TEA probing homeless student discipline after Landing reveals illegal suspensions

The Texas Education Agency this week sent guidance to school districts on how to respond when students experiencing homelessness break school rules, following a Houston Landing investigation that found schools had illegally suspended thousands of homeless students across the state .

Over the past five years, hundreds of Texas school districts have issued out-of-school suspensions to homeless students for offenses that were supposed to trigger milder disciplinary responses, according to the Landing’s May investigation . A 2019 state law stipulates unhoused students can only be kicked off campus for infractions related to violence, weapons, drugs or alcohol, because many rely on school for shelter, hot meals, showers and more .

The TEA’s Thursday communication said the agency is examining statewide discipline data for students experiencing homelessness and the probe could spur further investigations into individual districts’ practices.

The TEA began the review “due to concerns of school systems placing one or more students who were experiencing homelessness in out-of-school suspension … for engaging in conduct other than that described by (state law) and for the potential failure to submit accurate, useful, and timely … data to the agency.”

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By sending the Thursday guidance and conducting the ongoing review, the state appears to be taking a more active role in enforcing the 2019 law than it has previously. Before the Landing’s investigation, the TEA largely argued it lacked the legal authority to investigate and punish districts, or to require school employees to attend training sessions on the law’s provisions.

TEA spokesperson Jake Kobersky said the agency has received questions in recent months about how the state is responding to the issue of Texas schools illegally suspending homeless students. TEA recently released a brief on the topic to provide additional information to districts and is working to create other documents outlining best practices, Kobersky wrote in an email to the Landing.

Additionally, the TEA said it plans to examine suspension data for “select school systems” when 2023-24 numbers become available. The agency said it will inform superintendents via email if their districts are targeted for individual review.

EFFECTS: Four Houstonians got suspended from school while homeless. Here’s how it changed their lives.

The state’s reviews could help illuminate an issue typically mired in obscurity. A quirk in Texas’ data tracking of homeless students and suspensions makes it difficult to measure the exact number of illegal suspensions because a student’s classification as homeless applies for a full school year, including retroactively. As a result, it is possible some students were legally suspended at a time when they had housing, but their suspensions would appear in the data as illegal if they later became homeless.

It also is possible that district employees suspended students who were not listed as homeless, but lacked stable housing. Those suspensions still are illegal, but would not show up in the state data.

Due to the issues in data tracking, it is difficult to pinpoint which districts are Texas’ worst offenders. Numerous Houston-area districts, however, appear to regularly violate the rules, according to the Landing’s analysis. Houston ISD, the state’s largest district, has acknowledged breaking the law on hundreds of occasions in its annual reports on school discipline .

With the possibility of increased scrutiny, the TEA advised districts to work quickly to ensure they are following the 2019 law.

“For school systems not in compliance with these requirements, it is recommended that they implement any corrective actions or improvements to their current policies and procedures immediately,” the agency wrote.

See the full TEA guidance sent to districts here .

Asher Lehrer-Small covers Houston ISD for the Landing. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org .