Cy-Fair ISD becomes latest district to announce special education consolidations

CYPRESS, Texas (KTRK) -- Cy-Fair ISD is the latest public school district to make changes to its special education programs amid shrinking student populations. It's a trend that special education experts and the University of Houston professor Kristi Santi said isn't unique to Texas.

"Programs change as populations and resources change, and it is something that occurs at a national level," Santi said.

Cy-Fair said the decision to move forward with consolidation was driven by changes in student enrollment. Around 250 students will be affected by the program consolidation, with the district reporting compliance with legal requirements.

The district said they adjust staffing and program locations to ensure resources are used effectively.

Cy-Fair isn't the only big district making changes. Just a few weeks ago, ABC13 broke the news that Houston ISD would be consolidating special education, with around 5,000 students needing to move campuses to stay with their programming. Following the news, the Department of Education launched a civil rights investigation into HISD to find out if special needs students are being discriminated against. We reached out to the Department of Education on Wednesday for an update, but they would not comment.

Santi said that as student enrollment declines and school budgets grow tighter, districts are forced to make these kinds of decisions. But with HISD and Cy-Fair ISD both making these changes just months before a new school year, Santi said they are now under a serious time crunch.

"Three months is short term, with a lot of questions the parents have a right to have answered before the change officially takes place," Santi said.

Santi said that when a change is made in a special education student's life, their individual learning plans, also called an IEP, have to be updated in a meeting. These meetings can take hours, involve campus visits, and require doctors' notes to ensure a student's needs are met.

"When you uproot a plan, like maybe over a summer, those summer months don't diminish the anxiety that the child is going to have, and then you have to account for how long it will take for the child to reacclimate to a new setting," Santi said.

Cy-Fair ISD said they believed there is a difference in what is happening at HISD and their campus. The district said it is not closing any programs but consolidating, which is similar to the language we have heard from HISD.

Cy-Fair said no teaching jobs will be impacted, and that its district website will be updated over the summer.