In a scramble to get ready for the upcoming school year, Houston ISD representatives from various campuses have been calling up parents of special ed students in recent days asking them if their child’s Individualized Education Program can be “amended” without an in-person meeting.
What the district is looking for is a way is a way to meet the requirements of state and federal law as it moves some 5,000 special ed students to new campuses in what Superintendent Mike Miles is calling a consolidated approach to improve outcomes for special ed students. Critics call it segregation and a violation of federal law. Even the Texas Education Agency has said HISD has not gone about this the right way.
As part of HISD’s “Special Education Specialty Schools” students would be moved away from the school they have been attending — often the one closest to their home which is something they are specifically entitled to under federal law. Despite this, members of the state-appointed Board of Managers unanimously approved the plan in May.
The TEA has already told HISD that it was in error when it changed IEPs to match where the district wanted the student to go to school now. And that it needed to fix this. In response, HISD has said it will do whatever is needed to come into compliance. And hit the phone banks.
Optimally, an in-person ARD [Admission, Review and Dismissal] meeting is conducted to develop a student’s IEP before any such move is made. In the case of HISD and its Student Success Program, this process appears to have been reversed. Parents were told of their children’s new school assignment this summer and now are being asked to change their IEP to go along with that.
Parent Jane Friou, who is part of the Houston Special Education Parents Association, and other special education advocates recommend parents receiving such a phone call deliver a swift “No.”
Friou says after hearing a refusal, HISD reps then “switch scripts” and ask parents to set up an in-person meeting as soon as possible. In HISD the first day of school is August 10,
In a July 7 letter to the two HISD conservators appointed by the state to oversee what the district is doing, Edward O’Neill, deputy associate commissioner for the Office of Special Populations and Monitoring for TEA, noted “the agency is investigating multiple special education complaints related to this matter.
“TEA is concerned that a large majority of these impacted students’ IEPs are written such that changing campuses without revising IEPs through a properly constituted IEP team meeting or, to the extent allowed by law, through the amendment process, will result in noncompliance with IDEA [Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.]. Two notable areas of noncompliance would occur if IEPs:
“(1) document the specific campus or location where special education and related services will be provided during the 2026-2027 school year and that campus is no longer the planned campus as a result of the recent correspondence sent to parents regarding their children’s campus assignments; and
(2) do not effectively consider the potential harmful effects related to the proposed change ins service-delivery location, particularly when a student would no longer attend his or her home campus as the result of the change.”
Citing “the public nature of this matter, the number of potentially impacted students [5,000], and the agency’s ongoing review of related complaints, TEA expects conservator oversight of this work to be active, documented, and timely.”
O’Neill goes on to tell conservators they must verify that HISD has reviewed each student ‘s record including assessing the potential side effect of the proposed placement. Also to ensure ARD meetings were held to review and revise IEPs before a student is moved to a different campus.
And to verify district policies and procedures as well as training “to prevent future related instances of noncompliance.”
In addition to the pressure of school starting, HISD is working under a deadline from TEA: it has until October 8 to submit a final report to TEA that it has completed all actions required by the state agency, it could face sanctions.
Earlier this summer when word of the district’s plan began leaking out, the backlash from affected parents was immediate and intense . Several filed appeals to the TEA. Representatives of the U.S. Department of Education weighed in and launched an investigation.
“This is a very public fight,” Friou said, explaining that usually special education appeals to the TEA are handled on a private basis. “It’s usually between the parent, the school district and the TEA investigators.” This has become something else in the proposed mass movement of students, she said.
While it is legal to agree to an IEP amendment by phone, Friou said she had never been approached by HISD to do that in the 16 years she’s been with the district. She said she’s afraid that not all parents understand that agreement on their part is legally binding.
Friou, whose own child has not been told to change schools, predicts the first day of school may well be a disaster for the 5,000 special ed kids affected by this new plan. Should parents take their children to the school designated by their IEP? Or to where HISD has said they are being moved to?
“I know a parent who potentially has three schools that she could go to. One is where she was last year, one is where the district wants her to go. And then she did a school choice transfer and got a school choice transfer approved. Because by the way School Choice and special education in HISD, those systems don’t really talk to each other.”
She said what Miles apparently doesn’t understand is that an IEP from one school doesn’t automatically transfer to another.” For example, she said part of an IEP includes a schedule of services for a special ed student during the day. “We would want the receiving school to be able look at that and say can this schedule of services be implemented as it is written on your campus.”
A student without a revised IEP making a move from a school with seven class periods a day to a school with A and B block day scheduling will have more adjustments to make, she gave as one example.
“A lot of parents are in this process and don’t understand their rights,” Friou said. “We’re going to try to get information out to parents. We are saying do not agree to anything over the phone. And to ask for an IEP meeting with people from the school that they want to send their child to to be present at that meeting.”
