Under Fire, AISD Launches Plan to Fix Special Ed

Photo by Jana Birchum

After months of internal dialogue about its miserable work culture, and facing legal action over its handling of student evaluations, Austin ISD's Special Education Department has publicized an ambitious reform plan. The change involves both new leadership – Dr. Theresa Arocha-Gill will start as executive director on May 17 – and laying off 88 employees, asking them to ­reapply for their positions.

The district already faces a severe shortage of staffers to assess student eligibility for special education services and help develop education plans, after months if not years of outcry over absurd workloads, low compensation, and toxic professional environments. In a press conference on Friday, Chief Academic Officer Elizabeth Casas said that AISD knows staff has been "leaving fast and furiously." The district surveyed special education staff to assess morale, with disheartening results – a whopping 11% said they would recommend AISD as a great place to work.

That's led to a massive backlog in evaluations, which state and federal law require to be conducted in a timely manner. Casas said Friday that AISD needs to conduct 900 late evaluations, a number that's grown even after the district was sued by Disability Rights Texas, which wants AISD to both hire needed staff and compensate students whose evaluations have been delayed. (AISD said in a statement that it has "over 400 evaluations ... at various stages of completion," but could not disclose the total number outstanding, due to the litigation.)

To address the backlog, AISD has hired more contractors and is "working day and night" to try and finish assessments by the end of June. It also plans substantial organizational changes, with a revamped and more extensive leadership team; that involves laying off 88 full-time employees, Casas said, as a part of "repurpos[ing]" and "elevating" administrative positions in AISD's central office. However, 19 licensed specialists in school psychology and 23 educational diagnosticians also received layoff notices. The district says around 160 staffers who serve students directly, including physical therapists and speech-language pathologists, were not impacted. Those affected were asked to reapply; those not rehired will be out of work as of June 30, the same day AISD intends to complete its outstanding evaluations.

The district hopes these changes will restore connections with families and employees and help AISD regain community trust. "We want to have such amazing services in Austin ISD that all of the families in surrounding districts are wondering, 'What is Austin doing?' and [saying,] 'I want my child to go there,'" Casas said.

That moment may still be far off. At the press conference, which was viewed thousands of times on Facebook and gathered over 100 comments, Casas briefly took questions. The first one asked, simply, "Do we think people will want to take time to reapply to a district that does not treat its evaluation staff as professionals?" For staff working under pressure to finish 900 evaluations in the next two months before facing joblessness at the deadline, the answer may not be convincing.