Maryland

IDEA Money Watch has obtained the information submitted by the Maryland Dept. of Education to the U.S. Dept. of Education regarding reduction to local spending (maintenance of effort or  MOE) and use of federal IDEA funds for Coordinated Early Intervening Services (CEIS) for each school district for the 2009 fiscal year. Get Maryland information here. (PDF,  5 pgs).

This information is important because it indicates if school districts reduced local spending in light of IDEA Recovery Act funds in FY 2009. IDEA does not require that local districts replace these funds when the Recovery funds run out, putting services for students with disabilities at risk.

MD DOE News Release :: July 10, 2009

The Maryland State Department of Education will soon receive $14,382,810 through a special education grant from the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Special Education Programs (OSEP) as part of the education funds provided in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA). State Superintendent of Schools, Dr. Nancy S. Grasmick, made the announcement today during the Autism Summit held in Baltimore. At this time, Maryland is the only state to receive this incentive grant, which will create Maryland’s Extended Individualized Family Service Plan (IFSP) Option.

This new State incentive grant will provide Maryland the opportunity to create a seamless birth through five early childhood intervention and special education system of services for our youngest children with disabilities and their families, allowing a full continuum of services to become a reality. More

Special education advocates in Prince George’s County, Maryland, have asked the Maryland State Board of Education to deny the district’s request to reduce its local maintenance of effort (MOE). In a letter to the State Board of Education, the Special Education Citizens Advisory Committee of Prince George’s County noted that “Our county’s local determination of ‘Needs Intervention” is due largely to our need to improve LRE, and should be sufficient to deny the waiver request.” Read the full letter here.

The Maryland Dept. of Education, in collaboration with Johns Hopkins University Center for Technology in Education, has developed a Website that provides full information on the performance of every local school district on Maryland’s State Performance Plan. The site also provides the RATING assigned to the district by the state – a piece of information that most states are refusing to provide online.

Visit the MDIDEAreport website to see what transparency and accountability really look like! Congratulations to MSDE and Johns Hopkins CTE for outstanding work.

Maryland will receive $200,241,802 in IDEA Recovery Act funds to improve services to its 92,833 school age students with disabilities. We will report on how those funds are being spent.

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