Comparing schools

Choosing a Houston school with an IEP or 504 plan

By the research team at School, Clearly.

Reviewed by Eric Moore, founder.

AI-assisted research. Our method.

District, state, program and school pages read September 10, 2026. Every dated rule carries its school year.

At a glance

The plan changes three things about a school search, and none of them is which school is best: the step HISD adds before a School Choice seat is final, what a private school is and is not bound to do, and how much the state's education savings account adds. This page puts the district's rules, the state's amounts and twenty listed private schools' own statements side by side as they read on September 10, 2026, starting with what each plan is and which families the page is written for. It recommends no school and estimates no chance of a seat.

First, which situation your family is in

The two plans come from two laws. A 504 plan comes from Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which the Texas Education Agency's Section 504 fact sheet, read September 10, 2026, describes as a federal civil rights law protecting a person whose physical or mental impairment substantially limits a major life activity such as learning; the plan holds the accommodations and services the student needs for equal access to the same programs as other students, and HISD's Section 504 page gives extra time on tests, preferential seating, assistive technology and modified assignments as its examples. An IEP, an Individualized Education Program, is the written plan for a child found eligible for special education under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, the IDEA; it sets the services the child receives and the setting they are served in, and in Texas the committee that decides it is the ARD committee, Admission, Review and Dismissal, which is why the district's School Choice rule below turns on an ARD meeting. The fact sheet says every student in special education is also protected under Section 504, while not every 504 student is eligible for special education, so the first thing to know is which plan the child holds.

HISD's special education page, published May 6, 2026 and read September 10, 2026, says a majority of its special education students are served within the general education classroom, which it calls inclusion, and that for 2026-27 it is improving service offerings so that more students can access special education supports at every campus without needing to transfer; its example is that a child whose IEP requires social skills support can now get it at all 259 HISD campuses. A student served in an inclusion setting stays in that setting in 2026-27 unless the IEP changes. A child with a 504 plan and no IEP is in a general education classroom too: the district's Section 504 page says a 504 student stays in the general education classroom with supports, and the state's fact sheet says a 504 student is not necessarily in special education at all. This page, and the $195 report, are for that situation: accommodations, resource time, speech or another related service on top of an ordinary school decision.

The other situation is a child whose IEP places them in a self-contained program for half the day or more. The district's Success Programs page, published May 28, 2026, names those programs: Early Childhood Special Education, Skills for Living and Learning, Structured Learning Classroom in its alternate and standard forms, and the Behavior Support Classroom, plus Preparing Students for Independence and the 18-plus transition program, which it says are not affected by this year's changes. For those children the ARD committee decides the placement and the district's program assignment decides the campus, and the School Choice pages say the district adjusts program locations and campus assignments to match resources. That is a decision this page does not research and the report will say so before payment; the district's contacts and the organizations in the last section are the right places for it.

HISD School Choice with an IEP or a 504 plan

The rule is short and the district states it twice, on its Special Education and School Choice page and on its School Choice resources page, both published August 11, 2026. Students with disabilities apply to School Choice programs through the same HISD School Choice application, and a parent may indicate on the application that the student has an IEP. If a student with a disability meets the program's eligibility requirements and is accepted, an Admission, Review and Dismissal meeting, the ARD, must be held before enrollment, to ensure the school can properly implement the IEP in the selected program. The same pages add that placements are subject to ARD committee determinations, that program locations and campus assignments are adjusted to ensure resources are available, and that a sibling of a child placed by an ARD decision can apply to the same school through a Specialized Transfer if the campus has space, which campuses without an attendance boundary do not offer. The application itself, its phases and its published 2027-28 dates, Phase 1 from December 8, 2026 to February 12, 2027, are in our HISD magnet application guide; which of twenty magnet campuses check a matrix, an audition or a gifted identification before the lottery is in our HISD magnet list.

A 504 plan is not mentioned on the School Choice pages, and this page does not invent a rule for it. What the district does publish is how a 504 plan works on a campus. Its Section 504 page, published November 20, 2025, says Section 504 is a civil rights law, that a student who qualifies receives a Service Plan with specific accommodations such as extra time on tests, preferential seating, assistive technology or modified assignments, that a 504 committee must find a physical or mental impairment that substantially affects a major life activity, and that a family starts by contacting the campus's Multi-Tiered System of Supports liaison and requesting a 504 evaluation meeting by phone, email or letter. The Texas Education Agency's Section 504 fact sheet, linked from that page, says both Section 504 and IDEA require a free appropriate public education, defined differently, and that every special education student is also protected under Section 504 while the reverse is not true. For a family applying out to another HISD campus with a 504 plan, the honest reading of these pages is to ask the receiving campus's liaison how the Service Plan is carried over, because no district page read for this article describes that step.

