Brittany Kelley
Editor’s note: The Texas School for the Deaf staff member’s name has been changed for anonymity.
AUSTIN — Two families have been left devastated after Texas School for the Deaf (TSD) suddenly deemed their children unfit to attend. After an attempt to rid the school of deaf students with a disability, the parents claim, some children are left to receive a lesser deaf education.
Heather Skeen’s son was born profoundly deaf, meaning that he has no hearing or access to sound. He also cannot use amplification devices, such as cochlear implants or hearing aids, due to his anatomy. This means that American Sign Language (ASL) is his native language.
Skeen lives in Buda, so when considering options for her child, his home district — Hays CISD — was not the first choice. She explained that this is because the school district does not endorse ASL. Instead, it teaches Exact English, which Skeen noted is a tool developed to help deaf children read English, rather than a language.
Because of this, his parents believed that TSD was the best opportunity for him. The school, Skeen continued, is the only one within Central Texas that offers a fully-based ASL learning environment.
“All of their instruction is in ASL and it’s a large Deaf community, so he has access to great language models there from other day children [and] from other deaf adults that work on campus. It’s a language rich environment; it’s a culturally rich environment for his deaf culture. [TSD is] considered one of the top five deaf schools in the country,” she said.
Her son began attending in 2017.
This opportunity to be enriched within a Deaf community is the same reason that Nolan and Jennifer Astrein moved from California to Texas.
After touring Deaf schools across the nation in early 2023 and speaking with families, the Astreins decided that TSD was the best program for their son, who they enrolled in Early Childhood Intervention, a state program that provides support and services from birth to age 3 for children with developmental delays, disabilities or certain medical diagnoses.
Skeen’s and the Astreins’ sons are deaf plus, which is when a child is deaf, but also has additional disabilities. For example, both of the families' children need support when it comes to feeding.
This was something that Nolan and Jennifer made clear when they were searching for a school.
“These are all things we had talked about with the staff and the faculty before moving, like ‘What would these programs be like? Who would [our son] be with?’ We got to tour the classroom that he was in [and] we got to meet some of the teachers. We really liked the program and they were able to fulfill the additional needs [he has],” emphasized Nolan.
Although the special education department, which Skeen’s son was planning to join once he reached the age requirement, and the special services class in prekindergarten — that Jennifer and Nolan were hoping to put their child in — dissolved, the families were still happy with TSD.
Skeen, Nolan and Jennifer applauded their sons’ experience with the school, sharing that they felt the school was meeting their needs and supporting their children — “Up until they didn’t,” stressed Nolan.
According to Nolan and Jennifer, faculty made clear to them that their son, who attended the ECI program on TSD school grounds, was not actually a student, despite having a school identification card and student number. Because of this, he would have to be evaluated prior to moving into the prekindergarten program.
It was this initial evaluation that resulted in their son being kicked out of the institution.
Similarly, Skeen’s son, who had been a student for eight years , received an annual assessment that deemed him unfit for the school.
Both children had been determined to have an intellectual disability or cognitive deficits prior to the determination that they could no longer attend TSD.
According to Riley, a staff member at TSD, the school’s reactions to these cognitive impairments is new. Although not revealing their exact length of employment, Riley shared that they noticed “there have been a lot of changes in a negative way” since Peter Bailey’s induction as superintendent in September 2023.
For example, with the dissolution of the special education department, Riley explained that there has seemingly been no attempt to retain the teachers that were equipped to attend to the needs deaf-plus students. Although the deaf-plus students still attending TSD are not neglected, Riley stated that there have been no attempts by the school to replace the certified personnel that have left or provide training to certify other teachers, so there is limited staff equipped to meet their needs.
Applied classes have been created in lieu of the department, said the staff member. These are not labeled as special education, rather they offer slightly modified curriculum and are “few and far between.”
The alleged attempt to limit services for those students is throughout the school, including in the Access Program, which is available for students above 18 years old. This is an opportunity for students to learn life skills, such as budgeting, culinary and woodworking, but instead of the classes being for students that need a bit more guidance, it is being tailored to the students that already have good skills: “It’s almost like they’re just trying to absolve the whole special needs population altogether and try to almost make it more of an elite population … A one-size-fits-all and if you don’t fit [within] that, your needs are too much,” the staff member explained.
