Austin district vows collaboration through state's special education involvement

A day after the Texas Education Agency announced it will install a conservator to oversee the Austin school district's special education department due to “systemic noncompliance," district officials said that any state-appointed staff probably wouldn't begin work in the district until late spring.

In a report released Friday, the TEA announced it will appoint a board of conservators to get the Austin district's special education department back on track, specifically in dealing with a growing backlog on evaluations for services.

District officials said during a news conference Saturday that they were committed to working collaboratively with the state, but some community members worried about the state education agency's intervention as it has been a source of federal scrutiny over its own special education policies.

A federal investigation in 2018 found the TEA was denying special education services to students who should have received them. That failing, along with lack of funding, is the root cause of many backlog issues, said Ken Zarifis, president of Education Austin, a union that represents local teachers.

Interim Superintendent Matias Segura said Saturday that the district since January has renewed its focus on fixing breakdowns in its special education department, including setting up a mechanism to shorten lengthy evaluation wait times.

“As an organization, we have made tremendous progress in the last several months, but it has been an ongoing challenge for this organization for years,” Segura said. “We’ve been working countless hours putting together plans, systems, milestones.”

The district has been working to improve the backlog by having outside evaluations, legal counsel and staff recruitment, school board President Arati Singh said.

In a statement released Friday night, TEA officials noted that a 30-page report about complaints against the district found “systemic issues.”

“The agency has developed a rigorous plan for AISD to implement so it can return to state and federal compliance and begin appropriately serving students in need of special education services as quickly as possible,” according to the TEA statement.

The district had hoped the TEA would appoint a monitor, which is a step down in severity from a conservator and grants the district a little more power in the relationship, Singh said.

“Austin is a unique place,” Singh said. “We really want to ensure that our decisions are made collaboratively. We have a very active community of special education families. When we make big decisions to any program, we like to include our community.”

An inevitable move?

Disability rights advocates insist the TEA's involvement is necessary.

The district's problem had gone on for so long, the state didn't have another option, said Steven Aleman, senior policy specialist with Disability Rights Texas. The advocacy group brought a lawsuit in 2021 against the district over its special education evaluations backlog.

"Austin ISD has not been able to correct the deficiencies," Aleman said. "This is a problem of magnitude with number of students involved but also with timing."

The move was inevitable, said Jolene Sanders-Foster, advocacy director for the Coalition for Texans with Disabilities.

"I'm disappointed that it took this long," Sanders-Foster said.

The TEA has its own special education problems, but there's not another alternative, and more eyes on the problem may help, she said.

Ongoing challenge

The state agency's announcement comes only two weeks after the TEA took over the Houston district, where some campuses had failed to meet state academic standards for more than five years.

The Austin case is different, essentially a step down in severity from a takeover by a board of managers. Austin will retain its school board and interim superintendent, but it will face strict oversight from the state. The conservatorship is likely to consist of two or three people with area expertise who will direct some district decisions, Singh said.

Since May, the district has completed 4,000 evaluations, according to district data. It has received 1,263 evaluation requests since January.

As of March 20, 1,808 students were waiting past the deadline on either an initial evaluation or a reevaluation, which determines if students need new services or changes to those they already get, according to district data.

The pandemic further exacerbated the problems, Singh said.

Staffing challenges have also plagued the department, Segura said. The district has 51 of 72 positions open for educational diagnosticians or licensed specialists in school psychology, the staffers who perform the evaluations, he said.

Clear issues

Beyond the evaluation process, the Austin district needs to do a better job of serving students who have been identified for special education services, said Deborah Trejo, a parent of four children, two of whom are still in Austin schools.

“It is not an education that provides a meaningful education in the least restrictive environment,” Trejo said. “It is not an inclusive education.”

Her oldest son, who has graduated, is autistic and has Down syndrome, and Trejo felt that the district should have made more effort to include him in general education, she said.

“We had to advocate every step of the way,” Trejo said.

The district clearly has significant issues in its special education department, said Zarifis, the union president.

“If TEA wants to genuinely help AISD and the special education families, then great,” Zarifis said. “Let them work collaboratively with the district.”

State troubles

The state, however, isn’t blameless when it comes to the special education shortcomings, Zarifis said.

For more than a decade, TEA prohibited districts from giving special education resources to more than 8.5% of their student population, an issue investigated by the Houston Chronicle. In 2018, the U.S. Department of Education found the TEA in violation of federal special education laws.

The TEA believes it has exceeded all the federally mandated corrective actions, including an updated complaint process, better supports and more than 70 specialized new staff members, according to a Monday statement to the Statesman.

"To better identify and serve students with disabilities, the agency has executed a strategic plan to improve special education in Texas through the development of robust technical assistance and supports," it said in the statement.

The state also funds public schools, and more money could mean more evaluators, Zarifis said.

“What the state has done is underfund public schools, which creates a challenge for doing the work that needs to be done to close the gap on testing,” Zarifis said.

While Austin’s situation is different from Houston’s, Zarifis was troubled by the takeover despite the fact the Houston district had brought its scores up to a B, he said.

“That history informs my trepidation,” Zarifis said.

The district could appeal the decision and has until April 17 to do so.

This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin ISD vows collaboration with state special education involvement