Advocacy Alert: SB-89 | COVID-19 Special Education Recovery Act

3/31/21 UPDATE: THANK YOU FOR CALLING! THIS BILL HAS BEEN VOTED OUT OF SENATE EDUCATION COMMITTEE AND ON TO THE FULL SENATE! NO ACTION IS NEEDED AT THIS TIME!

WHAT TO SAY WHEN YOU CALL!

“SB 89 was heard on 3/18/2021. Please vote the bill out of the Senate Education Committee as soon as possible! Thank you!”

What this bill does: Requires an additional supplement to a student’s IEP to address COVID-19 learning loss and other issues due to the pandemic by establishing a uniform and required approach to addressing missed services. The supplement must also include whether or not the services available to the student were interrupted, reduced, delayed, suspended, or discontinued and if compensatory educational services are appropriate for the child based on the information above or any other factors. As schools promote students to new grade levels, this data will help teachers adjust to their needs post-pandemic and will provide the Texas Education Agency with data on how special education fared as a whole.

Please call the Senate Education Committee listed at the end of this post!

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Read more about this bill!

SB 89 – By Senator Menendez – (Companion HB 144 by M. Gonzalez) – https://capitol.texas.gov/BillLookup/History.aspx?LegSess=87R&Bill=SB89

COVID IEP supplemental information:

Relating to supplemental information required for inclusion with a written statement of an individualized education program developed for certain public school students who received special education services.

Bill analysis:

Students with disabilities have been most impacted by the  COVID-19 pandemic. When schools stopped in-person instruction this past March, many students with disabilities  learning did not just halt, it regressed. Collecting data on the pandemic’s impact on students in general education has been difficult, and due to the highly variable nature of those receiving special education services, it has been even harder to collect data for these students. Providing more information to teachers in the coming school year is crucial to addressing the student’s learning loss in order to get them back on track.

S.B. 89 requires the addition of a written supplement to a student’s individualized education plan (IEP). The supplement must detail whether the student’s full evaluation was completed in the 2019-2020 school year or the 2020-2021 school year. The supplement must also include whether or not the services available to the student were interrupted, reduced, delayed, suspended, or discontinued. As schools promote students to new grade levels, this data will help teachers adjust to their needs post-pandemic and will provide the Texas Education Agency with data on how special education fared as a whole.

As proposed, S.B. 89 amends current law relating to supplemental information required for inclusion with a written statement of an individualized education program developed for certain public school students who received special education services during the 2019-2020 or 2020-2021 school year.

The supplement will not cost any extra money or time as it will be added during the annual IEP process and many districts have already gone through this process.

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WHO TO CONTACT! 

Please call if possible – committee members are listed in order of importance!

Please call the Chair & Vice Chair if you don’t have much time, but it would be a huge help to call all members of Senate Education!