“Things have really escalated and it’s been made very clear that we are not to accept students with severe cognitive or behavioral needs. Instead of providing that training to the staff there, the kids are just being kicked out,” they said.
Riley also noticed the increase of families leaving from their Admission, Review and Dismissal (ARD) Committee meetings and not returning to school.
They explained that TSD is steadily requesting cognitive evaluations for students with behavioral issues or who are slightly slower than some of their peers, though they are not following the appropriate process.
Riley emphasized that, typically, after the evaluation, families would have an ARD meeting, where they learn the results. This meeting would discuss any recommended accommodations and the committee would agree or disagree. It is then that ARD would inform the family if they feel that TSD is no longer a good fit for the child. This is in accordance with what TSD public information officer Gabriel Cardenas confirmed, which is that the ARD committee is the only entity that makes decisions regarding a student's education program, including services and placement, as required by state law.
Despite this, Riley alleged that instead, ARD is delivering the results of the evaluation and, to their knowledge, ending the meeting there. Separately, the TSD admissions office is calling parents and stating that their child is no longer fit for TSD, they stated.
“It happens sort of behind everyone’s back,” the staff member continued. “It’s just administration calling up the parent or video phoning the parent, which that’s against protocol because these types of decisions should be in an individual education plan meeting or ARD meeting decision.”
Skeen experienced this exact scenario.
She explained that her son had a full individual evaluation, which occurs approximately every three years. The assessment included speech, cognitive and behavioral components.
Following the testing, the family met with the ARD committee to review the results. Skeen immediately noted that the scores were lower than previous years — something that she didn’t agree with — and also stated that her son qualified for an intellectual disability.
The mother explained that despite her initial impression of the scores, she signed the paperwork detailing that her son had the disability because she assumed, if anything, that he would have better access to services.
“In the moment, and given my history with the school, I trusted them, that they weren’t going to use this as ammunition to remove my child,” recalled Skeen. “It probably would have been a little different had I not agreed in the meeting [to sign those papers].”
At a previous evaluation, she recalled that the results also said that her son had an intellectual disability, but, at that time, she declined to sign the documents. He continued to attend TSD, seemingly with no issues.
Less than an hour after the 2025 meeting, she stated that she received a vague email that included the assistant principal and a woman in admissions: “I asked, ‘Why are you connecting us with admissions?’ No one said anything [in response] that day and then, the next day, the assistant principal called me and said that my son no longer meets admission criteria and they are referring him out to his home district — or Hays CISD.”
She stated that since that day on Oct. 1, 2025, there has been no formal writing stating that her son has been kicked out of TSD, nor any policies declaring the reason why. Only the school’s general admissions criteria was mentioned, said Skeen.
The criteria Skeen is referencing in TSD’s Board Policy and states the following: “[Texas School for the Deaf] does not serve:
1. students whose needs are appropriately addressed in a home or hospital setting or a residential treatment facility; or
2. students whose primary, ongoing needs are related to a severe or profound emotional, behavioral, or cognitive deficit.”
Later, the policy defines severe or profound emotional or behavioral issues to include severe disturbances of behavior, mood, thought processes or interpersonal relationships, while severe or profound cognitive deficit specifies students that are anticipated to require life-long support and supervision for most aspects of personal care and self direction skills.
These policies, though changing over the years and adding specific language — “intensive medical treatments" and removing "intensive” from “require life-long intensive support” in 2022, “any intervention requiring intensive behavioral supports” and replacing “all aspects of personal care” to “most aspects” in 2025, according to Policy Committee agenda documents — has been in place since at least 2016, one year prior to Skeen’s son being accepted into the program. It seems that now, the school is attempting to enforce it.
“Over the last several years, TSD has made a very concerted effort to cleanse their school of children that are deaf with additional disabilities, children that have emotional or behavioral needs that are ‘not the right kind of deaf,’ if you will,” said Skeen, adding that even prior to her son’s assessment, she attempted to make her concern over the lack of resources known, offering trainings or aiding in the creation of programs — all of which were met with indifference.
“Since the new superintendent started about two or three years ago, things have been really expedited and, this year in particular, they have kicked out multiple children or attempted to kick out multiple children,” she explained. “It’s not new for TSD to send kids to their home districts, but the way they’re doing it, they’re doing it very quietly. They’re going without taking the proper steps, like, with my son, there was no IEP meeting held; there was no discussion of placement and coordinating that.”
