Special Needs Education...What you should know before you move to Texas
If you're moving here from out-of-state, the difference in education administration can be quite a shock.
- Understand that Texas schools WILL balk at your requests to follow your child's out-of-state IEP and will try to insist on new testing based on state guidelines.
Frankly, most Texas school districts are not equipped to provide the programs found in other states. Texas resources are spread over a larger area than usually found in other parts of the nation and naturally are more difficult to integrate into neighboring communities. For example, Katy, Texas has a school district that has made major investments in educating its school children on American Sign Language and various other forms of communication and interpersonal relationships. Move to San Antonio, Texas, and you will not find a program like it. - Know that each district is different from how they prioritize their funding to how the view your child.
Some districts have school boards that in-fight, high turnovers for Superintendents or a history of financial unaccountability. Some districts put more emphasis on extra-curricular activities than others, and still others have programs designed to assist their student with attaining higher education goals through joint community college course credits or tuition incentives. Some districts emphasize mainstreaming, some use a step-up approach and others emphasize teaching methods over environment. - Determine what your child's needs are and prioritize them.
Once you have a list it will be easier to try to hone in on a school district, and easier still to build an IEP. If a school district already has the main components of your child's IEP, they will be more apt to work with you on making adjustments resembling those within your child's current IEP. - Know the the Texas Education Agency (TEA) may not provide you with a lot of help.
TEA prefers to refer most inquiries back to the school district of origin for resolution rather than involve itself as a third party. Some accuse the TEA of being a little too cozy with school districts and having an incentive to rule in favor of districts given that most of the power of the TEA comes directly from the districts themselves. - Texas state law is more prohibitive when it comes to the issue of suing a school district which may be why finding a good educational lawyer who is not already on retainer for a school district can feel near impossible.
Don't assume you can threaten to sue or mediate and the district will do more than stare back at you. - Be prepared to provide additional outside therapies for your child.
Texas school districts emphasize that their obligation to provide supportive services is only to the extent to which failure to provide such a service would significantly and negatively interfere with their ability to provide educational opportunities. Just because your doctor writes an order, makes an assessment or deems a supportive service necessary, does not mean the district will comply. If their assessments stand in disagreement with your doctor's, they will deem their assessments more accurate for an educational environment while your doctor's will be viewed as medically applicable. So even with an independent evaluation, you cannot assume your child's support services will be adequate...nor can you assume that the LEVEL of support will be consistent. - Know that overall time allotted for support services can be broken down by the district into various parts...direct therapy, instructional supervision or consultation with those provided the therapy, group therapy.
Suppose your child is allotted 40 min per six weeks for speech therapy. That speech therapy may come in the form of consultation between the therapist and the child's teacher, speech therapy provided to an entire group of which your child would be one or by direct one-on-one therapy with your child. Unless you specify these things in an ARD meeting, Texas schools have a great deal of leniency in proving compliance. - Be aware that due to testing requirements, some children in special education will not have the same opportunities for mainstreaming in grades 2+ as they do in lower grades.
Texas schools focus on passing state required testing from the second week of the school year until testing is completed...usually April. - Texas schools consider mainstreaming to consist of anything from actual inclusion in regular education classes to eating in the same cafeteria as their peers even if they are not eating nearby.
So if your IEP is dependent on mainstream time limits, lunch, phys. ed. and recess can count towards mainstreaming opportunities. - You cannot request a particular teaching method for your child.
- Many districts will refuse to assign a particular aide to any one child.
Their stance is that to do so would put them in non-compliance if that staff member was unavailable due to sickness or staff constraints. - Some districts do not assign equipment to a particular student since they would be required to allow that child to take those assigned items with them if they left the district.
Why does this matter? Well, if your child uses a voice output device, and the district doesn't assign it to them, theoretically, your child could go without until the next district deemed it necessary, ordered it and provided it to your child. - The home school for your child may be different than if he were not a special needs child...and may be subject to caps.
If your child would typically go to school A, but due to his needs he would be better met at school B but school B is "capped out" (meaning it already has met the limit on the number of students it can serve in that particular program), then your child will be relegated to school C.
While all of this may be a bit disconcerting, please keep in mind that all states and districts differ...any change has the potential for positive and negative impact.
