Basic Info
DuFief ES is located at 15001 DuFief Drive, Gaithersburg, MD 20878. The principal is Mr. Brent Mascott.
Rating
Please rate your experience at this school with respect to the following aspects on a scale from 0 to 10.- Inclusiveness: Does the school have a culture of inclusion and inclusive practices in place (e.g., co-teaching)? Are these practices effectively and systematically implemented?
- Staffing and resources: Does the school have staff and resources to accommodate a wide range of special needs?
- Cooperation: Does the school staff exhibit a cooperative approach by accepting/requesting the parents' input, listening to concerns, and attempting to resolve disagreements?
- Communication: Does the school implement progress monitoring plans? Does the staff regularly communicate with parents with respect to their child's progress and challenges? Is the staff responsive when contacted?
- Academic expectations: Does the staff systematically set high expectations for students with special needs? Does the staff systematically raise expectations when IEP goals are met ahead of time?
DuFief ES
Staffing and resources
4.4
Communication
1.2
Academic expectations
0.3
Extremely disappointing experience in 2012-2013 for 3rd grade child in the Learning Center. IEP pre mtgs witg predetermined outcomes…family did not feel part of the team effort to decide best COA for student. Interim principle, cluster sped supervisor, school sped coordinator refused to collaborate to identify optimal plan fwd. The feeling was an ‘Us’ vs. ‘Them’ despite efforts to provide team building opportunities for sped families and sped staff. Speech therapist spent more time expressing her disgust regarding my daughter’s runny nose and her difficulty in self mgmt. Teacher could not see outside results of test scores….IEP conversation was linear and always pre-determined… always about what my child could not do. Many families complained for the same reason and only those who could afford advocates ans lawyers had a shot at providing a winning individualized plan for their child. I hope the sped program and leadership is much better now.
Communication
1
Concur. We were there from 2011-2015 timeframe. The famous line that still sticks with us today that was said by an IEP member is: ‘we handle all types of learners.’ Complete and utterly false. Frankly, this school and MCPS writ large is a borderline criminal in their treatment of neurodiverse kids. One teacher tried to blame us that ‘we did not prepare our daughter for the rigors of MCPS.’ (Laughable. The teachers were not even allowed to use the word dyslexia and were clueless about the Pearson curriculum they had just been given. By the way they STILL use it today even though they paid $500,000 to Johns Hopkins University years ago which told them: this is worthless). Utterly cold and uncaring place built for adults (the pensions, healthcare and salaries are some of the highest in the nation for K-12). May I never hear another teacher complain about their salary — it’s all deferred benefits! We will be paying them forever since women live so long…3 billion a year in waste. I’m not being sexist — fact, most of the county teachers are women.
In addition, buildings in this cluster filled with lead, mold and asbestos. Classroom 2 at Dufief had a water fountain that was way above the EPA level for lead. So they literally made the situation worse for our child. Nice. The lead situation is ‘supposedly’ better now but mold is still a major issue — the building is 46 years old. Our advice: do not trust anything MCPS says, particularly to the Washington Post. They have an excellent Corporate Communications Department that spins everything in a positive light.
Frankly, no child with a learning issue should be in MCPS — or frankly even a neurotypical child — given their complete and utter incompetence, particularly at Dufief.