Houston Parents to HISD: Hit Pause on the Special Education Overhaul

If your child gets special education services in Houston ISD, you may have gotten the letter. A phone call. A notice that next school year looks different — new campus, new classroom, new routine — and you never got a seat at the table where the decision was made.

Thousands of HISD families are living that right now. The district is restructuring how it delivers special education services for the 2026–27 school year, centralizing certain self-contained programs at select campuses across the district. HISD says it’s about quality. A lot of parents say it feels like something being done to their children, not for them.

And this isn’t just a local argument anymore. Both the feds and the state are watching.

What’s changing

The district calls it the Student Success Program. Here’s the gist: intensive self-contained special education programs — small classrooms where students with significant disabilities spend most of their day — are being consolidated at designated campuses across the district. HISD promises smaller classes, more staffing, narrower age ranges in each classroom, extra teacher training, and more chances for students to learn alongside non-disabled peers.

The district also says this won’t cost special education a dime: spending on special education won’t be reduced in 2026–27.

Families started getting notifications in the spring — letters, phone calls, emails — and HISD says every family with a child in an affected program got a personalized call.

Here’s where it gets sticky: some students must switch campuses to access the consolidated programs, and families say the campus named in their child’s IEP suddenly isn’t their child’s campus anymore.

How parents found out

Dina Kushaliyeva spent weeks planning her daughter’s next school year at Sinclair Elementary — IEP meeting, goals, routines, the whole plan — then learned her daughter, who is on the autism spectrum, would be moved to Wainwright Elementary.

“It’s a bit disturbing because some changes were made specific for my child and I wasn’t even involved in the conversation,” she told KPRC 2.

Stefanie Naranjo’s first-grade son Achilles, who has autism, was first told he’d move from Sinclair to Wainwright Elementary, then told he’d go to Memorial Elementary instead. “I wanted him to stay at Sinclair, especially because his brother is still going to be going to Sinclair,” she said. She filed a complaint with the TEA.

Kristin Sullivan’s son Rhys was told he’d transfer from Bellaire High to Sharpstown High for special education classes. “We got the infamous letter which sent our entire family into a tailspin,” she said. “Lots of tears in our house.”

The investigations

In May, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights opened an investigation into whether the district’s plans violate federal disability law — Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act and Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The worry: centralizing services could separate some students with disabilities from their non-disabled peers, push them into more restrictive settings, or mean longer bus rides.

Then the state weighed in. In a July letter, the TEA found HISD had violated federal law in at least one case: the district changed a student’s campus without convening the IEP team first — even though the IEP named the original campus. TEA ordered district-wide corrective actions.

HISD, for its part, is moving forward anyway. In a July statement, the district said it will keep implementing the program while completing the reviews TEA ordered. Deputy Superintendent Kristen Hole has said the goal is making sure “every single student has the support that they need based on their IEP.”

HISD’s position on the campus switches: changing a school’s location alone doesn’t require an ARD meeting if the IEP and services stay the same. “Placement refers to the special education services and supports identified in a student’s IEP. Location refers to the campus where those services are provided,” the district said.

What it means for your family

Federal law says your child’s placement must be decided individually — based on the IEP — through the ARD committee process. A district-wide policy can’t just override that. That’s the part TEA says HISD got wrong, at least in the cases it investigated.

Here’s what to know: your child’s IEP is still the law of the land — every IEP stays in effect unless an ARD committee changes it. If anyone says your child’s services are changing, ask for the ARD meeting in writing.

If your child was moved, ask whether an ARD meeting was held and get the notes. The campus named in the IEP matters — TEA said so.

You can file a complaint — parents have gone to both the TEA and the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights, and both agencies are actively investigating.

And keep everything. Every phone call, every letter, every email. If a conversation happens, follow up with an email summarizing what was said. Paper trails matter when agencies are investigating.

HISD serves more than 21,000 special education students; over 15,000 are in inclusive settings the district says won’t change. The roughly 5,000 in self-contained settings are most affected — smaller classes sound good on paper, but only if the transition doesn’t break the routines these kids depend on.

The district says this is about better instruction. The parents say their kids weren’t consulted — because legally, they should have been. Wherever you land, one thing is clear: the families who know their rights are the ones getting heard. Make sure you’re one of them.