One more sentence belongs here. HISD's School Choice transportation rule for 2026-27, recorded in full on our magnet list, gives a bus to a school of choice only to a student living at least two miles from it with a listed transfer code, and transports no pre-K child unless an IEP or Section 504 plan provides it; the Success Programs page says that when transportation is a required service, the district coordinates it for a program move.

What the 2026 consolidation changed, and for whom

The district describes the change on two pages read September 10, 2026. The special education page, published May 6, 2026, says students served in self-contained classrooms will be in what it calls special education success programs, with the adult-to-student ratio capped at 1:5 or lower if an IEP requires it, class sizes capped at 1:15, and teachers assigned to at most two grade levels with limited exceptions; it says 142 of the district's 259 schools will have one or more of these programs. The Success Programs page, published May 28, 2026, says specialized self-contained programs are offered at 150 sites across the district, that mainstream, inclusion and resource services are provided at every campus, that some programs are relocated or consolidated so that one campus may hold several classrooms instead of three campuses holding one each, that IEPs continue to be implemented as written, that the district calls every affected family, and that families can tour a site before a move through the campus tour lists it links by level. The two site counts are the district's own, from two pages three weeks apart, and this page prints both rather than choosing.

The state and reporters described the same change from the family's side. Houston Public Media reported on July 14, 2026 that a Texas Education Agency letter found the district violated provisions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act when it moved certain specialized programs, and required the district to review each affected student's IEP for potential harmful effects of a proposed placement or service change and to hold meetings with families to review and revise IEPs before students are moved; the district's deputy superintendent said every student would continue receiving the services in the IEP, and the district said a change in campus location alone does not trigger a meeting when the IEP and services stay the same. The Houston Chronicle reported on August 7, 2026 that days before school some families still did not know the assigned campus, and quoted one parent whose son was moved from Hamilton Middle School to Marshall Middle School, more than three miles away, and would ride a district bus for the first time.

For a family whose child is in an inclusion setting, the district's pages say the consolidation is not their move. For any family weighing an HISD campus for 2027-28, four questions belong on the tour or in the ARD meeting:

Is the program or service named in the IEP delivered at this campus, and by whom? For a self-contained program, is the campus on the district's Success Programs tour list for that program?
If the district later changes where a program sits, how and when will the family be told, and what meeting comes first?
For a School Choice seat, when is the ARD meeting held, and what happens to the seat if the committee finds the campus cannot implement the IEP?
If the IEP includes transportation as a related service, what is the route and the stop?

The district's special education parent liaisons answer at 713-556-7042 and spedsupportingparents@houstonisd.org, and the special education teams at 713-556-7025, both from the district's page.

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Private schools: what they are and are not bound to do

The state program says it plainly in the private school notice on its families page, read September 10, 2026: a private school is not subject to federal and state laws regarding the provision of educational services to a child with a disability in the same manner as a school district or open-enrollment charter school, and the notice points families to IDEA, the Texas legal framework, the Disability Rights Texas IDEA Manual and the procedural safeguards notice for the rights a child has at a public school. The state's Navigate Life Texas guide puts the same fact in a parent's words: private schools are not required by law to have special education services or follow a student's IEP, many do not offer accommodations or modifications, a child at a private school can in some cases receive some services from the public district through dual enrollment, and a charter school follows the same special education laws as any other public school.

So the questions for a private school are about what it chooses to do and what it charges to do it: whether it will carry out the accommodations in the plan or write a plan of its own, whether it has a learning specialist and whether that costs extra, whether it requires a current outside evaluation and how current, whether it accepts a public school IEP or 504 plan as a document, and what happens if a need turns out to be larger than the school expected. The table below records what each of the twenty schools in our dated private school list states on its own website, read September 10, 2026, in its own words where it states anything. A school that states nothing is printed as stating nothing, which is not the same as offering nothing; a page that failed to load is printed as not read. Tuition, deadlines and grade bands for the same twenty schools are on that list and in the calculator.

