Special Education

The SPED program is a part of the Results Driven Accountability (RDA) system. The RDA system is utilized to assign required intervention activities to a local education agency (LEA) based on annual performance on individual indicators or patterns across indicators. The Department of Review and Support is responsible for RDA performance levels, identification of intervention requirements, monitoring and support for RDA.

Intervention Activities

The RDA district targeted improvement plan incorporates data findings, problem statements and root causes that address areas of low performance and program ineffectiveness identified in RDA.  

LEAs participating in interventions in any program area at PL3 or 4 submit their district strategic support plan, targeted improvement plan, or pre-existing document, to TEA via the Interventions, Stage, and Activity Manager, (ISAM), application in the Texas Education Agency Login (TEAL). LEAs retain information used during the data analysis and needs assessment and only submit to TEA if requested.     

LEAs with a of PL1 or 2 develop their plan and retain it and all supporting documentation locally.

For LEAs at any performance level, if noncompliance is identified during the review process, LEAs will develop a Corrective Action Plan (CAP) which outlines the activities/steps the LEA will take to correct all substantiated findings of noncompliance, to include that:

•       policies and procedures, including operating guidelines and practices are reviewed and revised, as necessary;

•       professional development is provided to identified staff;

•       admission, review, and dismissal (ARD) committee meetings are convened to address the noncompliance, and, when required, determine if the noncompliance denied students a free appropriate public education (FAPE), and consider compensatory services, as appropriate; and

•       develop and engage in monitoring activities to ensure ongoing compliance.

The LEA is required to correct any finding of noncompliance as soon as possible, but in no case, may the correction take longer than one calendar year from the date of notification of noncompliance. 

Additional Resources

Results Driven Accountability (RDA)

SPED Compliance Review Topics (PDF,237KB)

SPED Compliance Review Summary (PDF, 1612KB)

SPED Corrective Action Plan (CAP) (Excel, 76KB)

Properly Constituted ARD Committee (Excel, 21KB)

IEP Development & Implementation (Excel, 18KB)

Participation in State Assessment (Excel, 21KB)

Certified & Qualified Staff (Excel, 18KB)

Current Evaluation Timelines (Excel, 23KB)

Transition (Excel, 19KB)

Behavior & Discipline (Excel, 19KB)

Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) (Excel, 20 KB)

Commensurate Day (Excel, 19 KB)