![]() ![]() “After all of these things, in any year, in any district, schools open with some number of teacher vacancies and we know on the 22nd that we’ll have some vacancies,” Grant-Skinner said. Unlike last year, central administration staffers will not be deployed to fill the gaps, although Superintendent Millard House II said the district will take volunteers from central administration. 22, had 779 openings for certified teachers listed on its career portal Wednesday afternoon. HISD, with its first day of school scheduled for Aug. On : Houston districts trying to fill thousands of teacher vacancies just 2 weeks before school starts Nearly 1,000 people attended the sessions or have submitted comments online.Ī report from the federal government is expected next month.The district, which raised teacher salaries to be among the highest in the region, also will use long-term substitute teachers who hold certification to work as dedicated fill-ins at the beginning of the year. The TEA has since suspended the benchmark and said it would ultimately eliminate it.Įarlier this month, federal officials held public listening sessions throughout the state to help determine if further action was necessary. In October, federal officials ordered the Texas Education Agency to end the 8.5 percent enrollment target unless it could prove that no disabled kids had been deprived of services. Department of Education has also launched an investigation. ![]() In September, Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa said he would conduct a six-month probe to find out why the district had such a low special education rate. The Houston ISD review is the second such district effort initiated in response to the Chronicle investigation. "But," he said, "I understand that there are many stories that I have not heard."ĭuring the review, Carranza added, "we will not talk about arbitrary bureaucratic caps that could harm children." In his statement, Carranza, who declined to comment ahead of the Chronicle story on Houston ISD, said he had seen "no evidence that such a cap drives these decisions in a systemic way." On Wednesday, Bob Sanborn, the president of Children at Risk, a prominent advocacy group, called for the immediate firing of Houston ISD special education director Sowmya Kumar. ![]() The story has sparked outrage across Houston. Outside special education departments, the 8.5 percent target was unknown to parents, lawmakers, even many educators until the Chronicle investigation.Īlso unknown until the Chronicle published its findings on Houston ISD earlier this week was that special education administrators here had set an even more restrictive internal enrollment target of 8 percent. The state average is 8.5 percent, due in part of a enrollment target of 8.5 percent that was put in place by the Texas Education Agency in 2004. That ranks 49th among the 50 biggest cities in America, ahead only of Dallas ISD. Only 7.26 percent of Houston students receive special education, statistics show. "We had long, agonizing meetings where we tried to push as many special ed students as we could into general education," one retired teacher said. Many said they were ordered to shut out disabled kids in order to comply with district and state enrollment caps. The story, the latest in an investigation that has revealed a widespread denial of special education throughout Texas, quoted 41 current and former Houston ISD employers speaking about how they were pressured to keep special education numbers low. The announcement came one day after the Houston Chronicle published a story detailing how Houston ISD has deliberately denied special education services to thousands of students with disabilities over the past decade. "Together, we will find solutions that serve our children because that is what Houston expects, and that is what Houston's children deserve." "We will have a tough conversation about the importance of serving all children, regardless of any disability," Carranza wrote. The newly-hired superintendent announced the review in a statement, saying it would be the district's "first order of business when the new year begins."
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