This is from last week, I meant to get to it sooner, but you know how it goes.
When Antonio Cruz Trejo opened his son’s backpack last Friday, he found a hand-painted Mother’s Day gift — a major milestone for his 3-year-old, who has autism. Then, he found a notice from Houston ISD on the back. His son had to move to a new campus next school year.
Trejo’s son is one of some 5,000 HISD students that were reassigned to new schools under the district’s plan to centralize some special education classes. HISD says the move will consolidate resources and reduce class sizes. But the plan has drawn an investigation by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, which is examining whether the move violates federal law. HISD parents have also submitted several complaints to the Texas Education Agency.
Frustrated by what they describe as a disruptive transition and lack of transparency, dozens of parents have launched a “pressure campaign” against HISD’s plan, rallying to speak at school board meetings and filing complaints with campuses and state and federal agencies.
[…
Parent complaints prompted the [federal Office for Civil Rights] investigation, according to the office. Families were concerned that students at reassigned campuses would spend less time in general education classrooms with their non-disabled peers and that longer commutes to new campuses would be hard on children with medical and behavioral needs. Federal law requires students with disabilities to learn in the least restrictive environment.
“Schools cannot exclude students with disabilities simply because of their disability status. Placement decisions must be made individually, based on each student’s needs, rather than by blanket policies that segregate students by disability category,” Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said in a statement. “The allegations described here are alarming.”
By Saturday, a group of several dozen parents and special education advocates had created a makeshift war room at Bitty and Beau’s, a coffee shop known for being “radically inclusive.” Advocates helped the 50 or so parents dispute the decision, request meetings with their students’ respective campus committees and draft complaints to the Texas Education Agency.
By Tuesday, parents filed several complaints to the Texas Education Agency, according to a statement to the Chronicle. Each complaint through the state agency then triggers a TEA investigation and report, which could result in required action from the district.
“TEA is in receipt of multiple complaints and will be investigating each,” the agency said. “TEA strongly encourages anyone with a special education concern to submit a complaint to the agency. Each complaint is thoroughly investigated by TEA.”
Several parents plan to keep up the campaign and protest the new model at HISD’s board of managers meeting Thursday evening, special education advocate Jane Friou said.
“I think the pressure campaign is working,” Friou said. “The district is not used to this … If you’re a state-appointed board, you can set up whatever rules you want to (for) STAAR tests or closing schools or consolidating campuses, but you cannot change federal special education law.”
See here for the background. In theory, the changes that HISD intends to make could be beneficial and may be necessary. But as with so many other things in Mike Miles World, they could not possibly care less about stakeholder communication. They decide what they’re going to do and then do it, and the rest of us find out whenever it happens and scramble to figure out how it will affect us. It’s a level of disrespect that borders on contempt. Whatever the possible merits of all this are, I hope every member of Team Miles is buried up to their apathetic noses in these complaints for the foreseeable future. They’ve earned every extra hour of work they’ll need to do to respond to them.
This is your reminder that conservatives believe special education, just like schools for non-whites, is nothing more than a kiddie jail for undesirables.
It’s not about giving better aid to the disabled. It’s about vanishing them.