District staff discussed progress during a board of trustees meeting Dec. 12. AISD cited “significant strides” with “work to be done” in the future, district officials said in a news release.
Current situation
The district has completed 74 of 99 action items detailed in the TEA agreed order, officials said. There are 25 items remaining.
If the district does not complete all action items, the district will be overtaken by a TEA conservatorship, as detailed in the agreed order. This means the district would be overtaken by the TEA and would have to comply with any directives made by the TEA-appointed conservator.
Within the agreed order, the 99 action items are assigned to four main priority categories and a Lone Star Governance agreement with the TEA and AISD. Lone Star Governance is a program from the TEA that provides coaching, support and other resources to district governing bodies, such as the school board and superintendent, focusing broadly on improving student outcomes.
Priority 1 focuses on satisfying open corrective action plans. This includes completing 1,159 outstanding evaluation, eligibility and compensatory education determinations from the 2022-23 school year. The district has since closed out the corrective action plans and completed Priority 1, officials said. This category included 20 action items.
Priority 2 requires the district to identify and implement effective operational practices for the special education department. This includes providing training for special education staff on tracking and entering student progress, opportunities for professional development, giving updates on the special education strategic plan, and more. The district has completed 28 of the 47 items in Priority 2, with 19 remaining.
Priority 3 involves improving data management and reporting systems regarding the district’s progress of meeting state and federal requirements within their special education departments and programming. On Oct. 1, AISD officials began the start of monthly data reporting which includes data on students served by special education. The data details a student’s case manager or lead evaluator, when evaluations were completed and when eligibility was determined.
The district is also planning to launch a new special education data management system for the 2025-26 school year as part of this priority. The district has completed the two action items associated with Priority 3, but will be creating focus groups for testing and feedback on their new data management platform.
Priority 4 requires AISD to establish a parent outreach campaign. The district had to create accessible materials for parents and families of special education students, which would then be uploaded onto a parent-specific website. AISD was also required to create a parent advisory group to receive feedback on the district’s special education services. The district has since completed all 15 action items associated with Priority 4.
The Lone Star Governance agreement includes quarterly evaluations of the special education department, which the district has since implemented. The next evaluation is Jan. 30.
The LSG agreement also includes training for the board of trustees and Superintendent Matias Segura, onboarding for the new trustees, and TEA approval of the district’s special education handbook, which is yet to be completed. AISD has completed nine of the actions associated with the LSG agreement and has six left to complete.
How we got here
On Sept. 25, 2023, the AISD board of trustees accepted a proposal from the TEA to implement a state-appointed monitor to oversee the district’s compliance with the TEA agreed order and special education requirements.
The monitor, appointed by the TEA, was tasked with sitting in on board meetings and reporting the district’s progress. The board of trustees were also required to spend 50% of board time on student outcomes and special education updates, as previously reported by Community Impact.
The proposal came after the state agency notified the district in March 2023 that the TEA planned to implement a conservatorship, following an investigation on the district’s special education evaluations. The investigation found that as of March 20, 2023, the district had over 1,800 outstanding special education evaluations. The TEA also reported that AISD had 40 instances of “systemic noncompliance” due to a failure to meet special education needs in a timely manner, as previously reported by Community Impact.
District officials began making progress after the acceptance of the agreed order and have since taken care of the backlog.
Stay tuned
As part of the TEA agreement, the district is set to give another quarterly update on its special education programs in January.
An extension for data reporting was granted through September 2025, shortly after the district plans to implement the new data management system for the 2025-26 school year. The district has started conducting staff surveys and feedback sessions, and is awaiting more feedback and testing on the new system.
