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Admin, Legal & Compliance

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Special Education | Admin, Legal & Compliance

Family Engagement

Region 3 provides training and technical assistance to our districts and families to ensure guardians of students with disabilities receive accurate and timely information to assist them in making informed choices in their child's education. Technical assistance is also provided to districts regarding training, development of procedures, and legal requirements pertaining to surrogate parents.

Family Engagement Helpful Links

Legal Framework

The legal framework assists stakeholders such as local educational agencies (LEAs), advocates, and parents in learning about state and federal laws and regulations by providing rich resources regarding obligations and rights for the provision of a free and appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment to students with disabilities.

Non-Educational Based Community Services

Results Driven Accountability

RDA is a local education agency (LEA) level, data-driven monitoring framework developed and implemented annually by the Division of Special Populations Strategic Supports and Reporting and implemented by the Special Populations General Supervision & Monitoring Department in the Office of Special Populations and Student Supports (OSPSS) and in coordination with other divisions like Performance-Based Monitoring (PBM) within the TEA.

RDA FRAMEWORK

The RDA framework consists of indicators for three program areas. The RDA indicators are grouped into domains for each program area.

Bilingual Education/English as a Second Language/

Emergent Bilingual (BE/ESL/EB)

Domain I: Academic Achievement

Domain II: Post-Secondary Readines

Other Special Populations

Domain I: Academic Achievement

Domain II: Post-Secondary Readines

Special Education

Domain I: Academic Achievement

Domain II: Post-Secondary Readines

Domain III: Disproportionate Analysis

SIGNIFICANT DISPROPORTIONALITY IN SPECIAL EDUCATION

The Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), as indicated by 20 U.S.C. §1418(d)(1) and 34 CFR §300.646(a),requires each state education agency to provide for the collection and examination of data to determine if significant disproportionality based on race and ethnicity is occurring in the state and the LEAs of the state with respect to RDA indicators in the following three areas:

Placement of students in an educational setting

RDA Indicator #8 SPED Regular Class ˂40% Rate (school-aged)

RDA Indicator #9 SPED Separate Settings Rate (school-aged)

 

Identification (representation) of students with a particular disability

RDA Indicator #10 SPED Representation (Ages 3-21)

Disciplinary actions related to the incidence, duration, and type of suspensions/expulsions of students

RDA Indicator #11 SPED OSS and Expulsion ≤10 Days Rate (Ages 3-21)

RDA Indicator #12 SPED OSS and Expulsion >10 Days Rate (Ages 3-21)

RDA Indicator #13 SPED ISS ≤10 Days Rate (Ages 3-21)

RDA Indicator #14 SPED ISS >10 Days Rate (Ages 3-21)

RDA Indicator #15 SPED Total Disciplinary Removals Rate (Ages 3-21)

 

State Performance Plan

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) collects data from local educational agencies (LEAs) for the State Performance Plan/Annual Performance Report (SPP/APR). LEAs are required to report data on sixteen State Performance Plan Indicators (SPPIs) identified by the United States Department of Education's Office of Special Education Programs.

SPPI 17: State Systemic Improvement Plan (SSIP)

SSIP is a comprehensive multi-year plan for improving results for children with disabilities.

SPPI 18: General Supervision

General Supervision measures the effectiveness of the State's general supervision system in ensuring LEA-level written findings of noncompliance with IDEA are corrected within one year.

LEAs are required to provide valid, timely, and reliable data that reflect the measurement for each SPPI. TEA considers data certified and submitted by LEAs to be final and uses the LEA's performance on the indicators in the annual determinations analysis. Any issues related to the submission of inaccurate data or the non-submission of data is addressed by the Division of Special Education and the Department of Review and Support.

 

Special Education In Non-public And Off-campus Programs 

The Individuals with Disabilities Act (IDEA) entitles a student with a disability to a free, appropriate public education in the least restrictive environment. When a student has educational needs that cannot be met in a public school setting, that student can be educated in a private school or facility, referred to as a nonpublic school, or in an off-campus program, at public expense.

 

A student’s admission, review, and dismissal (ARD) committee must determine that the school district or charter school cannot provide the student with the special education instruction and related services necessary to meet the student’s unique needs for that student to be educated in a nonpublic school or off-campus program. The ARD committee identifies a nonpublic school or off-campus program that will provide the student an appropriate educational program.