reassign around 5,000 students<\/a> in special education to new campuses in the upcoming school year. The program would help create smaller class sizes with more resources and improve staffing levels, district officials have said.<\/p>\n“Every student will continue receiving the services outlined in his or her\u201d individualized education program, HISD’s deputy superintendent Kristen Hole said in a news release earlier this month. \u201cWe will continue implementing these improvements while completing the reviews directed by TEA.”<\/p>\n
\u201cRecent public reporting has raised significant concerns regarding Houston ISD\u2019s Success Program and the potential movement of students with disabilities to different campuses for the 2026\u20132027 school year,\u201d the state agency said in the letter. \u201cTEA is aware that families have publicly requested that Houston ISD pause implementation of these changes, and the agency is investigating multiple special education complaints related to this matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the letter, TEA acknowledged that school districts have the authority to move students in special education programs to different campuses. But since specific campus assignments are often written into students\u2019 individualized education plans, the district should consult with parents before making such moves, the agency said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The district should also consider the potential harmful effects of reassigning students with special needs, especially if a new campus is further from home, the TEA said.<\/p>\n
State conservators have overseen HISD\u2019s special education department since December\u00a02020.<\/p>\n
In the letter, the TEA called on those conservators to properly supervise the implementation of the new program\u00a0and ensure that district staff receive training to \u201cprevent future related instances of noncompliance.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the public nature of this matter, the number of potentially impacted students, and the agency\u2019s ongoing review of related complaints, TEA expects conservator oversight of this work to be active, documented, and timely,\u201d the letter read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Texas Education Agency has ordered\u00a0Houston ISD\u2019s state conservators to review its plans for 5,000 special education students,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":385580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[56,58,57],"class_list":["post-385579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston","tag-houston","tag-houston-headlines","tag-houston-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/385580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-tx\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}