HISD illegally suspended 1 in 10 homeless students last school year, new data shows

Houston ISD administrators illegally suspended roughly 1 in 10 students experiencing homelessness in 2022-23, causing them to miss about 3,000 days of classes, district officials confirmed to the Houston Landing.

Roughly 725 out of 7,250 homeless students in HISD received an out-of-school suspension last year for a “discretionary offense,” a violation of state law, district officials said last week.

Texas legislators passed a law in 2019 that bans suspensions of homeless students for most offenses, including disrupting class or disrespecting staff. In those cases, school administrators typically have discretion over whether to issue suspensions. Under the law, administrators still must suspend homeless students for certain severe offenses, including assault, drug use and weapons possession.

HISD’s missed days total is roughly 30 times higher than the count originally reported by HISD officials in September 2023, when they issued their annual discipline report. The earlier report showed homeless students only missed 102 days of school last year due to illegal suspensions.

The update last week came in response to a request from the Houston Landing to explain a discrepancy between HISD’s annual discipline report and numbers the Landing obtained through a public records request from the Texas Education Agency. HISD said it reviewed the numbers and discovered a coding error led to the original, incorrect analysis.

HISD declined to explain why the suspensions took place at that volume, stating it “cannot speak to things that occurred under a previous administration.” Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath appointed a new superintendent and school board to run HISD ahead of the 2023-24 school year, the result of state sanctions against the district.

In a statement, an HISD spokesperson said the district trains campus administrators on how to comply with the suspension law. The spokesperson did not respond to a question about specific actions HISD is taking to stop the suspension of homeless students.

“Campus administrators are encouraged to collaborate with the school district’s homeless liaison to determine suitable alternatives to out-of-school suspension for students experiencing homelessness,” HISD wrote in an email.

TEA spokesperson Jake Kobersky said the agency is “conducting a thorough review” of the suspension data for homeless students reported by districts across the state.

State Rep. Gene Wu, D-Houston, whose legislative district includes part of HISD’s west side, co-sponsored the 2019 bill and called the new numbers “beyond disappointing.”

Wu said he and his colleagues created the bill because students experiencing homelessness often rely on school for hot meals, hygiene and safe shelter during the day. When those students are kept out of school, they often have nowhere to go, he said.

“We’re talking about the absolute most vulnerable students in our entire state,” Wu said. “We passed a law asking the school districts to do more to protect the most vulnerable. If these numbers are correct, we have clearly failed.”

The 2019 law does not include any potential punishment of school employees or districts that violate it. State law also doesn’t specify that the Texas education commissioner can investigate and potentially sanction a district for illegal suspensions, though the law does allow the commissioner to launch investigations as they “otherwise determine necessary.”

Students experiencing homelessness in Texas historically have dropped out of school at rates about four times higher than the state average, according to a 2021-22 TEA report , the most recent available.

Houston reVision CEO Charles Rotramel, whose Gulfton-area nonprofit serves thousands of youth, many of them experiencing homelessness, said suspending young people already struggling to meet their basic needs can send the wrong message to them.

“What you’re doing when you suspend a student is you’re telling them that the school does not value them, that the school does not want them,” Rotramel said. “They tend to drop out. They tend to not want to come back.”

In December 2022, the TEA’s top statewide coordinator for homeless youth, Cal Lopez, said her team was getting many questions about how to comply with the 2019 law, according to a video recording of the training posted on YouTube . Lopez advised campus behavior coordinators to look for alternative types of discipline for students, such as in-school suspensions. She added that educators can reach out to district homeless coordinators or the TEA’s discipline support office if they need help.

The TEA has another virtual training for school districts’ homeless liaisons regarding the 2019 law scheduled for April 11.

Asher Lehrer-Small covers education for the Landing and would love to hear your tips, questions and story ideas about Houston ISD. Reach him at asher@houstonlanding.org .