RE: Fox 26 News coverage on Special Education Budget Cuts

April 16, 2010

:

Thank you for working with Fox 26 to get this story out.

I've already left 2 comments there as PBMom prior to this email going out.

Everyone: I'll let you all know about Conroe as soon as I

can. Just know that the consultants used by CFISD were used by Conroe

ISD. Conroe has paid out over $750,000 to this consultant since

2005. These consultants hate the word " program. " It was

with these consultants that the autism program in this district got abolished,

and my son lost 81% of his skills as measured by the ABLLS assessment.

When I was in a meeting with these consultants, they actually had the nerve to

tell me that applied behavior analysis led to " learned

helplessness. " I came back the next day with the scientist who

coined that phrase who now believed he was wrong, that is was better described

as learned optimism and that the only literature I could find about ABA causing

learned helplessness was staff who weren't trained properly. They don't

even technically call my son's class " Lifeskills " anymore. It

is just known as a self-contained classroom. You should be very, very

afraid of this " NEW MODEL " they are proposing. It devastated 70

families already in Conroe (that I am aware of). We banded together at

first, went to the Board meetings, met with the superintendent, met with the

assistant superintendent, met with these consultants hoping our input would

improve things, and once again, it was all a show. They were doing

it and screw us basically is what it amounted to. Many families left the

district to move to surrounding districts; a few left the state; one's husband

got transferred to Colombia and she emailed me back then how she was terrified

he was going to get transferred back here because her son was doing so well in

the schools there (now THAT is sad); many pulled their kids out and

homeschooled them.

Hilda

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