Austin ISD discusses timeline to meet TEA governance implementation

FOX 7 Austin is learning how the state will oversee Austin ISD's special education programs. The district has faced a backlog of student evaluations in recent years, forcing the TEA to step in.

AUSTIN, Texas - Austin ISD held a meeting Thursday night discussing a timeline for the TEA's Lone Star Governance implementation on the school district.

During Austin ISD’s information session, Ashley Paz, consultant of the Council of the Great City Schools, made recommendations on how the district can create conditions on how to use the 50 percent time use.

"Those are any meetings that are not hearings or sessions that are required by law," Paz said. "So meetings that the board authorizes or the boards controls the agenda."

The TEA order requires AISD to get to the 50 percent time use threshold by January.

"Most boards that go through this work, it takes them over a year to get to that place where they're spending consistently 50 percent of their time board authorize meetings," Paz said.

Austin ISD and TEA spec. ed. oversight plan

Austin ISD has until the end of the week to vote on the Texas Education Agency's alternative oversight plan for the district's struggling special education program.

Right now, Austin ISD has 19 priorities to look at to be in compliance. One recommendation Paz made to the board was to make changes to the way students are evaluated to align with LSG standards and update the monitoring calendar.

"So, goals are students outcomes: students know or able to do and constraints are specific to operational actions or class of actions that says this is what the superintendent should not do," said Paz.

Another recommendation that Paz made was to temporary pause all existing committee work, which was a concern for trustee Candace Hunter.

"We have a legislative committee we can pause those meetings all we want to," Hunter said. "We cannot pause that work we are currently in special session with, another promise to come. That work needs to continue."

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Paz reassured Hunter the legislative committee can continue to go advocate at the Capitol.

"Absolutely you should continue doing that, and as a former school board member, I would be doing that whether I was on the committee or not, and this is not a suggestion to not do that work," Paz said.

AISD has a goal to clear its backlog of evaluations by the 2025-26 school year.

As of May 20, there were still about 3,500 evaluations pending.