Hey everyone, HISD has been falling behind in special education for years.
Now things are even more complicated as TEA appointed Superintendent Mike Miles implements
his vision for the department.
So what are his new changes?
And how is it all playing out?
Houston Landings HISD reporter Asher Layer small joins me to answer.
It's Monday, September 18th, 2023.
I'm Raheel Rumsonali and here's what Houston's talking about.
Asher welcome in to CityCast Houston.
How are you?
I'm doing well.
Good to be here.
Hill.
I'm excited to talk with you about what's been happening with the special education department
at HISD.
So let's jump into it before Superintendent Mike Miles got here.
What was the department like?
Yeah, it's a big question.
Special education has been fraught in Houston ISD for years and years really over a decade.
And it goes back to the early 2010s when the state of Texas imposed an artificial cap,
but illegally imposed an artificial cap on the number of students that could be participating
in district special education programs.
So I want to say that number is 8.5%.
So essentially districts in Texas couldn't include more students in special ed than that
percentage, even if there were say more students in their district that needed those services.
So that was something that really impacted Houston.
For years and years in 2016, the Houston Chronicle broke a big investigation about this.
It's called the denied series.
It's actually one of Pulitzer.
And the impacts of that, the ramifications continue to play out today.
So what that looks like is, you know, there are students who maybe they have dyslexia.
Maybe they have autism.
And you know, there's so many different steps in the special education process, right?
First, it's being identified as needing services, it's being diagnosed.
Then it's creating a plan for how to meet those needs.
That's called the terminology is IEP.
It's individualized education program.
So if you talk to special education parents, they actually know these laws in and out because
if they have to navigate these every day, there's just a high level of detail that goes along
with it.
But essentially, students build out their IEPs to determine what sort of services they're
going to get in school.
And then there's the last step, which is the most important of actually implementing those
and giving students those services, whether that's speech therapy or longer time on assignments.
Or a chance to like step out of the classroom, fidget for five minutes, shake out the wiggles.
So all sorts of different things.
And in the past, there have been breakdowns at every level of that process.
So either students being undiagnosed when they should be diagnosed and getting services
they need, students and families not getting things on a timely basis like everything going
really slowly.
And that's kind of the history of what we're looking at now.
And those ripple effects are still something that districts recovering from.
Has anything changed since the TEA takeover and Superintendent Mike Miles being put in
charge and especially with his new plans?
So the superintendent has plans for special ed and so and there have been changes in terms
of staffing.
I'm going to rewind a little further first because between the discovery of that 8.5% cap
where students weren't getting where there were many students who were being cut out
of special education services.
And now there are a couple important steps.
So first off, in the end of 2020, the state appointed was called conservators to oversee
special education in HISD, essentially they're like, there are problems, there are systemic
problems with special education delivery.
So we're going to put folks here to put you on the right path.
And so that's been in place for about two and a half years now.
And there have been some incremental improvements.
There's certain pieces where HISD has made progress and there's certain places where HISD
has not made as much progress as it should.
So it's been getting better at getting students to be evaluated for whether it's autism or
difficulties with speech, they're getting better at evaluating students.
But then the piece of including parents in that has still been slow to improve.
This is according to documents that I obtained based on these are reports of these conservators
actually created.
So we were able to take a look at these reports and it shows step by step.
Where the district is on track and where the district is off track.
And the overall story is that there's been inconsistent progress.
Now fast forwarding, that's like where we stand right now.
That's the problem, the superintendent Mike Miles has inherited.
And so Mike Miles made a few changes first, his plan kind of hinges on three things.
First it's getting special education teachers paid more, certain certified special education
teachers paid more and with an assistant in class.
And then second, it's getting principal evaluations to include how their, how their school is
doing on special ed.
So 20% of a principal's evaluation is going to be tied to special education, which the
superintendent says is like something has never been done before in HISD.
And then third, yeah, getting, getting assistance in the special education department.
So that those instructors aren't so overwhelmed and they can delegate some tasks.
Are those changes already in effect right now for this school year?
Yes, you know, it's going to take a little while to see how everything shakes out.
There's been some comings and goings in special education.
Mike Miles cut a couple support teams that were in place to help students who are in
special education program, that's including, I think, an autism support team and also
a group of school psychologists.
At the same time though, his point is that he's made sure there are no vacancies among
the full time special education staffers.
So last year they were looking at 112 vacancies and special ed at the beginning of this, at
the beginning of the school year and this year, there were zero, he said, so wow.
