Special Education

Patricia Cook-Ferguson, a longtime Baltimore teacher and president of the Baltimore County NAACP known for wearing multiple hats in advocating for youth education and civil rights advancements, died Wednesday of complications from lung cancer. She was 56. "She was the heart and soul of our chapter," said Tony Fugett, who as first vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter will assume Mrs. Cook-Ferguson's responsibilities. Mrs. Cook-Ferguson had been ill for about a year, and was hospitalized about three weeks ago at Northwest Hospital, where she died in hospice care, said her son, Carlton Ferguson Jr. The NAACP chapter described Mrs. Cook-Ferguson as an "ardent supporter of civil rights and equal justice," and she was lauded as a leader in the Baltimore Teachers Union and the American Federation of Teachers in Maryland, where she had held multiple positions.

Growing up in the 1970s, I never set foot in a school until it was time for me to go to kindergarten. However, times have changed. Over the past three decades, the number of preschools in our country has grown exponentially, and with this growth comes the expectation that children will attend preschool in order to be "ready" for kindergarten by age 5. Unfortunately, this expectation is often accompanied by great pressure to send one's child to the...

Mary T. McMullen, a Millersville special education teacher and athletics booster, died Friday at University of Maryland Medical Center of scleroderma after a lengthy illness. She was 64. Mary Wissel was born March 14, 1948, in Baltimore and raised in Catonsville. She attended Seton High School in Baltimore, where she played on the girls basketball team - including a few games at the Baltimore Civic Center, where she was thrilled to play on the same court as her favorite professional team, the Baltimore Bullets.

With a little yelp, lots of tears and a bouquet of flowers from her developmentally disabled twin sister, who inspired her to help students persevere, special educator Ketia C. Stokes was named Baltimore City's 2013 Teacher of the Year. The Green Street Academy teacher was surprised with the honor in an emotional gathering at the school Thursday morning, which included Baltimore schools CEO Andrés Alonso and her family. "You are the epitome of all that's good in my eyes," said Alonso, who started his teaching career as a special educator and pointed out that Stokes was the first special-education teacher to receive the honor in his nearly six-year tenure.

Mary Hogan Goss, a retired Baltimore County special-education bus attendant, department store sales associate and homemaker, died of cancer Oct. 25 at her Perry Hall home. She was 81. Born Mary Teresa Hogan in Baltimore and raised on Ravenwood Avenue, she attended the Shrine of the Little Flower School and was a 1946 graduate of the Catholic High School of Baltimore. She attended what is now Towson University. During a men's league football game at Herring Run Park, she met her future husband, Francis X. Goss, an electrician and real estate broker.

In a tense and at times heated federal court hearing, city school officials unveiled yesterday a plan to hire two outside consultants to turn around its beleaguered special-education program while state officials maintained they need to take control of much of the system's operations. U.S. District Judge Marvin J. Garbis presided over the all-day hearing - to be continued tomorrow - to determine which of three proposals to put into place to prevent what he deemed "a crisis" - the continuing failure to provide services to the city's special-education students.

Saying that Baltimore's schools have made great strides in the past several years toward providing better teaching to special education students, a federal judge ended 26 years of oversight of the school system and paved the way for a final settlement in two years. U.S. District Court Judge Marvin Garbis accepted an agreement from the parties in a lawsuit that began in 1984 when the Maryland Disabilities Law Center filed suit on behalf of several special education students saying they were not being offered adequate services.

County school officials are looking for community residents to serveon a review committee that will spend the remainder of the 1990-1991and 1991-1992 school years evaluating the special education program.Applicants must live or work in Howard County, be available for committee meetings and be committed to objectivity through the process.Application forms are available from the Department of Education assessment office at 313-6701.The applications must be postmarkedno later than Feb. 1.Applications are to be submitted to PhyllisH.

A bill introduced in Annapolis this legislative session would make it easier for parents to challenge school systems when they believe their special education students are not receiving a proper education. Senate Bill 691, introduced by Sen. Karen Montgomery, a Montgomery County democrat, seeks to shift the burden of proof to local school systems in due process hearings, which advocates say are usually burdensome for parents who are often outnumbered, overwhelmed and outspent when they go before an administrative judge to settle disputes.  Due process hearings--which mirror civil court trials--are one of the pivotal rights afforded to parents under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

LIKE MOST special educators I know, I chose the teaching profession because of a deep commitment to children, fueled by the belief that all students, regardless of socioeconomic status or disability, can benefit from an appropriate education.Consequently, the recent series in The Sun "Lost Learning" filled with an uneasy combination of thoughts and feelings. For example, I was angry that so many city students were unable to learn to read and outraged that compensation for such deficiencies took the form of electronic gadgets and cruises in the Caribbean.

