San Antonio: >18% of students have special needs; 681 more since 2021-22
- The end of childhood
- May 1
- 3 min read
May 1, 2025, My San Antonio: Autism diagnoses rise in Texas schools as parents face new challenges
Finding community after a child's autism diagnosis key bit of advice.
The world, or at least the United States, took great strides towards autism acceptance. Texas schools have expanded services and testing, and awareness of autism is on the rise. But there remains a huge barrier to entry for parents first dipping into the special education enrollment process – a system laden with legalese, legislative hurdles and procedural pitfalls.
According to data compiled by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there’s been a steady rise in autism diagnoses in children under 8. In 2018, one in 44 children under 8 were diagnosed. That figure climbs to one in 36 by 2023.
The rise in overall special education diagnoses is echoed at Boerne Independent School District. There were 2,027 students in a special education program in the district this school year – a jump of 268 since last school year, 477 since 2022-23 and 681 since the year before that.
"It has had a steady increase over the last five years in special education evaluations,” a Boerne ISD spokesperson told MySA, noting more than 18% of the student population receives special education services.
For Colette Garcia Kerns, however, getting her daughter’s medical autism diagnosis recognized within Boerne ISD was a futile effort. She spent months battling back and forth with the district, having her daughter evaluated multiple times. Despite a neuropsychologist vouching for her daughter’s autism diagnosis, the school wasn’t budging. In fact, Kerns says Boerne admins chalked it up to “at home” issues despite offering some support services, like sensory hallways.
From Kerns’ perspective, the district was all but admitting to a diagnosis, identifying autism-adjacent symptoms and smaller diagnoses.
The school district denies these claims. Boerne ISD says it not only meets federal and state mandates for special education but is also willing to work with students to close gaps in academic and social learning. However, it’s this misalignment between a medical and educational autism diagnosis that can so often lead to tension between educators parents.
“That’s where things potentially get tricky, because the medical model for autism is not necessarily aligned with the educational model for identifying autism,” Dr. Coleman Heckman, Northside ISD’s director of psychological and related services, told MySA.
Heckman and a nurse practitioner with the Neurosciences Center at CHRISTUS Children’s, Katherine Holt, both acknowledge the varying criteria between a medical and educational diagnosis. While medical practitioners look at a broad range of symptoms, school districts have a government-mandated list of boxes to check before tacking the label onto a child’s official paperwork. In a nutshell, if there’s no clear academic struggle, the school district’s hands are tied.
Though, Heckman says most educators and administrators will find ways fill to any communication or socialization needs through support services with or without an autism diagnosis. But even if a child checks all the state boxes, the process suddenly requires parents to become legal experts, acronym aficionados and strong-willed yet even-keeled negotiators.
An educational diagnoses unlocks an autism supplement under the Texas Education Agency, unfurling a laundry list of additional services districts are required to offer. But the path to this point is frothed with legal pitfalls, says Holt. Formal letters are needed to call for sit downs, triggering a 45-day timeline to negotiate services. This timeline only includes business days, and a verbal request can lead to a lack of paper trial (eliminating lawsuit potential) and lead to a Response to Intervention from a school district which is not legally enforceable. . . .
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