State education officials will be in Alexandria classrooms next week conducting a follow-up audit to determine if the city’s special education programs have improved.
The Virginia Association of School Superintendents will spend Monday and Tuesday watching classes and interviewing administrators to see what changes school officials have made since the organization’s last audit of the Alexandria City Public Schools in 2009.
The VASS audit followed an investigation by the Virginia Department of Education, which in 2008 found that the city was not meeting six federal standards for special education instruction.
Since then, the city has made several changes to its special education services, and officials say they are now in compliance with all federal rules. But Paul Wilson, a member of the city’s Special Education Advisory Committee, told the Alexandria Gazette Package that auditors will still see some of the same problems they found three years ago, such as low test scores in English and math.
“It’s very hard to see where progress has been made,” Wilson said. “There’s still a lot of warning signs.”
In addition to the conducting their in-school audit, officials from VASS will join school officials for a public meeting with parents on Monday at 6 p.m., at the Minnie Howard Ninth Grade Center.
