Concern about Evaluations At The Last School Board Meeting

How many of you know that an OCR complaint was filed several years ago that resulted in OCR finding that HCPS's "evaluation list" was a violation?

I haven't found a link to that specific complaint, but I am sure your local Compliance officer should know about it.

Articulation Agreements - Who Knew?

I missed the first part of the last HCPS Board meeting, but thanks to advanced technology, I had the opportunity to watch it from the beginning.

Starting around 13:00 minutes into the meeting, agenda item 1.04 was brought up. Through the ensuing discussion, the general director of education was asked if HCPS had a partnership with Hillsborough Community College, and she said "No, we do not."

Interestingly, someone in the back of the room was indicating that indeed HCPS did have a partnership with HCC. This person was identified as Andrea Beverly. She went on to explain that there was an articulation agreement with HCPS and HCC for occupational and physical therapy.

What seemed more interesting was when the general director of ESE stated that in the last three years of being in her position, there had not been any interns from HCC.

Since we should all be aware of the recent state complaint here:

Motel Special Ed: Old news is still bad news, but how many know it?

findings of how the HCPS failed to provide the contracted services for OT and PT on numerous IEP's, it would seem that this type of information should not be overlooked.

Am I missing something too?

The Groupthink Bully At Helm Of School Board

The Groupthink Bully At Helm Of School Board


Sounds like an IEP meeting where the parent is trying to advocate for their child.

Grady has a new boundless playground - St. Petersburg Times

Grady has a new boundless playground - St. Petersburg Times

""They would watch, they would laugh, they would talk across," said school principal Melanie Bottini, "but they couldn't play alongside."

I am sure that the decision makers of our professional education system understand the difference between parallel play and cooperative play.


Parallel Play
Parallel play (or parallel activity) is a term that was introduced by Mildred Parten in 1932 to refer to a developmental stage of social activity in which children play with toys like those the children around them are using but are absorbed in their own activity and usually play beside rather than with one another. Children in this stage may comment on what they are doing or imitate what another child does, but they rarely cooperate in a task or engage in dramatic play or formal games with others. This stage occurs after solitary and onlooker play and before associated and cooperative play when children engage in more complex social interactions. Preschool children of all ages engage in parallel play, particularly when using sand, water, blocks, and art materials; this type of play appears to serve as a bridge to more complex cooperative activities.


Cooperative play:

......"In the second year of life, human infants become true social partners with one another for the first time. Between 18 and 24 months of age, children begin to engage in unique, nonritualized, cooperative interactions with peers (agemates), and this development appears to be universal (Brownell & Carriger 1990; Eckerman et al. 1989; Eckerman & Whitehead 1999). Thenceforth, peer play and interaction become progressively more central as a context for socialization. It can be argued, in fact, that children’s peer play enables and drives enculturation as much as does adult-child interaction (Tomasello et al. 1993)."

Found here


We should be thankful for the tireless efforts of the few who are professional educators, even when the ones with the most effort are parents.

"......Grady, however, is the first school in Hillsborough County to have a "boundless" playground.

Both projects were initiated by Stefani Busansky, whose first child, Sarah, was diagnosed with cerebral palsy in 2001....."

School Systems Full of Sheet(s)?

I am going to make a broad brush attack, so get up your defenses about isolated incidents and unreasonable parental expectations. The fact is, as a parent, I have been there, done that and know the truth. I was lied to so many times over a 20+ year period, I know the truth. I have no respect for those who initiate the lies and it is difficult for me to have respect for those who knowingly present these lies to the parents.

It's not just me. It may be, as my bio suggests, that I am one of the few who have fought back.
For those of you who want to know the truth, read with intent what this person wrote about ""the system". While those people who are not on the front line think they are clever in how they parse the words of the law and obfuscate the meaning of the words parents use to try to help their kids, those people are making the system the sham that it is.

