From Hilary Jenkins-Spangler:
My husband and I are organizing a rally outside the Harford County Board of Education on Wednesday. We want to hold the administrators responsible for the substandard services for special education students – we are still at least 20 years behind surrounding counties. The changes implemented by the county since the Hickory abuse are superficial and still deny children with disabilities a free and appropriate education. Yes, they have more classrooms and a lower student to teacher ratio, but the teachers and assistants are still not trained to work with kids with autism or behavioral problems. So from abuse, we go to neglect! We are trying to partner up with the Harford County Teacher’s Union.
It was clear to our home school IEP team that our son needed a different placement, still, we had to spend over $13,000 in legal fees for his ‘free’ appropriate education. Red Pump is the alternate placement. During this process, the administrators lied to us, deceived us, withheld information, abused our time and finances. They completely violated my belief in logic, reason, decency and fair play – they behaved as if a law unto themselves. At the end of our last IEP meeting they challenged us to take them to Due Process if we disagreed with their decision. ($40-60,000 with a 13% chance of success!) They think they are fire-proof – this is quite typical of how they operate. Personally, I think some of them should be fired!
My son is in now in the Red Pump Regional Autism Program…I observed for 3 ½ hours today and left appalled and depressed! Firstly, it’s not an appropriate placement for him as defined by his IEP. Also, there is a behaviorally disturbed kid who runs riot– he yells and screams, throws things around when asked to do something he doesn’t want to, the staff have no control over the classroom, – because they have no training in behavioral issues. He’s a big kid with no boundaries, one day he will hurt someone. In the mean time, not much learning is happening for anyone!
If we had decent special ed programs, some costly non-public placements could be avoided. (They can be as high as 100K per year!) Our teachers have not had a pay raise in five years – there is an exodus of talent going to surrounding counties. Apparently the Administrators at Central Office have managed to give themselves a pay raises! This affects everyone – not just parents of children with disabilities.
Hilary Jenkins-Spangler
So you want to have a rally because you’re unhappy with how they’re handling your kid? Seriously?
^^^^Says someone who doesn’t have a child with special needs, that are not being met!
Please let me know the time for this rally, I would like to be there. I am in my final year as a parent with a child in the HCPS system. I have gone through the IEP process for 14 years now, I can say that the elementary years were the most frustrating. I came away from many meeting feeling completely beat up by the process.
Kevin
Kevin, thank you for your support…..We are going to start gathering around 11 AM. I’ll post more details later.
Is this Harford county MD? I live in Delaware, I am a parent, have been a teacher and a home school mom. I can’t even get started on a rant because it would never end. From IEPs to special needs classes to “professionals” they are so behind its disgusting . Where is the location for the rally? A street and what route it is off would suffice. I am going to share online as well!
HI Kevin, the rally is at 11:00 AM Wednesday 23 September – please come and introduce yourself….I appreciate your intelligent and insightful comments. I’m not sure how to give you my email without some of HC’s most reality-challenged and willfully* ignorant/stupid residents.getting hold of it also….
Say’s the mom who probably has a kid with no issues. You have no idea how hard it is to fight what your CHILD NEEDS in his IEP! The school district could care less about the kids with special needs and it is very obvious. I didn’t know my daughter had autism until she was 7. So all the parents who have young children, this could effect you too. We are just trying to fight for the right thing and we aren’t being heard.
Yiu may not have seen the story in the news about abuse of autistic children at Hickory Elementary School? Here is a link to one of the follow up articles: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/harford/bs-md-ha-autism-follo-20150916-story.html
Our school system is headed down a path to educational mediocrity…. But you are entitled to your own opinion, after all we live in a democracy…..Maybe abuse of autistic children in our own county is not shocking to you? Maybe the exodus of talented teachers to surrounding counties that pay significantly more is of no concernsed to you ? And maybe the unjust treatment of other people’s children is their problem and not to be confused with anything administrators do at Central Office!
I’m a Frederick County parent with a student with an IEP. I’m there in spirit. I know how deflating the entire process is. All we can do is fight! But you’re right, they know we don’t have the funding they do. We’re taking up the due process procedure again this year with the legislature. Hang in there.
Ciindy Rose, thank you for your support and encouragment!
If you are not satisfied with the taxpayer funded child care your special needs child is receiving do it your self.
Seriously? So because her child is special needs, she should forego a public education that your rug rat gets? This parent is defending her child, much as I would suspect you would do in the same situation.
Basically you want us to pay $100K additional per year for every kid that has autism.
OR
Maybe the parents of autisic kids should pay more in taxes and fees to offset the additional costs associated with trying to educate their kids in the public school system.
