The completion of these evaluations comes after the district was found in federal noncompliance for the 2023-24 school year based on the number of overdue reevaluations, Community Impact reported. However, district officials announced in August they were no longer in noncompliance status.
Board president Kristin Tassin said the district has taken the federal noncompliance status notification seriously, saying she hopes the progress toward completing evaluations will continue throughout the school year.
“We’re not going to have an attitude that every school district gets these letters,” she said. “What’s behind those letters are kids who are not getting what they need.”
The gist
Without the financial and personnel resources to sustain the special education enrollment growth in the last decade, the district has struggled to keep up with the ever-increasing demand, district officials said last March.
Special education enrollment has almost tripled since the 2015-16 school year, from 4,395 to 12,458 in 2024-25, Chief Academic Officer Adam Stephens said. This has increased the demand for resources to support special education teams across the district.
“We cannot continue to function like a 2015 school district. We need to make sure that we're functioning [in] 2025, and we have 12,000 students that are exceptional learners,” Stephens said.
In March, officials said they had prioritized initial evaluations, as they are necessary for a student to receive services, but they fell behind on the re-evaluations, which happen every three years, Community Impact reported.
This school year, Stephens said staff has completed 1,137 overdue evaluations and 962 overdue Review of Existing Evaluation Data from 2023-24.
REEDs determine which specific evaluation to undergo if any additional information is needed to determine a student’s educational placement, according to the Texas Education Agency website.
Based on the number of evaluations completed this year, staff anticipates completing 3,326 evaluations—including referrals, REEDs and re-evaluations—by the start of the next school year, Stephens said.
What has changed?
District officials said changes have taken place this school year to improve special education services, such as:
- Holding over 75 meetings with special education teams across campuses
- Contracting vendors to assist in evaluations
- Meeting with the newly formed Special Education Task Force in December
- Hosting a paraprofessional conference with over 758 paraprofessionals in January
“[The special education teams] are on double duty right now,” she said. “They are filling their daytime roles and responsibilities and then picking up extra loads in the evening. It's not just rolling up my sleeves and doing my one job.”
Looking ahead
Based on feedback from campus meetings, FBISD officials said they plan to increase support toward paraprofessionals and to be more proactive about gauging campus-specific needs by regularly connecting with leadership.
