Sitting in her classroom wondering if her students will ever get the help they need, Special Education (SPED) teacher Danielle Zuniga reads the news explaining that two monitors have been appointed to the Austin Independent School District (AISD) SPED department. On October 5, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) appointed Sherry Marsh and Lesa Shockle as those monitors. Their role is to watch over the SPED department, ensuring that the corrective action plan made by the TEA is completed accurately.
According to the TEA document, Support Seminar 3 Special Education, there are four special population categories; Special Education, English Learners, Gifted and Talented, and students in section 504. To categorize a student as one of these four special population categories, evaluation is required they will then qualify for specific accommodations.
“Accommodations change how a person accesses information, but they do not change the information given,” Zuniga said. “For instance, I’m five feet, two inches tall, and I can’t reach the top shelf in my kitchen, but I can grab a step stool to reach the shelf. I didn’t change my kitchen, I just used a tool to help me access the shelf that all my other family members can reach. Accommodations are personalized to the individual’s needs and can vary based on that need.”
In 2021, AISD made the decision to lay off almost their entire team of SPED evaluators to reorganize the SPED Department. Due to this, AISD was not meeting their deadlines for evaluation, which was a breach of federal guidelines. This is what allowed the TEA to intervene.
“AISD is in this position due to multiple factors,” Zuniga said. “For years, the TEA has cut millions of dollars of funding for SPED students and programming, which has impacted the allocation of funds. Burn out and the increased cost of living have educators leaving the profession. Growing numbers of students being identified with a possible need for services is coupled with less staff to handle the evaluations, leaving the SPED staff that haven’t left with increasing caseloads. The AISD Leadership’s decision in 2021 to lay off all Special Education Evaluators exasperated the situation even further.”
AISD was flagged in 2021, but just recently in March of 2023, the TEA sent out a deal stating they wanted to appoint conservators over the SPED department. Following this AISD put a plan in place to work on the issues they were flagged for.
“A year ago the district hired more people in the special education area so that we could actually do evaluations on kids because we were backlogged for multiple years,” math teacher Natasha Weissmiller said. “Currently, we are trying to make sure we are all up to date, and that our Bowie population is doing well.”
AISD also added a new mandated course for teachers to complete. The Bowie SPED department head, Victor Vickers, says that teachers have a canvas platform similar to students where they complete modules, watch videos, and take tests. Teachers at Bowie can work on these courses on professional development days and just recently completed the first one on October 9.
“The course just demonstrates how to deal with kids that have disabilities,” Vickers said. “The big thing right now is dyslexia because, they didn’t used to, but now a student who qualifies for dyslexia falls under special education.”
AISD showed progress towards a better evaluation system, and an organized SPED department, and TEA ended up appointing two monitors instead of conservators.
“The TEA was on the verge of stepping in, but AISD is saying, ‘we’re going to put these actions in place to show that we are in good faith of getting these evaluations done and getting the kids what they need’,” Vickers said. “So that is what we are trying to do; The TEA is like ‘okay, we love your actions, AISD, so we are just going to do a little bit to make sure this doesn’t happen again, and to make sure that everyone is trained in special education, especially dealing with children with disabilities’.”
According to Vickers, going through school without the needed accommodations can change a child’s view of school, and the new appointment of monitors will positively affect students because they will get evaluated for accommodations quickly.
“If a kid doesn’t feel like they’re learning anything at school, then it makes them think ‘do I really want to go to school’,” Vickers said. “I believe the monitors will help because they will be doing checks and balances. The TEA wants to make sure that everything we’re doing is what we should be doing, that way our actions develop into good habits.”