Quite the opposite! We need decent county programs…..
The Hickory program blew up. Look what happened there with people getting fired or moved to other schools. And yes Harford County is behind the times in the Special Needs arena and in thier way of thinking, especially in these times with social media and people like you shedding light on a past hidden INJUSTICE!
How did teacher pay raises get connected to this issue? Lol. Central office people get raises and teachers don’t? Again, lol. It doesn’t work that way.
This regional program was life-changing for my son. The caring, qualified, professional, certified staff taught him the skills he needed to rejoin his classmates in a regular classroom. I am highly offended by your description of another student as “behaviorally disturbed.” If you are there to observe your child then comment on that and keep comments about other students out of these forums.
After experiencing the sporadic quality of teaching standards at HCPS, it is naive to believe this problem is only with the autism program or Special Education. I’ve sat in IEP meetings, and watched blank looks on teachers and administrators alike, when the most basic accommodations are requested.
HCPS was years behind in implementing Common Core basics. When other school systems prepared their curriculum and teachers, HCPS administration delayed creating chaos in the classroom for teachers and confusion for students and parents.
Unfortunately, and of their own doing, the administrators have deminished the quality of HCPS overall in the past 5 years by undercutting the value placed on our very good teaching staff. HCPS Admin gave no pay increases and no curriculum support during a major change-over all the while pouring more onto the classroom teacher resulting in low moral and a mass exodus.
SO…”Har ford,” “Citizen,” and”what” think it is only autism and Special education that are a problem! Kindly pay attention…..
I welcome your input…I am trying to address the systemic problems in HCPS by raising awareness. I have reached out to the Harford County Teachers Union as I realize the problem cannot be addressed solely based on the issues with the abuse in the autism program. The problems, are many and you clearly have a level clear understanding. My wish is to unite – not pit special ed vs general ed. I have sons in both programs…..What I will say, is that what I observed in my son’s class yesterday would NOT be permitted in general ed. The totally out of control boy pushed my son in the chest and grabbed the teachers arm and pinched her forearm repeatedly. It didn’t even register as unusual or unacceptable behavior.
I hate to tell you this, but it does happen in general education. Due to the lack of appropriate placements for students, students who demonstrate similar behaviors to those you described, are placed in general education classes often without any specialized training for teachers or their instructional assistants (if they have one). Regardless, I agree with you completely. This affects ALL students and HCPS has dropped the ball.
You are facing a double whammy of ineptitude. First, the Red Pump principal Blaine Hawley would like nothing better than to remove this program from her school since she only cares about appearances, not real administrative work. Second, you have to deal with the incompetent and vindictive board attorney Pat Spicer who is one of the most foul persons in the school system. Good luck in your fight.
It’s all the governments fault little timmy is a dumb ass.
No a ‘dumb ass’ is a kid like your’s who’s parent is only concerned for their own kids an not the welfare and education of the entire community. Children with special needs are just as educatable as your precious offspring. It is folks like you who have no clue what Autism is or what the needs are and have no desire to learn that make the system to work. Just where will these children be as adults if we don’t use the resources available now to prepare them? So no “little Timmy” isn’t a “dumb ass” he has a learning disability and by law our education system has to educate him.
Kevin, thank you for injecting intelligence back into the discussion….I am dumbfounded at times by the magnitude of some people’s ignorance and stupidity. How simple life must be when one is unencumbered by the thought process!
Yes, thank you for pointing out to our challenged friend, the county is required to graduate my child of solidly average intelligence to be able to read and write. I guess the alternative is to continue warehousing autistic kids and neglect them educationally, so as adults instead of working they claim disability! Oh my, the logic of it all….too much thinking, it’s dangerous!
Either we pay for your child now or we pay latter but guaranteed WE are the ones that are going to pay. At least if you are going full blown entitlement attitude you could thank us. 50 years ago your kids would have been institutionalized. And if you could do us all a kindness? STOP HAVING KIDS YOU NEED US TO TAKE CARE OF.
TYIA
The ignorance displayed by my fellow Harford County Residents is sickening. The only reason they were institutionalized 50 years ago was simply society didn’t want to see them. I certainly hope that you are not advocating that. I would be willing to place a wager on the fact if this discussion was about eliminating or drastically reducing the amount of $$$$$ spent on school athletic programs, those of you concerned about the money aspect would have a very different attitude, it always has boggled my mind how we place much more value on teaching a child to be able to excel in a sport then we do in teaching ALL children to learn.
The ignorance displayed by you is also hilarious. This website can be accesses by anyone with an internet connection on Planet EARF.
“Fellow Harford county resident” LOL
But wait, butt sniffer, why would someone from another continent post here? Why not?
