TEA Responses to HC Questions Q: First, what guidance has TEA given regarding compensatory services for special education students who may miss out on some services due to COVID-19 school closures? Can you send me a link to any documents? A: TEA has created a Special Education Taskforce to support students learning remotely during the COVID-19 school closures. The Taskforce includes superintendents, special education directors, principals, teachers, advocates, and attorneys from around the state. The agency has produced a host of guidance documents to ensure these students get the support to which they are legally entitled. Visit: https://tea.texas.gov/texas-schools/health-safety-discipline/covid/covid-19support-special-education for a comprehensive list. TEA continues to reinforce to LEAs their responsibility to provide a free and appropriate public education to students with IEPs. A few of the guidance documents of most relevance can be found here:  https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/covid19_special_ed_qa_updated _april_16.pdf  https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/covid19_sped_emergency_contingency_guidance_april_3.pdf  https://tea.texas.gov/sites/default/files/covid19_sped_emergency_contingency_form_pdf_fillable.pdf -Q: Last school year, districts flagged 2,205 students as potentially needing to be evaluated for special education prior to 2018-2019, compared to 149,247 students for whom requests for evaluations were received. Advocates said that number seems extremely low given how many more students are now being evaluated. I know these were districts reporting the numbers, and that it was their responsibility to log students they believed fell into that category. However, does that number raise concerns with TEA that districts are not identifying students who may have previously missed out on special education services? Would a district that reported low or high numbers in that category be subject to state action? A: TEA now has a monitoring process to ensure that all LEAs are in compliance with policies and procedures for implementation of child find, evaluation, and implementation of FAPE. This includes a review of all relevant data, procedures, and practices. If problems of a systemic nature are discovered, corrective actions are ordered. Additionally, TEA may use a special accreditation investigation (SAI) to determine systemic noncompliance by a given LEA, and from that, order corrective actions. -Q: Between the March 2018 draft of the TEA's Strategic Action Plan and the final plan submitted in April 2018 to the USDOE, nearly every reference to "compensatory services" was replaced with the term "additional services." Why was that change made? As a follow-up, several special education directors said they interpreted "additional services" to mean any new services a student received. As a result, they reported that all of their students who qualified for special education in 18-19 also received "additional services." I interpreted "additional services" to mean "compensatory services" and found a couple of TEA documents that seemed to indicate as much. The special education directors said they provided compensatory services to very few, if any of their students, and the numbers six districts shared with me would revise the SPP data for students who received additional services down from 7,893 to 6,181. That does not include the 2,923 students Houston ISD officials said they incorrectly reported as getting compensatory services. What is the TEA using the additional services data for, and can the data be trusted if districts admitted they reported inaccurate numbers? IDEA law defines “compensatory services” as services awarded to a student by a hearing officer or judge that were identified as part of the student’s needed services but were not initially provided. Essentially, this term pertains to situations in which a student has been identified as having a disability requiring specialized instruction under an IEP, has had specific services required by an ARD committee, but the services are not provided by the LEA. A: As you point out, “compensatory services” has a specific legal meeting. We received feedback in 2018 after the draft was published that the draft report’s use of that language was inconsistent with the intended meaning of the draft, so the issue was corrected before the final plan was published. Additional services are generally thought of as services or interventions that can be added by an ARD committee during an annual meeting, re-evaluation, or an offcycle meeting to determine how to meet any unmet needs a student may have. These should also be thought of as services that could be put into place to address any regression or to accelerate a student’s progress in a given area. -Q: I obtained an email through a public records request between former Region IV Special Education Director Ginger Gates and Justin Porter. Gates told Porter an attorney in the Houston area was telling local education leaders that special education committees should ask whether every student they identify should get make-up services. Gates said she believed ARD committees should only consider make-up services if a parent or teacher says the student may have been denied in the past at the time they first ask for an evaluation. “You are (as usual) completely correct,” Porter wrote to Gates. “While we don’t want kids to be missed who would be eligible and in need of additional/compensatory services, soliciting claims in the way that attorney describes isn’t necessary.” Districts outside the greater Houston region also said TEA officials told them that they should only mark them as needing to have been tested prior to 2018-2020, and should only consider them for compensatory services if the parent or teacher raises that issue at the time they make an evaluation. I have attached that email to this message. Garland ISD officials also told me it was their understanding that a parent or teacher would have to raise a concern that the child had been previously denied in order for an ARD committee to consider compensatory services. Do you believe this guidance contributed to the low number of students statewide who were either flagged as needing to be tested before 18-19 and those who got "additional" services? A: When ARD committees convene to develop an initial IEP, they are expected to include any and all services appropriate to address the needs of the individual student and accelerate their progress toward performing on level with their nondisabled peers. Separately, TEA examines data, policies, and practices as part of its new monitoring system. If problems of a systemic nature are identified, corrective actions are ordered. -Q: Why should parents have to know that their student should have been tested before in order to be eligible for these services? Does TEA stand by this guidance? A: When ARD committees convene to develop an initial IEP, they are expected to include any and all services appropriate to address the needs of the individual student and accelerate their progress toward performing on level with their nondisabled peers. ARD committee members, including both parents and educators, should bring all relevant information to help inform the development of the most effective IEP specific to the needs of the student. And again, if TEA finds any significant weaknesses as a result of its new monitoring processes, specific corrective action measures can be ordered. -- Q: Now that tens of thousands of special education students are missing out on services as schools remain closed to help slow the spread of the new coronavirus, how will TEA will ensure they get compensatory services to make up for what they're missing? How will TEA make sure students who may have missed out on services due to the former performance indicator/cap also get compensatory services if they need them? A: As referenced above, TEA’s monitoring system will review implementation of IEPs and the provision of FAPE during COVID-19 and after school campuses are reopened. TEA will continue to guide LEAs to make reasonable efforts to adequately provide FAPE during the pandemic response. LEAs have also been consistently guided to prioritize communication with families and to document what was not provided during this time, so that any need for compensatory services can be addressed by the ARD committee upon return to in-person instruction. --