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The Texas education agency said Friday it will move to appoint governors to oversee the Austin Independent School District, citing the district’s failures to serve privately-educated students.
TEA said in a statement that it was investigating the district’s special education department and found it had “systemic issues.”
“The agency has developed an aggressive AISD enforcement plan so that it can return to state and federal compliance and begin serving students who need special education services as quickly as possible,” the statement said.
The Austin ISD Board of Trustees said in a statement Friday evening that TEA-selected supervisors will work with the district to provide special education services to students with disabilities. The council also said the district has the right to appeal the guardianship, but did not say whether it would do so.
“We focus on our students, and we welcome collaboration with TEA to help us catch up on the long-overdue assessments. We are united in our focus to ensure all students get what they need, when they need it,” Read the statement.
The board plans to hold a public meeting to address the trusteeship and allow for public comment on Monday evening.
TEA shared with The Texas Tribune the final report of its Austin ISD investigation. In it, the agency said the district failed to assess students in need of special education services and provide those services to eligible students. The report stated that the area was put on an improvement plan but did not undertake significant reforms.
The announcement comes two weeks after the TEA announced that it would replace the Houston Charter School’s current superintendent and school board with its own “board of directors” in response to years of poor academic results. Houston ISD had a guard in place before TEA moved in to take over the area. One of the reasons it took over the Houston school district, the agency said, was because a maintenance worker had been in place for two school years.
Civil rights organizations on Friday launched a federal complaint against the agency’s takeover of Houston’s ISD, claiming the move takes away the rights of voters of color to choose their school officials.
The superintendent acts as the school district manager, ensuring that the school board and the superintendent take the necessary steps to resolve any issues reported by the state education agency. According to the TEA website, a trustee can “direct the action of the campus administrator, superintendent, or board of trustees.”
State Rep. Gina Hinojosa, D-Austin, said in a press release that she is aware of the shortcomings at Austin ISD with regard to special education but believes the district is on the right track after the election of four new board members and the appointment of an interim superintendent in his place this past November.
“They showed me their plans to change the trajectory of AISD’s special education department. I think we were finally on the right track to get our kids doing right,” she said. [TEA Commissioner Mike] Morath’s decision to install guardianship in our school district at this time.”
There is bipartisan anger at TEA over the way the agency has imposed itself on provinces, Hinojosa said, adding that lawmakers can find ways to reduce the agency’s power.
“This is a serious interference,” said Hinojosa. “This is the first step Austin has taken against ISD.”
Austin ISD is currently facing lawsuit on its own educational practices. In the suit, Disability Rights Texas, an advocacy organization, alleges that the district was lagging behind in assessing more than 800 students who may need special education services.
Texas schools have always been under the microscope when it comes to private education. A 2018 federal investigation found that the state was effectively denying students with disabilities the tools and services they need for learning, in violation of federal law. In 2020, the federal government found that TEA did not do enough to serve all special education students.
said David DeMatthews, assistant professor in the University of Texas Austin College of Education.
Special education issues are not unique to Austin, DeMatthews said, noting that the state does not have enough special education teachers, or related service providers, to meet the needs of Texas students.
We have a broken pipeline. There were 43,000 teachers who left last year and we’re not doing a good job of replacing those teachers. “And in a special edition, the situation is even worse.”
William Melado contributed to this story.
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