The superintendent of the largest school district in Texas and the state's education regulatory agency spent the past two weeks pointing fingers at each other, after a controversial plan to relocate students with profound disabilities from a specialized school was put on hold.
That changed on Friday, when Houston ISD superintendent Millard House II told Houston Public Media, "The district is going to own it at this point. I’ll just say that. We'll own it. We'll address the issue."
The plan was announced in November, when kids in the "Preparing Students for Independence" program at TH Rogers were sent home with a letter in their backpacks.
"We are excited to share a new opportunity for your student," Executive Director of Special Education Services Cindy Hoppman wrote. "The Preparing Students for Independence (PSI) classrooms are relocating from TH Rogers School to neighborhood campuses throughout Houston ISD."
Parents did not share Hoppman's excitement.
Julie Beeson is a parent of a 15-year-old TH Rogers student, Beau Aubin, who has cerebral palsy and occasional seizures.
"Our children are outliers. They are profoundly disabled children," she said.
"They belong together in a community, as do their parents. And what is happening to us is unconscionable."
After a contentious town hall and a series of negative news stories, House, Hoppman and other district administrators held a non-public meeting with a handful of special education parents on Dec. 6.
Houston Public Media obtained audio of that meeting, recorded by a parent.
"It was just executing the orders that we were being told, and I hate to throw anybody under the bus," House told parents. "I couldn’t say that publicly on the news because I don’t want TEA pissed at me. We’re a district that has been under conservatorship, and I don’t need any problems with TEA."
The district announced a "temporary pause" on the relocation plan later that week, in a letter signed by HISD Chief Academic Officer Shawn Bird.
"Parent feedback is critical to this process, and the district will continue to explore all possible options in collaboration with the Texas Education Agency," he wrote. "Additional communication will be forthcoming by the end of January 2023."
While discussing the pause at the Houston ISD board meeting on Dec. 8, House again implied that the district was not the driving force behind the plan to relocate PSI students.
"This is a situation that no one wanted," he said. "We want to make sure that this is right. So we are going to be taking a complete pause and engaging with our community at the PSI program and making sure that anything that happens going forward, that you all are engaged in the process."
The Texas Education Agency said in a written statement that "any decision(s) concerning which students are served on the T.H. Rogers campus rests with individual students' ARD Committees and Houston ISD and is not driven by the Agency."
Asked about the tension between TEA's written statement and his comments to parents, House said "I’m not looking to get in a back and forth in reference to ‘who said, who said.'"
"What’s important is that we have parents and students in front of us that have a need," he continued.
He also praised the TH Rogers PSI program.
"I think there’s a lot that’s been done right, quite frankly," he said. "I think that’s why we have the passionate parents that we have, and we have the happy kiddos that we have as well."
When asked "If you like the program the way it is, if the parents like the program the way it is, and if TEA and HISD agree that HISD owns the decision, is there any outcome other than the program staying at TH Rogers that you can foresee?"
"I don’t want to overspeak," he responded. "I think we have to legally make sure that everything is being done in accordance to the law. And so we’ll let those legal representatives as well as those special education representatives — in accordance with our teammates at TEA — ensure that everything is being done within the parameters of the way it’s supposed to be done. But my goal is to take the pause and have as least amount of change for the students moving forward."