Conroe ISD has been named in a complaint filed to the Texas Education Agency that claims the district sent a disproportionate number of disabled students to criminal court for missing school.

Disabled students include those with behavioral, emotional, mental, physical and learning disabilities, according to the TEA.

Prior to Gov. Greg Abbott signing a law reversing the statute in June, Texas was one of two states, in addition to Wyoming, that allowed public school districts to send students it counted as truant to criminal court. Truancy in Texas was considered a Class C misdemeanor, with penalties including fines of up to $500 and, in rare cases, jail time. According to the report the courts often ordered students to drop out of school.

The complaint, filed by Texas Appleseed, an Austin-based social justice organization, on May 27, lists CISD among 11 districts statewide that reported more than five special education students having been forced to drop out by criminal courts. According to the complaint, six CISD special education students were court-ordered to drop out of school for the 2012-13 school year.

Texas Appleseed’s complaint claimed the districts used the court truancy process to force students with disabilities out of school.

“Texas is punishing children for failing to attend school by forcing them out of school,” Texas Appleseed claims in its report. “Many school districts across the state drive this force-out, particularly for students with disabilities. These school districts fail to provide students with necessary special education services and then penalize them when they inevitably struggle in school as a result.”

According to CISD, for the 2014-15 school year, 34 special education students—which was 15 percent of all truant students—were reported as truant. Special education students make up 8 percent of the total student population districtwide.

“We assume when a campus codes a student as truant, the student was actually referred to [criminal] court,” said Carrie Galatas, administrative general counsel for CISD.

Galatas said it is also possible that CISD students were referred to court without being deemed truant.

The state considers a student truant if he or she has three or more unexcused absences in a four-week period. Beginning Sept. 1, the date the new law goes into effect, Texas school districts will no longer have the authority to send truant students to court.

Data collected by Texas Appleseed from the TEA show that about 13 percent of truancy cases referred to Texas criminal courts were filed against students identified with disabilities, while such students make up about 8.5 percent of all students in Texas.

Representatives from CISD declined to comment specifically on the Texas Appleseed report but provided a statement in response to the complaint.

“The Conroe Independent School District is proud of the quality education it provides to its over 56,000 students,” the release said. “The complaint indicated that during the 2012-13 school year, six of the district’s 4,000+ special education students dropped out of school after being ordered by a court to obtain a GED [diploma]. CISD works hard to keep any student from leaving school before obtaining a diploma and has been very successful in doing so. CISD has one of the highest graduation rates in the state at 95.1 percent. We will review the concerns raised by the complaint and continue to make every effort to ensure the success of all of our students.”