Parents and advocates from Literacy Fort Worth gathered outside the Fort Worth ISD District Service Center to call on the district to improve special education meetings. They also asked the district to show that the services it promises reach the classroom. Among them were Kim Medford and Ashish Talwar, whose children attend different schools and are in different grades.
Medford, a nurse, said she has become her son's caseworker. She said she spent three and a half years pushing the district to test her son, Noah, for learning disabilities. She said he was reading at a first-grade level when he started sixth grade. Talwar said it is not parents' job to act as daily auditors.
Caroline James, executive director of Literacy Fort Worth, said parents should not have to become full-time case managers to get basic support for their children. She said she has attended more than 100 special education meetings in 10 Tarrant County districts and that none are doing a great job. "We are failing students and families at scale," she said.
FWISD Deputy Superintendent Mohammed Choudhury said in a statement that the district checks service records against each student's plan and monitors progress. He said when services are missed, the district documents and reviews the circumstances, assesses the impact on the student and takes corrective action.