SB568

SB568 rewrites Texas special-education oversight, services and school funding. Its central funding change is to pay according to the intensity and type of services a student needs, rather than the old instructional-placement categories. It also changes family supports, classroom-camera coverage, evaluations and services for children with sensory disabilities. It does not give every family a cash payment or set every future funding weight. Final law.

Timing: signed June 20, 2025, most provisions took effect that day. Most school-finance changes took effect September 1, 2025; the new intensity tiers, service-group allotment, transition formula and specified related provisions took effect September 1, 2026. Regional-service-center training, residential/day-placement contracts, hospital-program funding and high-cost-grant changes apply beginning with the 2026–27 school year. Sections 66–67; Official history.

Funding: the commissioner must define eight service-intensity tiers, including residential-placement and speech-only tiers, and at least four service groups. The Legislature sets ordinary weights and amounts through appropriations; a student uses the highest qualifying intensity tier. At least 55% of each of these allotments must support special education. For 2026–27, the commissioner must set formulas producing approximately $250 million more statewide than the old special-education formula would have produced for that same year, using the 2026–27 basic allotment on both sides of the comparison. This is not a guaranteed increase for every district. Federal funding-maintenance protections remain. The law also removes the old 75% reduction and $10 million statewide cap for federally required extended-year services. Sections 53–57 and 62.

Evaluations and other payments: districts receive $1,000, or more if appropriated, for each qualifying full individual and initial evaluation—not every reevaluation. The special-education component of the college, career or military readiness bonus rises from $2,000 to $4,000 for qualifying graduates above the district cohort threshold; it is district funding, not a student check. Special-education transportation funding becomes the regular-transportation rate plus 13 cents per mile, or more if appropriated. Qualifying day-placement programs receive $250,000 initially, then $100,000 plus $150,000 when at least three students are enrolled; designation and county-service conditions apply, with at most 20 funded programs statewide per year. Regional day schools for the deaf receive $6,925 per student or more if appropriated, adjusted to a statewide total of at least $35 million annually. Sections 58–60 and 63.

School services and oversight: TEA must run a comprehensive compliance system, provide technical assistance and make behavioral-support training available to covered staff. District and charter boards must discuss special-education performance annually in public. Eligibility expressly includes qualifying developmental delays at ages three through nine. Individualized education programs (IEPs) must be accessible to parents whose primary language is not English: Spanish written or audio translation, and a good-faith effort for other languages. An admission, review and dismissal committee—the team that sets a child’s services—may approve sufficiently rigorous modified coursework for a distinguished graduation plan or endorsement. Monitoring includes parent and teacher input, progressive sanctions for continued noncompliance, and expedited service-related complaints. Sections 4–9 and 14.

Placements and family support: residential and day-placement providers and contracts face commissioner approval and standards, including annual reconsideration of returning a student to a less restrictive setting. Community-support grants are redesigned for eligible students placed by their service-planning committee in an approved residential program, or in a day program with a risk of residential placement, and their families. Respite care and other noneducational supports cannot replace the school’s duty to provide a free appropriate public education. Paid nonattorney representatives in special-education hearings must meet added ethics and written-agreement requirements; IEP facilitation can help avoid as well as resolve disputes. Sections 10–21.

Supplemental parent-directed services: the renamed program retains grants of up to $1,500, subject to available funding, with one grant unless lawmakers fund an additional award. It adds a next-school-year waitlist and an online application system; eligible applicants left out in 2024–25 must receive a 2025–26 award. Administrative funding is capped at 4% of appropriated grant money. The service-planning committee must give approved participants’ parents program information unless the district verifies that an account is already assigned, and must develop an IEP without treating this supplemental benefit as a substitute for school services. Approved providers receive protections for their institutional and religious practices. Commissioner decisions under this grant subchapter are final and not appealable under the usual Education Code appeal provision; that is not a repeal of special-education due-process rights generally. Sections 25–34 and 65.

Cameras and sensory disabilities: on a qualifying request, camera coverage is tied to settings primarily used to deliver special education to students who average less than half their instructional day in general education, rather than the old majority-of-class/self-contained test. It does not require cameras in every classroom. Confidentiality, restricted access and limits on monitoring remain. Districts must regularly assess language acquisition for deaf or hard-of-hearing children age eight or younger. A combined statewide plan covers children under 22 who have visual impairments, are deaf or hard of hearing, or are deaf-blind. Expanded-core instruction, braille safeguards and certified orientation-and-mobility evaluation remain; mobility evaluation is expressly required at reevaluation too. Sections 22–23 and 35–50; Existing camera safeguards.

The law also broadens the special-education information required in school-offense complaints, strengthens TEA’s general supervision of dyslexia programs, changes reporting and revises dyslexia-allotment eligibility. It removes the 20% limit on using that allotment for specified private supplemental services, but does not excuse students from school for those services. Some old coordination, advisory, funding and definition provisions are repealed or reorganized; this is not a wholesale repeal of dyslexia screening, parental consent or services for children with visual impairments. Sections 51–57 and 64.