They say humor is the best medicine. Here is a dose of it:

School Supply Lists For Kids With Special Needs Can Be Full of Sheets by Lori Miller Fox

It’s that time of year again. Back to school. When parents all over the country, list in hand, ambush the stores in search of the perfect school supplies. Red, plastic, 8x12 pronged folder with pockets, green wide-ruled five-subject spiral notebook. Every subject has a specific pencil, every class a unique pen. But somehow those itemized lists never seem to apply to my son. Just seeing the word “Elmers” used to get me unglued, the word “ball point” would start me balling, and the word “scissors” would cut me to my very core. The only thing that seemed remotely useful was the mandatory box of Kleenex tissues to wipe away the tears, so I always bought an extra for my own supply closet.

After years of suffering in silence, I’ve put together my own, more functional list for kids with special needs, their families and the staff who “just don’t get them”.

Downward spiral notebook - a handy place for teachers and therapists to record a student’s regression and lack of progress.

Nap sack - a book bag which conveniently doubles as a cushion to be used by staff as a pillow when they’ve fallen asleep on the job.

Miscalculator - a battery-operated problem-solving device for staff with very low expectations.

Number twenty-two pencil - a writing tool used by special needs children who are not the school’s number one priority.

Moral compass - an instrument that should be used by school staff to measure their degree of guilt and irresponsibility when they are not doing what’s best for their students with special needs.

Organ-izer - a place to put a heart after the school system has ripped it out of a parent's chest.

Three-ring circus notebook - a binder used to display a student’s laughable work product.

Right-out - a bottle of liquid paper used to cover up a child’s legal rights.

Bull point pen - a writing tool used by staff to keep parents apprised of how “well” their child is supposedly doing at school.

Destruction paper - colorful paper used to pass off art projects made by an aid as a child’s own.

Eleven-inch ruler - a straight-edged instrument used with students that staff think don’t measure up.

Hanging files - a place where biased evaluations are kept until they can be compiled and used to hang a child out to dry.

Mask-on tape - a roll of adhesive strips used to cover the smirks on school staff members’ faces when professing their committment to your child’s education.

Pest-it notes - yellow sticky-back slips of paper that can be attached to notebooks and letters of detention on which can be written what a pest your child is at school.

Subjective dividers - Deep-seated misconceptions and beliefs housed inside the minds of ignorant school staff and administrators that separate children with special needs from their neurotypical peers.

Scruple remover - a device not needed by many school employees, as most of their scruples have already been removed.

Make-up-their-own-ruled paper - sheets on which school staff explain why they can’t accomodate your child, usually starting with ”that’s the way we’ve always done it.”

Lead balloon pencil - tool used to write things about a child that don’t go over real well with the parents.

Low lighters - transparent markers used to emphasize the low points in your child’s academic career.

Never let ‘em see you sweatshirt - Mandatory parent dress code at all IEP meetings !

Posted by Charles Fox on August 11, 2006 at 11:21 PM in High Stakes Jesting, Tip of the Month | Permalink

found here:
Special Education Law Blog: School Supply Lists For Kids With Special Needs Can Be Full of Sheets by Lori Miller Fox

Few Know Bullying When They See It

Lee schools look to revise bullying policy : Lee : Naples Daily News

It may be a surprise to my readers that many well-meaning people within the education system actually "bully" students. In the above linked article, we find this comment:

"Rhodes said that her son, who has Asperger syndrome -a high functioning form of autism, was bullied by elementary school students and emotionally harassed by his teacher.

“I lived it,” she said. “A teacher who emotionally bullied my child on a daily basis and a principal who refused to do anything.”

The most frequent bullying that I know of is when kids who have thought processing delays or have sensory processing problems are called "lazy" or "blamed" for not paying attention. For some reason, one of the most prevalent "behavior strategy" in our education system is to "shame" the kid into appropriate behavior.

For example, I have been in many IEP meetings where the educators at the table do not recognize dyslexia as a real phenomenon. Instead, they focus on behavioral strategies aimed at "self discipline" and "increased study time". Along with this ignorance comes the obligatory message to the parent that the parent needs to stop making excuses for the kid.

True professional educators who understand true disabilities can teach kids with disabilities. Unfortunately, there are few true professional educators who understand true disabilities that come in contact with kids with true disabilities.
All too often, misguided and ignorant choices of behavior management not only do not teach the kids, it makes them worse. The resulting behavior unfortunately reinforces the ignorance of the "professionals" instead of drawing attention to it.

One More Isolated Incident of A State Complaint

Go back to this link, then click on the link to the state complaint.