On his, what he argues is that that more than balances out and that the special department
is very well staffed and is in a position to succeed.
That said, there's a lot of parental fears, so I can tell you about those too.
That was big.
The entire autism support staff was like go before the school year started.
So how have the parents been responding with these changes?
Totally.
And it's always going to be, you know, a mixed bag.
There will be people who are excited about the fact that, hey, someone is trying to address
this centrally as opposed to school by school and inconsistent results depending on which
principal invests more or less in special education.
But by and large, most parents who have children in special education are really concerned about
the direction that Mike Miles is taking the school district.
And there's a few main reasons here.
But the biggest one boils down to the idea that Mike Miles has a vision for classrooms
that are very strict, very fast and very efficient.
And essentially that might work well for some students, but there's other students who
it won't work well for.
So if a student, for example, has an accommodation where they take extra time to complete an assignment
or they get distracted really easily, there's some issues that parents see coming up where
in the expectations for classrooms that Mike Miles has laid out for teachers, teachers
are supposed to solicit a response from students about every four minutes.
So it's really fast pace.
At the same time, there's assistant principals, principals kind of hopping in and out of
the classroom to coach teachers on the spot.
But parents are telling me that they worry that that could be really distracting for students
who maybe have ADHD or just have difficulty focusing in the classroom.
So the bottom line is that parents are concerned that the new model of schooling that's slowly
being faced out in HISD could actually push special education students out of general
education classrooms.
Now that's really important because special education law permits that students with
disabilities are entitled to what's called the least restrictive environment possible.
So essentially what that means is like years ago, special education students were really
segregated from their peers.
They'd be kept, you know, the stereotype is like alone in a cement room or just, you know,
they never interact with students who don't have disabilities.
So the law specifically states that students in special ed, whenever possible, should be
included in general education classrooms.
But parents are now really scared that that might be more and more difficult.
So what options do parents of students with special education needs have now, right?
If this new model doesn't work for them, are there other options out there?
There be charter schools or other specialized schools that maybe can help their children
better than HISD?
Well, I think you're right.
There are a lot of people that are making contingency plans.
Special education students are some of those who are the most vulnerable in the school system
because they do have these really particular needs in order to succeed.
The reality is that according to federal law, according to state law, students in special
education are entitled to, it's called free, adequate public education.
So they should not have to go to charter schools or to private schools in order to get their
needs met.
That said, just because of all of these difficulties in Houston, in other districts in Texas,
it's really common that families who have children in special education might seek out
advocates to help them work in the meetings they have with school administrators to say,
hey, my child deserves XYZ in their special education plan.
But the thing is that creates a big equity issue because advocates can be expensive and
there are some families that will be able to afford those and there are some families
that won't.
And so essentially in a system where families might need that extra help in order to fully
get the services their children need, there are some families that just don't have the
financial resources to hire an advocate and that could end up leaving them behind.
Okay.
So in most things, education related, Asher, it always comes down to one thing.
Any resources, right?
Is there any issues right now in terms of the resources that special education has from
HISD?
Like, can we get more money?
Is there not enough money, anything like that?
Well, you're right that special education is no exception when it comes down to money
playing a huge role in what sort of services are available.
And there are definitely folks who argue that the state of Texas short changes used in
terms of the funding that it receives to carry out the special education program, right?
So when we talked earlier about some of the roots of the special education issues in
HISD going back to some of the statewide problems earlier in the 2010s, folks argue that
a lot of the blame falls on the state here and that they appointed conservators.
They hold some of the purse strings.
And so why haven't they taken a bigger role in turning all this around?
Looking at the HISD budget, the district is spending a lot this year, not just on special
education, but more broadly, because the superintendent is rolling out some sizeable
changes at 85 schools.
That's the new education system schools and the new education system align schools that
you've probably heard about by now.
But essentially, those changes are equating to a $245 million deficit this year, which
is really big.
The district also has a really big general fund so that they do have the capacity to run
a deficit like that for one or two more years.
But that said, the district has something to worry about when it comes to finances right
now.
There's a reason to be looking to economize.
And so special education is subject to those same constraints that all the other programs
are.
But thank you so much.
This reporting is incredible.
And of course, we've linked your story in our show notes.
So I really encourage all of our listeners to read it.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thanks for Hill.
Great to be here.
Always great to talk to you.
That was Asher Layers Small.
You can read all of his work on Houston Landing.
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Head to Houston.citycast.fm to subscribe to our newsletter, Hey Houston, where Brook
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And I hope you learned something new.