The children that are deaf plus in her child’s class have gradually lessened over the years, she continued, adding that other parents that may not be as familiar with the requirements and legality of the situation have been forced to place their child in a public school district, with little resources.
“We’re in a position of privilege because I used to work there. I’m a behavior therapist; I have a lot of experience and knowledge about these processes and my son’s dad is an attorney … We know what to do; we can do them expediently,” Skeen said.
They proceeded to do exactly that by filing a lawsuit against TSD Oct. 24, 2025.
The school responded by denying all allegations that claim Skeen’s son was removed due to his intellectual disability Jan. 9, 2026.
Since the judge ordered a put in place order, her son is still attending TSD, at least until the end of the school year, but Skeen emphasized that she would like him to continue his education there.
“It’s always been really warm and welcoming. He’s loved there and he loves going there … The best outcome would be that TSD makes their campus accessible and welcoming to deaf-plus kids and their families again,” the mother said.
While Skeen chose to sue, the Astreins are simply trying to move on after multiple attempts to get their son’s decision changed.
According to the denial letter from February 2025, their son “does not meet [TSD’s] admission criteria, due to profound cognitive deficits,” citing regression and limited progress and growth. Nolan and his wife immediately filed an appeal, claiming that teachers and the program director state that he is well-liked, engages positively and is an active part of the community. They acknowledged regression in the past, but noted that he made progress on his most recent evaluation a month prior.
“Research has consistently shown that deaf and hard-of-hearing children require continuous exposure to a rich linguistic environment to build foundational communication skills. Denying him access to TSD at this stage risks deepening the very deficits identified in the admission review,” he stressed.
Despite their efforts, superintendent Bailey responded by expressing that he “must maintain consistency and fairness in our admission process to uphold the standards of our school;” therefore, the appeal was denied.
The father continued to fight for his child by emailing the board president over the course of 2025, explaining that “[My son] may not eat, walk or socialize exactly like you. But he is still deaf — nothing will change that fact your apathy has denied my son his Deaf identity,” with no response.
Furthermore, he filed a complaint with the Texas Education Agency (TEA), which, after an investigation, found that TSD “did not require any corrective actions.”
In the investigation, TSD, once again, stated that Nolan’s son isn’t actually a child receiving special education services at the school, since he was in the ECI program run on the campus by the Statewide Outreach Center. TEA also reported that the school sent a spreadsheet listing categories that students fit in, including: deaf or hard-of-hearing, autism, intellectual disability, speech impairment, noncategorical early childhood and other health impairment.
“In my interpretation of their response, they just flat out lied to the Texas Education Agency,” claimed Nolan.
The parents talked to other families and discovered that they are not alone in this situation. So, Nolan explained that, “Ultimately, [Jennifer] and I decided: Why are we trying to force our kid into a place where he’s no longer wanted? Even if we could somehow manage to get him back [in], what would the experience even be for him?”
“I’ve heard Peter Bailey at board meetings saying that kids like [my son] are expensive. [Parent Infant program supervisor] Rachel Baker emailed me and reached out to me to apologize for that comment and reassure me that that is not how they viewed [my child]. So, I know for a fact that they view [him] as an expense that they don’t want to spend their funding dollars on,” continued the father.
Both Nolan and Skeen alleged that Bailey would rather use the school’s money to beautify the school, by focusing on aesthetics or upgrading the football stadium, rather than support its deaf-plus students.
Nearly a year later, the Astreins’ child attends a special education program through Austin ISD, where he is in a class with no deaf peers or instructors. Now, the family is planning to leave the state of Texas, since the reason for relocation was purely for the school that will no longer serve their son.
“TSD is a special education school that receives special education funding. It cannot choose to serve only deaf and hard-of-hearing students who require no additional services. That is not special education — that is deaf general education. Perhaps the school motto should be changed to: learn, grow and exclude,” expressed Nolan.
“For kids who have special needs, a goal is always for them to be in their least restrictive environment. So, by kicking these students out who are deaf or hard-of-hearing, they’re being sent to schools that sign language … is not the language of those environments. At the end of the day, it’s just a disservice to the students,” concluded Riley. “If your child is more than deaf or hard-of-hearing, I would not recommend sending them here [to TSD].”
TSD did not respond to the Hays Free Press/News-Dispatch's request for comment.
