The Texas Education Agency warned about 460 school districts — including 19 of the 20 largest districts in the Houston area — in mid-January that they may have violated state law last school year by suspending students experiencing homelessness, according to agency leaders.
The letters encourage leaders of the school districts to review their internal data, determine whether students received banned discipline and, if so, take steps to prevent schools from doing so in the future. The notice does not come with punishment or additional state oversight.
“If after analyzing your (district’s) data and practices, you determine that your (district) is not in compliance with statutory requirements, we strongly recommend you immediately implement corrective actions or improvements to your current policies and procedures,” Brittany Wright, director of data for the TEA’s compliance and investigations department, wrote in the letter.
The update represents the latest development on the issue after a May 2024 Houston Landing investigation revealed hundreds of districts have illegally suspended thousands of homeless students in recent years.
The count of districts, which the TEA provided to the Landing upon request, also provides new detail on the scope of the potential issue. The Landing has not published an exact count of districts that violated the law due to a quirk in state data that makes it impossible to definitively say how many districts illegally suspended students.
Under a law passed in 2019, schools are not allowed to issue out-of-school suspensions to homeless students — who often rely on campuses for food and shelter — unless the students break rules involving violence, weapons or drugs and alcohol.
Following the Landing’s investigation, the TEA announced it would take new steps to track and prevent the illegal suspensions. In the fall, several Houston-area districts implemented new policies to crack down on the issue. And in late January, Alief ISD released a new state-mandated plan to address the problem, including changing procedures around how staff can suspend students.
The mid-January warning letters went to all districts who submitted data to the state indicating one or more potentially illegal suspensions in 2023-24. The messages note that districts receiving the letters may not have actually suspended any students illegally. Children who became homeless after being suspended earlier in the year can appear in state data as illegally suspended, even though they are not.
In an email, Conroe ISD spokesperson Sarah Blakelock said the district reviewed its internal data and found it had not suspended any students illegally. Regardless, the district added new training and information for employees to ensure schools continue to follow the law.
“The key message emphasized was avoiding out-of-school suspensions due to the unique challenges faced by homeless students.” Blakelock said.
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Cy-Fair ISD spokesperson Leslie Francis acknowledged in an email that school staff illegally suspended four students last year due to “administrative errors.” Such errors are now flagged through an online software and the district is planning more training for staff to address the issue, she said.
Representatives from Houston, Katy and Fort Bend ISDs, the rest of the five largest Houston-area districts on the list, did not immediately respond Monday to requests for comment on the letters.
In addition to the compliance letters, the TEA may investigate districts suspected of illegally suspending a larger number of students and require them to address the issue with a corrective action plan, similar to Alief.
The TEA declined to disclose which or how many districts could face those reviews, citing the “audit working papers” exemption of Texas’ open records law. The exemption allows government agencies to keep all information related to audits private.
The Landing filed a public records request in December for documents that would show how many districts are facing scrutiny, but Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s office ruled the records can be withheld as audit working papers.
A letter sent by TEA officials to Paxton’s office indicates the agency’s special investigations unit, which can issue serious sanctions against school districts, may be involved in the probes of illegal discipline.
Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing. Find him @by_ash_ls on Instagram and @small_asher on X, or reach him directly at asher@houstonlanding.org.
The post TEA warns 460 school districts about potentially illegal suspensions of homeless students appeared first on Houston Landing.
This article was originally published by Asher Lehrer-Small at Houston Landing – You can read this article and more at (https://houstonlanding.org/tea-warns-460-school-districts-about-potentially-illegal-suspensions-of-homeless-students/).
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