Houston’s public schools are spending $18 million in federal stimulus money to pay the salaries of more than 200 employees the district admits it doesn’t need.
That’s because the Houston Independent School District is getting more federal money than ever for special education, even though it has nearly one-quarter fewer special ed students than five years ago.
But while the number of special ed students plummeted in the past few years, mirroring a national trend, HISD didn’t cut employees’ jobs, leaving roughly as many people working in that department today as there were in 2005, when the district had nearly 5,000 more special ed students.
“Perhaps that was something that was not looked at over the last several years, and we are trying to straighten that out,” said Sowmya Kumar, HISD’s new assistant superintendent for special education. She spent more than a dozen years as a regional administrator for HISD’s special ed programs before being promoted this summer.
“We have a fresh new team here and some fresh new eyes,” she told Texas Watchdog. “When you take a fresh new look at things, you start to ask questions about data.”
The 200-plus workers will be laid off at the end of this school year, she said. A district-wide special education audit, intended to identify the overstaffing, is underway and is expected to be completed by December.
“We need an overhaul in our special ed department, and we need to be a lot more receptive to what parents need,” HISD trustee Manuel Rodriguez said.
Federal law prevents the school district from spending the extra $18 million on anything outside special education -- a sadly ironic situation for school employees, as HISD earlier this year laid off employees in other departments. And a program to try to fix the system's most troubled schools, called Apollo 20, is still short by $6 million, forcing HISD officials to ask for donations from private foundations.
Kumar isn’t the only HISD official saying that some workers should have gone years ago. HISD’s top financial officer, Melinda Garrett, gave school system trustees a presentation in June, saying stimulus funds would pay for positions in special ed “which should have been reduced based on prior years’ declining enrollment.”
While HISD administrators say the 200 workers aren’t needed, to people in the special education community, having additional staff on hand these past couple of years has been helpful.
“Some people may say it is a waste of money, but these 200 teachers are a drop in the bucket,” said Jimmy Kilpatrick, a member of a Houston-based group that provides national advocacy and research on special education issues.
“You need quality teachers, especially with special-needs children, and it presents an opportunity for less of a workload for the teachers ... The problem is, sometimes an autistic child needs three adults around them at once, and that requires a high level of expertise.”
Said Rodriguez: “These past two years have been relatively quiet. I have not been getting the calls from parents who think their child is not getting the proper special education services they need. It could be that the parents have moved on, but I hope it is that the situation has been alleviated.”
More than $11 billion of federal stimulus money went to the states for special ed programs. Calls to the federal Education Department, which distributed the funds, were not returned.
However, DeEtta Culbertson from the Texas Education Agency -- which was in charge of funneling the federal education stimulus money to the individual school systems -- said the amount of money HISD received was based on a formula set by the feds, not by the state.
(See the HISD presentation on federal funds. June 2010,)
“In looking at the funding that HISD received, it is pretty much based on a formula that was laid out by the stimulus,” Culbertson, a spokeswoman for TEA, said. “We had to just provide the money as it was dictated to us.”
The Houston district’s drop in special ed enrollment, now at about 16,500 students, didn’t factor into it either, Kumar said.
“It is based on the population and poverty of the district,” she said. “Every district across the state received stimulus money; it was a big pot of money that was awarded to the state.”
Nearly four out of every five of HISD’s 202,000 students are considered economically disadvantaged, which the school system defines as qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch.
HISD has not been able to create new jobs using the stimulus funds, but as Kumar is quick to point out, creating jobs was not the only goal of the stimulus.
“We were able to save jobs with the money,” Kumar said. “The two goals of the stimulus were to create or save jobs.”
Fewer students in HISD and across the country are being enrolled in special ed programs today, in part because of better screening procedures. At the same time, more federal cash is flowing in to the district’s special ed programs than ever before, Garrett said.
The school system is also using some of the stimulus money to buy big-ticket technology items, like a new computer system to manage special ed student data and white boards.
“We’re buying things that, after we are done buying them, they will continue to create dividends for the district,” Kumar said.
The new computer system will manage student evaluations and assessments made by psychologists, Kumar said. It will be updated and tracked through a student’s entire career in HISD and will help the school system submit necessary data to state and federal education authorities.
In addition to the $42.7 million in stimulus funds, which must all be spent by December 2011, HISD is getting unusually big checks from the main federal program that helps school systems pay for special ed, known as IDEA. This year, the handouts from IDEA are currently running about $1.5 million more than last year.
But the district suggests that the extra federal money will, in the end, save HISD taxpayers money.
In addition to the federal and state money HISD gets, the district regularly uses some local money -- largely from property taxes -- to cover special ed expenses. Under the law, a school district cannot cut its local funding for special ed unless it loses special ed students or gets a boost in its IDEA funding -- both of which have happened.
Aside from the 200 workers being laid off at the end of the school year, there are also 40 positions in special ed currently being funded by stimulus money that Kumar says will be needed next school year -- when their costs will be borne by the district and its taxpayers.
Contact Lynn Walsh, Lynn@TexasWatchdog.org, 713-228-2850 or on Twitter @LWalsh.
Chalkboard photo illustration by Jennifer Peebles; graphics by Lynn Walsh, based on HISD data.