Read the complete findings by the state about how the HCPS did not honor the written IEP's and did not provide the contracted service that was written in these IEP's. The District received money for these IEP's and then did not provide the service.
Where did the money go? What was the true "punishment" of the corrective action required by the state? How does compensatory service overcome missed windows of opportunity for benefit? Where are the professionals that hawk early intervention while the district delays services?


Motel Special Ed: Old news is still bad news, but how many know it?

Now, we have a new state complaint.
Complaint Alleges Hillsborough Withheld Services To Students#comments#comments#comments#comments#comments

I keep hearing how teachers and ESE personnel want to be respected. I keep hearing how parents are at fault. Here is a question to ponder. Was it teachers and ESE personnel who brought these state complaints? Was it teachers who are telling everyone how dedicated they are and how irresponsible parents are the ones that got together and collected the necessary documentation needed to prove these violations? I doubt few of you know how difficult it is to make a state complaint stick.

I know the OT/PT state complaint came after parents had been asking for accountability for months. They were lied to repeatedly and were treated with disdain because the people the parents were complaining to had to defend the system.

It is the system that is making a mockery of our education.

Behavior Teaching Must Not Be System Supported

Today's news#comment-133144565

Read the comment by "on shortchanged".


Where does one turn when one needs experts in behavior teaching? A teaching institution?

I thought each school in HCPS had a highly trained behavior specialist.

I thought each school writes comprehensive IEP's. How could there be a problem with behavior?

Here is a comment from one of my previous post's:

Anonymous said...

My child is often disciplined when it was due to his disablity. The IEP says we are to be notified prior to in school suspensions but we are rarely notified. In fact msot of the provisions of the IEP are ignored on a regular basis. The system is very broken and I wish this lawsuit great success.

I have first hand experience as a part of a disabled child at Ms Wieland's schools. She is not qualified in any way for her current position unless that qualification is to back up a corrupt, cruel District Administration in blocking help to students who are legally entitled to it.

October 2, 2008 1:58 PM

A Timely Answer For Local School Systems

Suspending and Expelling Students With Disabilities: The Legal Dos and Don'ts

I wonder if this is where IDEA money goes.

Where Is The Substance To The IEP?

Another article about yesterday's news can be found here:

State Complaint

We could examine this part of the article closely:

The groups also say the school district isolates students with disabilities through discipline. Disabled students in Hillsborough are 2 1/2 times as likely to lose as least 10 days of school to suspensions or expulsions as other students, they say.

But a veteran of two schools with exceptional student education programs says administrators often mainstream students with behavioral disabilities into regular settings.

"We really believe that every student begins in the least restrictive environment," said Joyce Wieland, a former principal and the district's director for exceptional student education.

It is through later assessment and discussion involving both school administrators and parents that placements change.

"Each student is seen as an individual, and we want all children to learn," Wieland said.

What we don't hear is that the supports and services that should be written into an IEP so that the student can benefit from the least restrictive environment are provided. Simply placing a student in the LRE is not the point. The point is that the teacher and the students need supports and related services. In a real professional ESE world, the change of placement would occur after it is demonstrated that the supports and related services that were written into a well designed IEP do not meet the needs of the student.

I didn't see that from what I read. How many teachers see that in their classrooms?

Complaint Alleges Hillsborough Withheld Services To Students

Complaint Alleges Hillsborough Withheld Services To Students

or

Complaints to be filed for disabled Hillsborough students | WFTS-TV | First in HD


How many different ways can the public try to make a point. I hope for the sake of all of the kids, which is what a class action suit is about, that the complainants do not succumb to the smoke and mirrors of "early resolution" or mediation. If the complainants do not make this charge stick with as much power for accountability as they can get, they shouldn't have gone to the trouble. In fact, if they don't nail this one, they will have made it worse for the kids.

When I was the VP and then President of the HCPS Superintendent's Advisory Board on Special Education back in the late 90's, the juvenile justice department back then tried valiantly to make the point that Hillsborough was arresting ESE kids far more than other districts, and "dumping" them on the juvenile justice system.

I hope some good comes out of this instead of the standard "isolated-incident and broad-brush-attack defense" winning again.