HISD administrator resigns after special education troubles uncovered

The U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation of 12 districts' special education practices in February following the Chronicle's investigation, including in Houston ISD. The U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation of 12 districts' special education practices in February following the Chronicle's investigation, including in Houston ISD. Photo: PeopleImages.com/Getty Images Photo: PeopleImages.com/Getty Images Image 1 of / 65 Caption Close HISD administrator resigns after special education troubles uncovered 1 / 65 Back to Gallery

Houston ISD school board trustees voted 5-0 to allow embattled Assistant Superintendent of Special Education Services Sowmya Kumar to resign Thursday following a Chronicle investigation that found she and her staff set an arbitrary cap on the number of students who could receive special education services in the district.

Kumar had been with the district since 2010. Four trustees – including Rhonda Skillern-Jones, Diana Davila, Manuel Rodriguez and Jolanda Jones - missed the vote. Trustees discussed the resignation in an executive session that was closed to the public and did not offer comments on Kumar before they voted to accept her departure.

Trustees and others have been calling for Kumar's removal since a Dec. 27 Chronicle story detailed how her department pressured schools to identify few students as having special needs and to provide few with services.

Denied: Read the series that casts light on how Texas treats its special education students

A presentation created by Kumar and her staff in January 2012 showed one of their goals was to keep the percentage of students with disabilities at 8 percent of the district's total enrollment, and special education enrollment in HISD eventually dipped to 7.4 percent, records show. About 13 percent of students nationally are identified as disabled and receive special education services.

After the Chronicle story was published, Kumar wrote a letter to the U.S. Department of Education saying the district's special education work and goals were mischaracterized.

"When possible, we strive to avoid labeling children because research shows that the 'special education' designation can carry an unfair stigma in our society that can harm a child," Kumar wrote. "The decline in HISD's special education population resulted from an intentional decision to more thoughtfully address the needs of students who, in the past, would have been labeled under special education. In HISD, we believe that serving children should be our goal, not putting a label on them."

Kumar's 8 percent cap was lower than the 8.5 percent cap created and pushed by the Texas Education Agency more than a decade ago. The TEA's mark saw the share of students receiving special education services fall by 32 percent, though TEA officials denied they had kept disabled students out of special education and said their guideline calling for enrollments of 8.5 percent was not a cap or a target but an "indicator" of performance by school districts.

The U.S. Department of Education launched an investigation of 12 districts' special education practices in February following the Chronicle's investigation, including in Houston ISD.

Earlier this month, Houston ISD trustees finalized a special committee to review the district's special education practices. Among their first tasks is to find an independent firm to audit the district's special education department, which has not been done since 2010. The committee is slated to present its findings and recommendations to the board either at the end of this year or early in 2018.

But some board members were more blunt in their criticisms of Kumar and her department.

In a series of December emails obtained by the Chronicle, Trustee Rhonda Skillern-Jones wrote to other Board of Education members and HISD senior staff officials: "I don't care to listen to (Kumar) any more. I've asked on multiple occasions for something to be done about her and her department and sent many parent complaints as well as been repeatedly informed of these things by staff."

She continued, "We wouldn't be at this point if we had done right by these children instead of dismissing her arrogant posturing and allowing her to continually perpetuate these practices."