East Austin Gathering Staged For Parents, Guardians Concerned About Special Ed Enrollment Cap

EAST AUSTIN, TX — A Thursday evening meeting in East Austin will be staged for parents and guardians of special education students to air their concerns related to a state cap on enrollment of such children that was previously implemented.

Representatives from the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Special Education and Rehabilitative Services (OSERS) and the Texas Education Agency (TEA) will be on hand during the listening session, the last in a series that kicked off in Dallas earlier this week.

Those unable to attend can provide comments via a specially built blog, accessible by clicking here.

In early October, the federal government put Texas on notice that it must end its so-called "PBMAS Indicator 10" that penalizes school districts that provide special education to more than 8.5 percent of their students. That penalty has effectively limited the number of special education students that school districts are able to enroll, according to reports.

The issue came to light by virtue of reporting by the Houston Chronicle newspaper revealing that a 12-year-old policy has had the effect of forcing school districts to limit special education enrollment. Since that time, about 225,000 students statewide have been denied special education as a result of that state-mandated threshold, the Chronicle reported.

The purpose of the listening session and the aforementioned blog is to provide members of the public an opportunity to provide comment regarding the timely identification, evaluation and the appropriate provision of special education and related services to all eligible children with disabilities under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), officials said.

In October 3, 2016 letter to Texas Commissioner Mike Morath, OSERS raised concerns regarding Texas’s compliance with a number of requirements of IDEA. The State responded to OSERS’ letter on November 2, 2016, according to officials.

"OSERS and the TEA are interested in hearing from the public, including parents, family members, students, advocates, school personnel and other stakeholders," officials said. "OSERS has set up this blog for interested parties to submit written comments. This blog will be open for comments from December 5, 2016 through January 6, 2017."

To protect privacy and that of others, officials ask participants not to include personally identifiable information, such as children or school personnel names, Social Security numbers, addresses, phone numbers or email addresses in the body of your comment.

"Under no circumstances will comments be allowed to remain that contain Social Security numbers, addresses, email addresses, phone numbers, or similar personally identifiable information, such as children or school personnel names," officials said.

Thursday's listening session is scheduled at the Region 13-Austin offices at 5701 Springdale Rd. The telephone number is (512) 919-5313. The session runs from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

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