Austin ISD ahead of schedule fixing special education after TEA order: district

AUSTIN, Texas - The Austin Independent School District provided an update on its progress in meeting the requirement for special education services. This update came after the district had an evaluation backlog of more than 800 children in 2021. 

Austin ISD and the Texas Education Agency reached an agreement in 2023. The district has until September 1, 2025, to meet all 99 requirements outlined by the TEA. So far, AISD has checked off 74 of those items, which puts it ahead of schedule. 

"They [the TEA] were recommending a conservator, but I believe that they felt that our plan, if left undisrupted, would be able to move the system forward," said Matias Segura, Austin ISD superintendent.

Since then, the TEA has heavily monitored the school's approach to tackling its goals to meet the federal and state requirements for special education. 

"What we're wanting to accomplish is a seamless platform that aligns everything to get our teachers exactly what they need to support our students," said Segura.

In SpEd, individualized education programs, or IEPs, are formed for each student and consist of their personal data. However, ensuring the information was properly communicated and easily accessible is another area the district needs to improve upon. 

"When you're in high school, and you have six different teachers, you know you may have different accommodation for taking the test, perhaps like an art versus if you're in geography," said Segura.

By creating a new platform to compile the data, the IEPs for each child can now be accessed by all of their school teachers. This allows them to easily look up the student's profile, individual plan, and learning accommodations that the child needs, all in real-time. 

Another hurdle for the school was needing to be fully staffed. 

"I think at one point we had 73 positions and only 22 staff onsite," said Segura. "When you think about that, well, you don't have enough staff to keep up with the work." 

AISD has since increased pay and incentives in an effort to attract and retain more teachers. 

All the information they already have will need to be transferred to the new platform. From there, they will begin to run tests on the new system, making sure it works while also continuing to accommodate students. 

In the summer, they plan to crank out many of those tests to prepare for the fall semester. 

Background

Austin ISD and the Texas Education Agency entered the agreement after the AISD board voted 8-1 to approve the plan on Sept. 27, 2023. 

The agreement was to avoid a full-on state conservatorship of Austin ISD, similar to what happened in Houston ISD and what had been initially proposed by TEA in March 2023. Under the agreement, the TEA was to provide additional monitoring of AISD's special education services.

READ MORE

• Austin ISD presented with alternative plan by TEA over special education
• Austin ISD approves TEA plan for state oversight of district's special education program
• Austin ISD discusses timeline to meet TEA governance implementation

At the time the conservatorship was proposed, Austin ISD was dealing with a district-wide backlog of initial evaluations. In October 2023, AISD had a goal to clear the backlog by the 2025-26 school year.