From the Archives: April 6–May 20, 2025
Articles from Special Education Action's Archives, Added to Substack Between April 6th and May 2nd
February 18, 2025, Special Education Action launched on Substack, featuring 85 of its 300+ articles from 2020–2025.
Older articles will be added over time, with updates such as this one, alerting you to articles you might have missed when they were published.
Some embedded documents, like state complaints and FOIA Responses, will be published separately on the State Complaints and FOIA pages, since some of these originally appeared within the context of other articles. This allows them to be browsed individually. In addition, links to articles addressing specific complaints will be added to the individual complaints page, providing readers more background on the complaints.
Archive Articles Added to Substack Between April 6–May 20, 2025
Office for Civil Rights Finds Los Angeles Unified School District in Noncompliance
April 28, 2022, the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) announced Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) is at fault for civil rights violations and OCR released the resolution reached following its investigation of LAUSD.
VDOE: School Divisions May Not Charge Students for Computers or Other Devices
Today—after weeks of asking the Virginia Department of Education (VDOE) and Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) why FCPS is charging a fee to access education (and receiving no response)—VDOE’s Constituent Services team sent the email below, stating:
FERPA Violation: Willow Springs Elementary School Students’ Privacy Violated
While FCPS has inadvertently provided me information about dozens of other FCPS students and staff, I’m not alone in this dubious honor.
FERPA Violation: Silverbrook Elementary School Students’ Privacy Violated; Behind the Scenes, Choosing Students to “Enrich”
I didn’t request the document below.
FOIA Response: Scott Brabrand to James Lane, Trying to Figure How to Open Schools for 2020-21
You know the saying about throwing spaghetti at wall to see if it sticks?
FCPS Won’t Implement Corrective Actions Required in U.S. Dept of Ed Monitoring Report
6.23.20: The U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) issued a Differentiated Monitoring Report about Virginia.
FCPS Charges Students Fee to Access Education
When “Free” Isn’t Free: How FCPS Charged Families for Public Education
If Your Child was Administered the Program Language Live, this Article is for You
This article is for every parent whose child was placed in Language Live, a reading intervention program licensed by school districts across the country from the company Voyager Sopris. The examples below are drawn from Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) in Virginia, but the issues—and legal implications—are nationwide.
FOIA Release: FCPS’ Jane Strong and VDOE’s Samantha Hollins; E-Mails, May 5 and May 13, 2020
These May 5 and May 13, 2020, e-mails were obtained via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request.
