HISD reports gains for students with disabilities, outlines priorities for compliance and parent supports
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Summary
District officials told the board that special education students showed rising MAP/NWEA percentiles and median growth in many grades; staff outlined five strategic priorities including instruction quality, compliance, data systems and enhanced parent communications.
Houston — Houston ISD administrators presented the district’s 2025 special-education progress-monitoring report on Dec. 11, saying MAP/NWEA data show rising achievement percentiles and median growth for many students with disabilities and outlining next steps to strengthen supports.
Chief Holt said the district is reporting beginning-of-year achievement and median-growth percentiles for students with disabilities; many grade levels and school types showed gains and several grades were above the national 50th median growth benchmark. "We have a little over 21,000 students in special education," Holt said, and the presentation broke out growth by instructional setting, showing students served in least-restrictive settings often growing above typical levels.
Staff emphasized that the district will focus on five strategic priorities next semester: improving instructional quality across settings; meeting compliance expectations; enhancing data infrastructure; expanding parent supports and clearer progress reporting tied to IEP goals; and operating high-quality, functional programs.
Board members sought clarifications about differences in outcomes between NES and PUA school types, and about communications for parents in multiple languages. Holt said targeted second-teacher supports in NES schools help explain some differences and that interpreters are provided as needed for ARD meetings; staff also said the district plans to post resources explaining special-education processes and to launch a parent group to refine supports.
The presentation included discussion of the district’s use of achievement and growth percentiles and noted that MAP changes affected which metrics could be reported this year. Board members thanked staff for the report and asked for further datasets on disability categories and differentiated supports by campus.
The board heard the report during the meeting’s program updates and did not take a separate vote on the presentation.