Frustrated Killeen ISD parents spoke out at Monday night’s Board of Trustees meeting, on the heels of the district's long awaited "special education department audit,” being revealed.
Some called for resignations, others demanded greater transparency and more support for KISD special education teachers, who they feel are stretched thin.
The newly released audit—brought up waves of fresh anger from parents like Phillip Floyd, who said the district has been facing numerous issues for years.
""We knew in advance that this was gonna be the case. What we did not expect to find out was that so much was broken. Our system in place is basically the worst in the state,” Floyd said, “And we live in a military community and the report revealed that our military dependent children are also affected by this."
Many of these parents feel like the report is proof that their voices have largely gone unheard. It’s a sentiment that’s in direct contrast witha recently released KISD Parent & Educator Survey, which claims that the majority of Special Education parents are satisfied with the district.
The audit, which was done by the Gibson Consulting Group, found some of the following issues with KISD's Special Education department: higher than average retention rates, lower than average teacher to student ratios, a lower than average amount of dollars spent per special needs student, harsher student punishment and ineffective district communication with parents.
The district had already been undergoing some changes, following an investigation by the Texas Education Agency, which prompted the internal audit. Some of those changes include implementing a Comprehensive Action Plan (CAP), hiring an Executive Director for the department and making sure the district was equipped to install cameras in special education classesif necessary.
The auditors with Gibson Consulting Group closed Monday night’s presentation by saying that while Killeen ISD wasn't all bad, there is much work to be done.
To read the full audit, you can visit:
https://www.killeenisd.org/frontPageV3/ser/KilleenISDSpecialEducationAudit.pdf
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