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Comments
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Cynthia Singleton
Friday, 10/22/2010 - 09:14AM
This story is such a load of crap I can't even believe it. It makes the assumption that every child in special education is receiving the same level of services--and that is simply not the case. I'm seeing classrooms at schools filled to capacity, and the teachers having to do more with a whole lot less because "there's a shortage of special ed funds".
My son receives special ed services, and I am continually being told that there isn't money for this or that. Needed classroom positions are being CUT. There's no money for training. The autism support team has only 4 people to support the 900 students with autism in the district--I've been asking the district for over a year to expand the number of people on this team, and am told that there's not enough money. I think the better question is "Is the district spending it's special ed monies effectively?" and that question is a resounding no--but from where I sit in the halls of schools, it's not being spent on teachers they don't need--in fact they need MORE teachers. |
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Jennifer Peebles
Friday, 10/22/2010 - 10:11AM
Ms. Singleton,
If the school district is telling you that needed services can't be provided for your son because there's a shortage of special ed funds -- while on the other hand, the school district is telling us that these 200+ people are not needed and that they have special ed money to spare -- then we genuinely want to know more about that and we want to find out why that contradiction exists. (For instance, we'd certainly like to know why the excess funding can't be, or isn't being, used to augment the staff of the four-person autism support team.) Your suggested question, "Is the district spending its special ed money effectively?" is a good one, and if there are ways it's not doing that, we want to know more about that and write about it. (New paragraph)
Is there a way you and our education reporter, Lynn Walsh, could talk by phone or in person? Please e-mail me (jennifer@texaswatchdog.org) or Lynn (lynn@texaswatchdog.org). (New paragraph)
Just in case there's any confusion for any of our readers out there, the story isn't a just claim by Texas Watchdog that the 200+ employees are unneeded -- the story is about the *school district* saying the employees are unneeded. As we mentioned in the story, for parents and others in the special ed community, the 200 employees aren't seen as "unneeded." (New paragraph)
We appreciate you reading us and taking time to give us feedback. We always want to hear from readers, even if they're angry at us. And we always welcome feedback from HISD parents about their experiences with the school system.
Take care,
Jennifer P. Deputy Editor Texas Watchdog jennifer@texaswatchdog.org |
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special education advocate
Saturday, 10/23/2010 - 11:50AM
I was told that HISD employees were instructed by administration to use a formula to calculate the special education teacher to student ratio prior to the completion of the special education audit. The decision to reduce staff did not factor in the complexity or needs of special education students. It is ridiculous to suggest that 12 students with reading disabilities require the same level of support and only one teacher as does 12 autistic children if they happen to be in the same classroom. HISD is now underserving the special education student population who are some of the most fragile and most in need. HISD did this very thing in the 1970's and it was a failure and ultimately reversed. The stimulus money has just been spent on reducing services when it could have been spent on improving supports for special ed students. Ms. Peebles, why don't you ask HISD about why they have reduced staff prior to the audit analysis? Let me suggest that Texas Watchdog surveys parents with special education children to see what you can learn about the rationing of services over the last several months and the impact on their children? Also, where are these 200 plus teachers since they have been removed from their jobs? They are now working somewhere in HISD, where are they? |
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Jennifer Peebles
Sunday, 10/24/2010 - 11:38AM
Special ed advocate,
If HISD is poised to cut staff in a way that would prevent special ed students' needs from being met, we want to know more about that -- and we'd like to talk to you about it. We'll be glad to ask HISD about staff reductions prior the special ed audit being completed, and we're certainly glad to hear from parents with special ed children in HISD about how well their needs are being met -- in fact, we've heard from several already since this story was published, and after talking with them, we've got more questions to pose to the school district. (New paragraph)
To continue on a theme from my earlier comments, if there's a disconnect between what HISD administration is telling us and what parents of HISD students -- special ed or otherwise -- are being told at the school level, then we want to know about that, and we want to question the school district about it. Your commenting here and providing us with your assessment of the situation helps us -- though we'd certainly love to talk to you in greater detail, such as over the phone. Would you consider dropping our reporter, Lynn Walsh, an e-mail at lynn@texaswatchdog.org, or giving her a call at 713-228-2850? (New paragraph)
You asked about the whereabouts of the 200-plus teachers -- HISD says they have not been removed from their jobs. They'll be continuing to work until the end of the school year. If that claim doesn't gibe with what you're seeing in the schools, please let us know, and we'll see if we can find out what's going on. (New paragraph)
For not only you but for everyone out there reading this, we're always glad to hear from readers and parents of kids in HISD about our coverage.
Thank you all for reading us and commenting, Jennifer P. jennifer@texaswatchdog.org |
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Karl Ittmann
Tuesday, 10/26/2010 - 12:00PM
Perhaps a reality check is in order. My daughter attends a MI program at Memorial Elementary. Despite an excellent teacher, a dedicated staff and a supportive principal the program lacks basic funding for needed classroom resources. The middle school program she is scheduled to attend has been subject to cuts, which will combine severely impaired children with life skills children in a single classroom. In response the teacher quit and has been replaced with a substitute. More importantly, HISD has reduced support services repeatedly in the last few years, esp. PR, OT and Speech. Both HISD and Texas are at the bottom in spending on special ed compared to other states. I see no evidence that the current administration plans to address these shortcomings. Give me the money, I can find plenty of ways to upgrade special ed in the district. |
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