Special education advocate Karen Mayer Cunningham speaks to concerned Houston ISD parents about the district’s upcoming changes to special education services.

A small group of parents gathered Wednesday night looking for advice on how to combat the controversial changes to special education Houston ISD is implementing for the upcoming school year.

Texas' largest school district is consolidating special education services to select campuses beginning in 2026-27, which prompted an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. The move would require some students to be transferred from their neighborhood school to another school in the district that would be tapped as a hub to provide a variety of special education services.

In early May, the district sent letters home with parents informing them of the changes and if their child's program was affected.

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Special education advocate Karen Mayer Cunningham held Wednesday's meeting in the parking lot of Bellaire High School, one of the impacted campuses that's moving some special education programs to Sharpstown High School. She advised parents to immediately file formal complaints with the Texas Education Agency, to ignore those letters from the district and show up at the campus listed in their child's Individualized Education Plan on Aug. 10, the first day of the upcoming school year.

"It's unethical, it's amoral, it's illegal," Mayer Cunningham said of the district’s changes.

RELATED: Another Houston-area school district is consolidating special education programs for the upcoming school year

One of parents' core concerns about the changes is they were issued without families' consent. All students utilizing special education services have assessments done by the district that are then used to craft an Individualized Education Plan, or IEP. The plan, with formal consent from the parents, is then implemented as a way to ensure the student receives all services and modifications they need to be successful in the classroom.

Changes to an IEP require a meeting between parents and the district and a new agreement detailing the changes, according to state guidelines.

Monica Cavazos-Rosas' son, Carlos, has autism and has attended Bellaire High School for the last three years. In May, Cavzos-Rosas said her son came home with a letter informing the family he would have to attend Sharpstown High School next year in order to still access special education services that he previously received at Bellaire. She says his teacher was also informed she would be moving to Sharpstown.

"I mean, I was, like, devastated," Cavazos-Rosas said. "This whole summer has had like a dark cloud over it, because you know we weren’t sure what was going to happen with his first day of school with his senior year."

She says the family immediately filed a complaint with the Texas Education Agency (TEA), which told her it would conclude its investigation into her complaint by early July, she said. However, on Wednesday, a few hours before the planned event, Cavazos-Rosas said someone from the district's central office called to tell her Carlos would be allowed to continue attending Bellaire.

"I mean, getting that phone call today was a relief, but we don’t have it in writing," Cavazos-Rosas said. "I mean, the dark clouds, [they're] still there, but it’s at least kind of, like, dissipated."

Cavazos-Rosas says her neighbor has a senior in special education at Bellaire and also received a call from the district saying their child would be allowed to continue his studies at Bellaire after previously being told they would have to transfer to Sharpstown.

HISD did not respond to questions about whether the district is allowing high school seniors, or other types of students, to remain at their original campuses.

Other parents who attended the meeting, who said they did not want to share their stories for fear their child would face retaliation, asked what they can do to avoid a transfer and what rights they could exercise to combat the changes.

HISD under federal investigation

When HISD announced the sweeping changes to special education, it sparked backlash in the community. After documents of the changes leaked, the district formally notified families in early May of the changes, leaving many scrambling to absorb the changes and prepare their children to attend new schools in a matter of three months.

Cavazos-Rosas immediately began preparing her son for the transfer, saying she worried about how Carlos might interpret the change.

"People with autism, at least my son, you have to give them a lot of pre-warnings," Cavazos-Rosas said. "I didn’t want him to think he’d done something wrong that he couldn’t be at Bellaire anymore and he had to go to a new school."

RELATED: HISD under federal investigation over plans to restructure special education services

Just days after Houston ISD publicized the changes, the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights opened a federal investigation into the district's plan.

Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights Kimberly Richey said placement decisions must be made individually based on students' needs rather than by blanket policies that segregate students by disability category. She called the allegations in the complaints her office received "alarming."

“Public schools are required — to the maximum extent appropriate — to ensure that children with disabilities are educated alongside their non-disabled peers and to follow specific procedures when making placement decisions about how and where children with disabilities are educated,” the education department stated in a news release announcing the investigation.

The investigation is ongoing and no public updates have been released.

Despite the investigation, Houston ISD has defended the changes and is moving forward with them, noting that special education services will be available at more than half of its campuses.

"Any review will show that all special education updates for the 2026-27 school year focus on increasing access to services in the least restrictive environment, strengthening systems to improve the quality of instruction, and improving student outcomes," HISD also said in its statement.