‘Show Me the Money’ — for Special Education! (TX)

April 26, 2010

It remains a chief ingredient of President Obama’s recipe for recovery — hundreds of millions of stimulus dollars sprinkled throughout the economy.

A sizable chunk was set aside for Houston schools, within that chunk a $43 million one-time, windfall specifically for special education. That equates to almost $2,600 for each of the district’s roughly 16,000 challenged students.

While the special needs cash has been available since fall 2009, the Houston Independent School District has yet to spend a penny.

"If I were a special ed parent, I would be livid about this," says Gayle Fallon, chief of the Houston Federation of Teachers, who is both angered and mystified by the wait.

"What distresses me most is that they are cheating the children.I started looking at this when I started getting calls from special ed teachers asking me how come every other district has their special ed money and we don’t?," said Fallon.

FOX 26 News went to Chuck Morris, HISD chief of academics, for some answers.

"I can understand their urgency, but as stewards of taxpayers and stewards of parents’ concerns, we want to make sure we spend that money wisely," explained Morris.

Chuck Morris says HISD is planning to invest roughly half the special ed stimulus money in classroom technology like computers.

"So that a year from now we are still getting the benefits of those dollars and two years and three years," added Morris.

Special needs students will also benefit from extensive teacher training, planned for next year and bank rolled by stimulus bucks, said Morris.

By the time the fall 2010 semester rolls around, every special needs nickel will be spoken for.

"We want to use the money wisely and our goal is to use almost all of those dollars before the next school year begins."

As for the much anticipated audit of the district’s entire special education program, Morris says it is just now getting underway and will not be completed until the end of summer.