Tomball, TX: SPED population grows 68% in 4 yrs
Between the 2021-22 and 2025-26 school years, Williams said the district's special education population had grown by 68%, or from 1,901 special education students to 3,200. Additionally, the percentage of students using special education services has grown to 13.75% in the 2025-26 school year compared to 9.38% in 2021-22.
Breaking it down
Despite the population growth, however, Williams said the district has not seen an increase in special education funding. IDEA-B is a program that helps provide special education funding, a subset of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. TISD receives funding from IDEA-B, but Williams said the slight increases have been steadily falling year by year.“Over the last three years, the slight increases [in funding] have gone down a little bit every year over the past three years. ... Which definitely is not in correlation with how many students we are adding to special educational services and supports at this time,” Williams said.
Every TISD special education program is reviewed by the state through the Results Driven Accountability system, which uses a scale of 1-4, with 1 being the highest, Williams said. Among other school districts, TISD received the highest possible score of 1. . . .
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