HI Kevin, the rally is at 11:00 AM Wednesday 23 September – please come and introduce yourself….I appreciate your intelligent and insightful comments. I’m not sure how to give you my email without some of HC’s most reality-challenged and willfully* ignorant/stupid residents.getting hold of it also….
The one thing I have learned about the HCPS administration is that they will always blame the teachers for any and all of their failures. They are PROS at passing the buck, covering up for their administrators, AND they are the nest at handing down punishment on anyone or party that has a different opinion, idea of the facts, or any of the such!
Red Pump is an AMAZING school! I am PROUD to send my children there! Blaine Hawley is one of the best principals in this county! She truly cares about each child at Red Pump! Children always come first to her!
Inclusion strikes again.
The hard truth about special ed is that we spend tons of money on kids who for better or for worse are not going to grow up and cure cancer. Most of the special ed kids dont care about their futures, and some of them are JPD: Just Plain Dumb. No amount of extra “accomodations” makes a difference sometimes.
In China the dumb kids are sent to learn a trade, join the army, repave the roads etc. In America we spend twice as much on them while talanted smart students use old textbooks, and have to work in “groups” wth the dumb kids and we call it “inclusion”. Let the dumb kids get the answers from the smart kids, and everybody feels good about it. thats what special ed really is. Sorry if this truth is offensive……
China also shoots their own citizens in public squares, manipulates their currency, and leaves much of their population in poverty as the government has yet to bring electricity to their village.
You are correct that all societies must have workers at all jobs. Advocacy for special education is not asking to take a child beyond his or her cognitive ability, instead to accommodate the learning style (hearing, seeing, touching), and enabling the information to be acquired by the brain and stored there for use later. Every child “gets” the information differently—labeled special or no.
Great teachers are gifted and can figure out what makes children get “it.” The ‘dumb’ kid you imagine likely has difficulties at home, issues in learning early which were never discovered or may have serious talents in other non-academic areas.
But perhaps as citizens of this County, we should choose to follow your suggestion; instead of fighting to ensure that every child in the 55 schools in HCPS gets the best education. Every child, because this is a systemic problem….not one just in “Special ed.”
One more thing….ALL KIDS KNOW PEER PRESSURE!!! All kids track how they are different from their peers. Please DO NOT assume that because they don’t say it they don’t feel it.
“No Child Left Behind” meant “Every Child Left Behind” and led to “Race to the Top” which resulted in “Race to the Bottom” and leads the students to “Common Core” or “Rotten to the Core” and the goal to predetermine the destiny of these children through lifelong learning for labor. Maybe Divine Providence will intervene, and tomorrow we will have “One Size Fits All” or “Ding Dong the U.S. Department of Ed is Dead” and return to “Variety is the Spice of Each Student’s Life” with no taxes going to public education but instead put back in the pocket of the taxpayers allowing them to select from an array of options in learning for the children.
Put award winning autism teachers in place in the central office to lead to failing schools, not a former middle school English teacher with a special education certification with no autism experience.
Do you know any? because If they applied for the job I’m sure they would choose this county over the others because the pay is excellent and they are not in demand any where but here.
Not sure how anybody resolves a situation like this fairly. The fact is parents with disabled kids want their kids mainstreamed and disabled can mean mildly disabled or nearly impossible to handle. Put any special needs child regardless of the scale of ability in any classroom and the “normal” kids time spent learning is affected. Put a special needs child in the classroom that commands lots of time and attention and you end up educating one child who at the end of the day will never be as productive as the other 29 getting short shrift. It’s a fact. Can’t imagine how teachers feel being forced to teach at so many levels and monitor some kids like a babysitter.
There is NO Autism program at Red Pump. There is a program to address students with emotional and behavioral challenges. How can a parent not know the program that their child attended?
There is NO autism program at my school either, but have autistic students in CSP.
You know – you are absolutely right! There is no autism program at Red Pump …..silly me, I thought when they told us at the IEP meeting my son was getting a placement in a Regional Autism Program for high functioning kids I believed them! Only to find on page 62 of the IEP it says CSP. It’s a good thing I followed up with an email to the facilitator and my attorney after the meeting, stating what my husband and I heard. They would have had a professional duty to set me straight on my ‘misunderstanding’. Didn’t hear anything. Oversight?Typo? who knows……but I’ll find out!
Bottom line: the law states that schools must provide children with learning disabilities the services they need. We’re not talking millions of dollars here. All these children need are teachers who are trained in Special Ed — which Towson, Stevenson, McDaniel and other colleges graduate by the hundreds every year. HCPS needs to obey the law and give tax-paying parents what their children are required to have — and what they deserve!