Mackenzie Casal, executive director of student support services, presented a district update on Section 504, special education, hospital/homebound services and several operational projects.

Casal reported Section 504 trends that show a modest decrease after a two-year dyslexia-related transition; the district remains near historical levels (roughly 8% of students) for 504 service plans. She said the largest 504 categories are ADHD, dyslexia and mental-health related accommodations. On hospital/homebound services she noted the district serves students placed in local facilities including Children's Health and an eating-recovery center; counts fluctuate throughout the year.

On special education, Casal said Plano ISD now serves over 7,000 students (about 17% of enrollment). She attributed part of the recent increase to changes in state guidance on dyslexia and to TEA's broader technical guidance for learning-disability identification. Casal described instructional-arrangement trends showing growth in resource-room support and an increase in placements in the least-restrictive environments compared with prior reports.

Operational priorities include a TEA cyclical desk audit (the current manual uses a sample of 16 students for districts of Plano's size), a leadership pipeline (an aspiring special-education leadership academy for 21 selected participants), a pilot of Frontline for Medicaid billing and services documentation at three campuses, and an AI task force producing guidance for classroom and evaluation uses of generative AI.

Casal said the district is tracking private-school evaluation workload created by education-savings-account enrollment and noted statewide funding changes that add a $1,000-per-evaluation payment beginning next year; she asked the board for understanding about the current one-time workload this school year. Trustees asked for and were offered a later calculation of hours and expenses tied to those contract evaluations.