KYLE — Several parents of Hays CISD students have voiced concerns regarding the district’s Special Education Department, stating that changes occurring in classrooms are hindering their student’s education.
Maria Bowen, a paraprofessional within the district, as well as a mother of three children with special needs, spoke during public comments at the Hays CISD Board of Trustees meeting on Sept. 16, stating that staff shortages have prevented her son from meeting inclusion minutes, as he cannot go to specials, recess or the lunch room.
According Hays CISD officials, inclusion minutes “are minutes where a student is supported by an adult in a general education setting.” Because these students may need additional learning services or support in a foundational learning classroom, they may receive inclusion support in the general educational classroom.
These minutes do not have a state-mandated amount, but are instead determined by the student’s Admission, Review and Dismissal (ARD) committee. This committee must consist of a parent, one regular education teacher, one special education teacher, a representative of the school, a person who can interpret the instructional implications of the evaluation results and, if appropriate, the child, according to the Texas SPED Support website.
It is then that this committee determines whether a child meets the criteria for special education and services, where it will create an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP, for the student. Included in this IEP is a determined amount of “inclusion minutes.”
Another parent and paraprofessional, Taylor Kelley, stated that her son is also not having these minutes met: “This noncompliance is not just a violation of his IEP, it is a failure to provide free and appropriate public education that he is legally entitled to.”
“The district is aware [of these concerns],” stated Hays CISD representatives. “There are students who are not currently receiving the inclusion minutes that are outlined on their IEP, due to an unexpected number of students who transferred into the district and were already receiving services in a previous district that have moved into Hays CISD.”
“All IEP minutes — those served and those not served — are documented. If a student missed minutes due to staff shortages of any kind, progress is being monitored and the need for compensatory minutes will be discussed with the ARD committee,” said district officials.
Kelley also noted that several classrooms have merged in the district, resulting in overcrowded classrooms, which, she believes, means that there is no opportunity for proper instructions, leading the children to fall behind, but district officials countered the claim, stating, “Our goal is to serve students through their home campus, rather than having to send them to another school to be served. Classrooms were not merged between schools. On most campuses, there are at least two foundational learning classrooms.” These foundational learning classrooms refer to classrooms for students with significant cognitive deficits. There was also another class titled “foundational learning structured classrooms.”
Lorraine Patterson, who has a student with level three autism and severe brain malformations, stated that her daughter was moved from a structured class to a traditional foundational learning class.
“This is not by our choice. [My daughter] is now forced to be in a traditional [foundational learning] classroom because the district, suddenly and without notice to parents, eliminated the structured classrooms that have existed for at least the last 10 years, which have allowed our [daughter] and others like her successfully attend school,” said Patterson.
“The word structured was a label added to the title foundational learning to define how the classes were to be differentiated. The original intention for the differentiation was to identify which students required specific instructional strategies to address routines and procedures systematically,” explained district representatives. “Somewhere along the way, the differentiation evolved and foundational learning structured became a classroom for students with cognitive deficits who exhibited behavior. This evolved differentiation led to determining the placement of the student. This was never the original intent … The label ‘structured’ was removed from the title of the classroom to reduce stigma.”
District officials also stated that the change in the title was discussed at the April 30, 2024, Special Education Parent Advisory Committee meeting and information was sent out from the Special Education Department in a back-toschool
newsletter on Aug.
12, 2024.
Despite the varying concerns presented by parents, they all shared one common stressor: a shortage in staff.
Tania van Bree painted a picture of what her son’s classroom looked like: there were seven students, aged kindergarten through fifth grade, with four adults; many students are minimal or nonverbal; most run away, have no sense of danger or become aggressive when frustrated; and there are separate therapies and activities schedule throughout the day for each student dependent on their needs. Now, this is still true, only the number has doubled.
“When I think of all [these issues] and I sit there on Friday nights watching all of these amazing students benefit from the programs they have access to — my daughter is in marching band — it’s amazing, but I can’t help but get teary thinking about how, meanwhile, my son and his peers are struggling just to have their basic rights met, just to be able to feel safe and to learn. I know his sister would give it all up in a heartbeat,” said van Bree. “For a chance to support her little brother’s education, she would drop it. She knows he deserves it. They all deserve the support and more and I know our community members like you care about helping them become functional members of our society and they deserve our attention and they deserve our support.”
Parents at the meeting stated that several students and staff members have been hurt as a result of the lack of staff.
Hays CISD officials confirmed that this is an issue that the district is experiencing. Specifically, in the special education departments, there are 14 special education teacher positions, six special education paraprofessional positions and four special education district positions that are empty, which includes speech therapists, school psychologists/education diagnosticians, an adapted physical education teacher and a teacher of the visually impaired.
To remedy some of these vacancies, there has been support from educational contract companies for some positions, confirmed the district, some of which began after the first day of school.
In order to bolster the hiring and retention rate of teachers in the Special Education Department, the Human Resources Department held a job fair for special education positions in April, as well as worked closely with universities to recruit paraprofessionals and teachers for grant-funded degree programs.
Hays CISD parent Claudia Belcher said that parents have received the same answers over and over: “I hear you” and “There’s budget cuts [and] shortages.”
“We have been reasonable and patient, but we feel it’s about time for you guys to start taking more actions to make sure these needs are met,” concluded Belcher.
To further address the concerns, the Hays CISD Special Education Department presented information to the Hays CISD Board of Trustees at the Sept. 24 meeting. The
Hays Free Press
will cover this presentation and the discussion in the Oct. 2 edition.