As we struggle through the fifth year of recession, facing budget cuts, austerity and now the sequester, it may be a good time to re-evaluate our national priorities. Last year, the Reach Out and Read program that distributes books to low-income children from 6 months to 5 years lost its federal grant and this year the Head Start program is being cut back. These cuts will be borne by our most vulnerable citizens. These cuts come at a time when there is a growing mountain of evidence that the seeds for our health are sown in the first years of life.

A bill introduced in Annapolis this legislative session would make it easier for parents to challenge school systems when they believe their special education students are not receiving a proper education. Senate Bill 691, introduced by Sen. Karen Montgomery, a Montgomery County democrat, seeks to shift the burden of proof to local school systems in due process hearings, which advocates say are usually burdensome for parents who are often outnumbered, overwhelmed and outspent when they go before an administrative judge to settle disputes.  Due process hearings--which mirror civil court trials--are one of the pivotal rights afforded to parents under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA)

The welcome lifting of the federal consent decree on Baltimore City Public Schools does not mean all is well for students with disabilities in Baltimore and Maryland - far from it. Yet, the General Assembly rarely pays any attention to the fact that special education isn't nearly special enough. Hopefully that will change. Pending legislation gives lawmakers a chance to at least take a small step to improve the education of students with disabilities. As things now stand, students across the range of disabilities - from intellectual limitations to language impairments to dyslexia - are denied the opportunity to meet academic standards because they are not provided services to which they are entitled under federal and state laws.

Former State Superintendent Nancy Grasmick has joined the staff of the Kennedy Krieger Institute, a renowned special education and research institution, where she will lead a new Center for Innovation and Leadership in Special Education.  The Institute announced this week that Grasmick, who started her career teaching deaf children at William S. Baer School in Baltimore, will serve as the director of the newly formed center which they said...

As a parent of a daughter with special needs, I was pleased to see The Sun article about the success of students attending nonpublic schools ("Nonpublic special education school graduates outpace their peers in public settings," Dec. 31). My daughter is a high school student at The Harbour School at Baltimore. Nonpublic schools are able to emphasize social skills, hard and soft job skills and how to transition to the next step after high school. These are the areas that are lacking in public schools and necessary to help special needs students succeed after they graduate.

While most children see dream jobs, spouses and freedom in their futures, Brian Bailey saw only death. The autistic boy, who stopped speaking at 18 months, grew up with anxiety about getting older, and his rocky educational track record early on didn't allay his fears. "I was obsessing from the beginning about his future, asking 'What am I going to do?' " said his mother, Jennell Bailey, as she recalled his one week in a Baltimore public school general-education classroom, where she said he wasn't flourishing.

A 40-year-old Baltimore County woman has been indicted on charges that she billed the city school system for more than $100,000 in tutoring services that she never provided, the state prosecutor's office announced. Prosecutors say that for three years, Tracy Denise Queen submitted false documentation and invoices to the school system for tutoring services for special-education students through her home-based company Queen's Mobile Education. School officials terminated her contract last year, though they said Friday that they were only aware of problems concerning a 2009 contract that involved about $44,000.

Doris Moody said her grandson missed five months of classes last year because the Baltimore school system couldn't find a slot for the special education student who has emotional problems and dyslexia, a reading impairment.And after her grandson, Carl Jones, 13, was accepted into Herring Run Middle School last year, he had no regular teacher for two months. Instead, a teacher's aide ran the class while the teacher was out sick, said Ms. Moody.She is so frustrated with the school system that she's now looking for a private school for Carl.

Patricia Cook-Ferguson, a longtime Baltimore teacher and president of the Baltimore County NAACP known for wearing multiple hats in advocating for youth education and civil rights advancements, died Wednesday of complications from lung cancer. She was 56. "She was the heart and soul of our chapter," said Tony Fugett, who as first vice president of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People chapter will assume Mrs. Cook-Ferguson's responsibilities. Mrs. Cook-Ferguson had been ill for about a year, and was hospitalized about three weeks ago at Northwest Hospital, where she died in hospice care, said her son, Carlton Ferguson Jr. The NAACP chapter described Mrs. Cook-Ferguson as an "ardent supporter of civil rights and equal justice," and she was lauded as a leader in the Baltimore Teachers Union and the American Federation of Teachers in Maryland, where she had held multiple positions.

After the Anne Arundel County school board received its annual update on the system's five-year strategic plan for student achievement, board member Solon Webb directed one question to school officials: "Are we winning or losing?" Webb's query prompted a discussion Wednesday almost as lengthy as the presentation of the 2012 Strategic Plan, which tracks students' five-year progress in Maryland School Assessments and High School Assessments, as well as International Baccalaureate, Advanced Placement and honors participation and testing.