Advocates for developmentally disabled students in Montgomery County are angered by the loss of a prized preschool program and fretting over their children’s future.
The Montgomery County Primary Achievement Center, or MPAC, is a nonpublic preschool for disabled students that has operated in partnership with the county’s public school system for the past 35 years. Students are referred to MPAC as young as 3 years old and attend school free of charge until they begin kindergarten.
Last week, however, the Montgomery school board voted to shift the money directed toward MPAC to six new public preschool classrooms for disabled children.
The move follows several years of controversial school board actions shifting special needs students — from the learning-disabled to the emotionally troubled — into more mainstream settings.
Montgomery schools “developed the proposal because we believe that it is the right thing to provide a public preschool option for our families and their children,” according to a document issued by the schools. It cited the increasing number of special needs students in the district and the desire for families to feel connected to a school near their home.
But an outcry from parents in public hearings and private meetings called the schools proposal ill-conceived and badly communicated, leaving their children in the lurch.
“We’re concerned that when you supplant an extraordinary program like MPAC with what is so far only an idea, that’s a problem,” said Joyce Taylor, executive director of the Arc of Montgomery County, which operates MPAC and other programs for disabled children and adults.
The school system says that though it does not have a program, it is equipped to create one immediately. The first classroom opened this month. Five more are scheduled to open in August.
Another fear among parents is the placement of the public preschools at elementary schools with programs for disabled students not on track to earn a traditional diploma. About 23 percent of MPAC students currently go into those programs, while the rest go on to regular kindergarten. Advocates worry that the number of non-diploma-tracked students will rise.
School board member Phil Kauffman expressed confidence in the board’s vote despite his failed effort to delay it until the community felt on board.
“Our schools are capable of delivering the program we’re talking about,” Kauffman said. “And we’re a public school system — we should be able to serve these kids.”
