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Parent tells board special-education protections are being violated in Prince George's County schools
Summary
A parent and disability advocate described multiple alleged failures by Prince George's County Public Schools to implement IDEA, Section 504 and ADA protections, citing long dispute timelines, inadequate staff training, inconsistent accommodations and suspension practices.
Lita Jeri Carter, a parent of two disabled children enrolled in Prince George's County Public Schools and a non-practicing pediatric nurse practitioner, told the board during the public-comment period that legal protections for students with disabilities are not being upheld and called for systemwide corrective action.
"Special education students' rights to a free appropriate public education is guaranteed by IDEA section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the ADA are not being upheld and at times are blatantly violated," Carter said. She criticized lengthy administrative dispute processes, which she said can take a year and leave children without timely remedies, and said families often do not know the burden of proof is on them in dispute proceedings.
Carter urged mandatory, assessed staff training across all adults who interact with students — not only homeroom or special-education teachers — and said removal of students to less-restrictive environments without sufficient supports harms inclusion. She raised concerns about hiring practices in the district, saying the system "fail[s] to hire individuals for special education leadership roles who have obtained a degree in special education," and said general-education teachers often lack support and training to teach students with disabilities.
Carter also outlined operational concerns: she said functional behavioral assessments and behavioral intervention plans are not consistently applied; informal removals are sometimes used in lieu of formal suspensions without notifying families that such removals should count as suspensions; and families are told incorrectly that they cannot have both a 504 plan and an IEP. She said the district has failed to provide accommodations for assessments such as i-Ready and DIBELS and that those assessment results have at times been used without accounting for the student’s accommodations. Carter added concerns about extended-school-year decisions and what she described as gaps in compliance leadership at the school-system level.
The board thanked Carter for her comments and noted that public comment is entered into the record; the board did not engage in a question-and-answer session after her remarks.
Carter urged a collaborative, statewide solution rather than temporary or piecemeal fixes. "I would hope, that there would be a collaborative solution created, to address this at a system level statewide and not just, kind of a Band Aid or temporary approach," she said.
