FAIRFAX COUNTY SCHOOL BOARD PUBLIC COMMENT OF SHEREE BROWN-KAPLAN, FOUNDER AND CHAIR, FAIRFAX ALLIANCE FOR APPROPRIATE

PUBLIC EDUCATION May 23, 2013 Good evening Mr. Chairman and members of the School Board. My name is Sheree Brown-Kaplan. I am the founder and chair of the Fairfax Alliance for Appropriate Public Education (FAAPE). I also recently served on the Ad Hoc Community Committee on the SR&R as the lead of Work Group 3 which addressed discipline issues faced by students with disabilities. I am addressing New Business item 6.01, the SR&R and, in particular, the Ad Hoc Committee's recommendations regarding student with disabilities. I commend staff for including one of the major recommendations of the committee: a separate section on students with disabilities that reflects the requirements of the Virginia Special Education Regulations. However, the committee's recommendations went beyond just what's mandated by the state; it proposed new FCPS policies and practices. None of these were included in the revision. Students with disabilities continue to make up 40% of FCPS suspension/expulsions while representing only 14% of the population. In an effort to reduce this disproportionality, the SR&R committee reviewed the legal rights and unique needs of students with disabilities and examined numerous other school codes of conduct. Many of the resulting recommendations reflected the best practices identified and successfully implemented by other school districts. The SR&R committee's recommendations clarify requirements, improve safeguards and put into place better tools for Manifestation Determination Reviews (MDRs). Fundamental to these recommendations are practices that focus on prevention and intervention and that utilize suspension and expulsion only after a clear pattern of misbehavior has been established or in "special circumstances" defined by federal law. Nonetheless, the following provisions approved by the SR&R committee are NOT reflected in the proposed section on students with disabilities: No requirement to consult members of students' IEP teams prior to a decision to suspend or recommend them for expulsion No requirement to use IEP accommodations when asking for written statements of students with disabilities Excluding factors specified by the Virginia Department of Education's formal guidance on MDRs No requirement to conduct the MDR prior to the hearing Denying IEP teams the ability to appeal restrictions placed by the Hearings Office No specific protections for students with significant intellectual or developmental disabilities I am forwarding you electronically a side-by-side comparison between the SR&R committee's recommendations and the staff proposal and ask that you review it closely. These missing provisions warrant inclusion in FCPS discipline policies covering students with disabilities. The Board has demonstrated its willingness to go the first mile in clarifying requirements. FAAPE now asks the Board to go the second mile and put into place the improved safeguards and tools the SR&R committee carefully crafted. It is time to take real steps toward ending the gross disproportionality in the discipline of students with disabilities.