at Elementary Schools: Parents' Coalition of Montgomery County, Maryland