Advocates say HISD makes enrolling hard for criminally-charged youth

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- Jade Miller says all children deserve a second chance and the right to an education.

But, she doesn't think that's always happening at the Houston Independent School District for youth who are involved in the juvenile justice system.

"They deserve to be amongst their peers. One mistake shouldn't isolate a child from an education that they are entitled to," said Miller, a senior project associate/policy analyst for Collective Action for Youth. "We fixed the issue before. I don't understand what the issue is with fixing it again."

Sarah Beebe, a supervising attorney with Disability Rights Texas' Juvenile Probation Education Advocacy Program, said three years ago she and several other organizations sent a letter to HISD outline their concerns about students who have been charged with a crime being denied or delayed enrollment in public school campuses.

Beebe said then-HISD Superintendent Millard House took their concerns to heart, implemented changes and for a while, things got better.

"He and his team were really responsive to our concerns," Beebe told 13 Investigates. "I think it was an issue that he didn't realize actually was happening because it tends to happen at the registrar level or sometimes the assistant principal level and so once we brought the matter to his attention, he and his team got to work and made a number of really effective changes."

When current Superintendent Mike Miles took over and made cuts to some programs serving at-risk students, Beebe said she saw an increase in juvenile justice-involved youth having a hard time enrolling at HISD.

The Harris County Reentry Workgroup, which Beebe leads, sent a letter to HISD outlining their concerns.

The 12 organizations who signed the letter include advocacy groups Disability Rights Texas and Collective Action for Youth, as well as agencies like the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department, the Harris County Public Defender's Office and the City of Houston's Health Department.

"This group came together a couple months ago to write Houston ISD a letter and say, 'hey, we're really concerned about this. We have a lot of students who need to be in school and they're having trouble getting in,'" Beebe said.

The letter outlines the positive changes that happened when they brought their concerns to House in the 2022-23 school year, saying the district developed policies and provided additional training to ensure registrars processed enrollments in a timely manner.

Some of the recent issues the group says they've identified include HISD claiming a "student is too old to enroll in middle school" or high school, or recommending that students get a GED instead, according to the letter.

Beebe said for some youth, getting a GED is a lot to ask because they don't have exposure to the curriculum needed to successfully pass the test, which also isn't free to take.

"I can't tell you how emotionally devastating it is for our youth who do tend to have a lot going on in their lives to have this experience with the juvenile justice system and then want to get back to school, want things to be normal and then be told for any variety of different reasons that aren't accurate, 'You can't be here,'" Beebe said. "And then our youth go and sit at home and lose out on instruction and they know they're falling behind and so when they do eventually return, sometimes they feel that they've missed so much, they're so far behind, it's going to be impossible to catch up and so they give up and they drop out and then we see them potentially not have the options for economic success in their lives and maybe even, unfortunately, cycle back through the justice system."

Beebe said she understands why the district may not want to enroll certain justice-involved students in a traditional campus if they violated school policy, but she doesn't understand why some students aren't even given the option to enroll in an Disciplinary Alternative Education Program.

The advocates' letter to HISD says that after the district made changes three years ago, the number of referrals Disability Rights Texas received from the Harris County Juvenile Probation Department asking for help with enrollment denials went down by 58%.

But, when Miles took over, there was a "dramatic spike in referrals from probation department staff for denials of enrollment in the district," the letter says.

"We have already received nearly the same number of referrals for denials of enrollment in Houston ISD during the first half of the current school year as we received during the entirety of the 2023-24 school year," according to the Jan. 27, 205 letter the group sent HISD.

Disability Rights Texas has been working with Veda Jones, whose special needs son is now a sixth-grader at HISD.

Her son was charged with a crime when he was 11 years old. After he was released from the juvenile justice system, she said she wanted him back in school immediately and tried to enroll him the next day.

But, she said she was initially told he couldn't enroll in school without first producing his birth certificate - a document she said she lost during Hurricane Harvey.

Advocates say HISD's website shows students can be enrolled without a birth certificate as long as they provide it within 30 days. Jones' son was also previously enrolled at HISD before he was charged, so she said the district should have already had a copy of it.

"It didn't make sense at all why he couldn't be enrolled at school today," Jones said. "I never heard of this before. I don't care what happened with these kids. They go, get locked up, they get out, they need to go to school just like everybody else."

HISD told us they can't specifically speak to what happened in Jones' child's case, but said they are working with the student's family.

HISD initially told us they would try to get us someone from the district to speak with about these concerns, but that they needed more time because of Spring Break.

13 Investigates extended our deadline for this story to give them an extra week, but HISD only provided us with a statement.

"The District has a thorough process when evaluating enrollment for students who have been charged criminally. Each case is reviewed individually by a team of qualified personnel in order to prioritize students' access to a safe and quality education. Since the letter, District leaders have met with representatives from JJAEP and Disability Rights services to ensure the process for students returning to HISD schools from disciplinary and juvenile justice programs is as effective as possible," HISD said in its statement.

With Disability Rights Texas' help, Jones was able to enroll her son into school within days of being released.

But, advocates say not every child is that lucky.

Beebe said the students with enrollment issues can be involved in anything from minor offenses to more serious crimes.

"We do work with a lot of youth who are in just the initial stages of their juvenile case, so they're pending adjudication, meaning that they're still innocent, there hasn't been enough to determine whether or not they've actually engaged in behavior that they're accused of and yet school districts will still say, 'oh, just with that accusation that makes us concerned enough that we won't make it that easy for you to be in school,'" Beebe said.

She said not going to school keeps the youth stuck in a vicious cycle.

"We've seen so many youth wind up back in the system while they're just sitting at home waiting to be in school," she said. "They really want to be there and yet there's just a lot of barriers that have been put in place to keep them from being able to access their education."

Beebe said it's important for HISD and even other parents who might not want the youth involved in the juvenile justice system in their child's classroom to put aside any bias they may have.

"When we hear that a youth has had involvement with the justice system, we're quick to judge that situation and think, 'oh, that student has done something wrong,' when the reality is we're talking about a lot of young youth who have made a mistake and who really need support and to receive services and school," she said. "It's critical that they'd be included. Schools have a lot of tools at their disposal to ensure safety and to ensure that those students are getting the services and support that they need so that they can be successful in the education environment."

In a statement, HISD said it "HISD will look into specific concerns when identified and take any necessary steps to resolve enrollment issues.

"Our priority is acting in the best interest of the student, and we are committed to ensuring all HISD students receive access to a safe, quality education," HISD said.

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