School	What the school states about learning support	Stated fee	Outside evaluation, IEP or 504 plan	Page read
The Kinkaid School	Names Learning Specialists in the Middle and Upper Schools who work with advisors and deans on a plan of additional support; publishes no program description, eligibility rule or accommodations list.	No fee stated on the pages read	Not addressed on the pages read	Read September 10, 2026
Episcopal High School	An Academic Assistance Office with learning specialists manages Education Plans for diagnosed learning disabilities in reading, writing, math or ADHD, with minimal classroom accommodations including 50 percent extended time on tests and quizzes, and states that it does not provide curriculum modification.	No fee stated on the page read	Psychoeducational testing must be done by a testing resource the school approves; the page does not name an IEP or a 504 plan	Read September 10, 2026
The Awty International School	Its 2023-24 student and parent handbook says reasonable accommodations are available for learning differences and that accommodation plans are approved and managed by a learning support coordinator; the public pages read say nothing further.	No fee stated on the pages read	Not addressed on the pages read	Read September 10, 2026
The Emery/Weiner School	A Learning Support page: eligibility requires a documented learning difference or health-related need and a full educational evaluation with recent cognitive and academic testing, following College Board and ACT guidelines; listed accommodations include extended time of time and a half, laptop use, note-taking and preferential seating.	No fee stated on the page read	Requires a full educational evaluation and says a doctor's note is not a substitute; does not name an IEP or a 504 plan	Read September 10, 2026
St. John's School	The pages read publish no learning support or accommodations statement; the wellness page lists past parent topics including executive functioning and ADHD.	No fee stated on the pages read	Not addressed on the pages read	Read September 10, 2026
The Post Oak School	The pages read publish no learning support statement; the admissions FAQ says some children thrive in a Montessori environment and others may need a different learning environment.	No fee stated on the pages read	Not addressed on the pages read	Read September 10, 2026
The John Cooper School	A Learning Resources page: learning specialists in each division, individualized intervention and accommodations in Lower School, academic accommodations for well-documented learning differences or attentional disorders in Middle and Upper School, and a peer tutoring program.	No fee stated on the page read	Accommodations require well-documented learning differences or documented attentional, psychological or learning disorders; does not name an IEP or a 504 plan	Read September 10, 2026
Annunciation Orthodox School	The pages read publish no learning support or accommodations statement; the admission FAQ says any indication of tutoring for the admission tests voids the application.	No fee stated on the pages read	Not addressed on the pages read	Read September 10, 2026
St. Francis Episcopal School	No public learning support page; its 2023-24 Upper School handbook sets an accommodations policy of up to 50 percent extended time, preferential seating and a listed set of others, says its faculty are not trained special education teachers, allows no modification to academic programming, and reserves the right to ask a student to separate if it cannot serve the student.	The Affording St. Francis page and the 2026-27 fee schedule say certain student support services may be extra depending on the student; no amount	The handbook names Section 504 and special education as public school equivalents, says the school may require its own approved testing, and requires documentation within three years from a psychologist it approves	Read September 10, 2026; fee from a second page
The Village School	Its 2025-26 High School handbook describes a Learning Support Coordinator, a referral process, and classroom services based on a licensed professional's recommendations, such as preferential seating, small group testing, extended time and breaks; parents must disclose known needs at application.	No additional cost for the learning specialist's support within the mainstream curriculum; outside vendors and external testing at the parent's cost	Identification may use psychological evaluation reports and test data and a formal learning evaluation may be recommended; does not name an IEP or a 504 plan	Read September 10, 2026
Presbyterian School of Houston	The pages read publish no current learning support program; the parent resources page offers outside links on learning differences such as dyslexia and ADHD.	No fee stated on the pages read	Not addressed on the pages read	Read September 10, 2026
The Briarwood School	A school for diagnosed learning differences: the Wilson Language programs, a daily Focused Intervention Time class in Lower School, Reading Remediation classes in Middle and Upper School, counseling, and an on-campus Speech and Language Department with screenings, evaluations and therapy during the school day.	An additional fee for Speech and Language Therapy with no amount stated; core remediation is not listed as a separate fee	Requires a full psychoeducational evaluation within two years before applying and accepts a public school Full Individual Evaluation; does not name an IEP or a 504 plan	Read September 10, 2026; fee from a second page
St. Thomas Episcopal School	A Center for Academic Excellence with student support plans, classroom accommodations, alternate testing environments, testing accommodation requests, coordination of outside specialists and a tutor and study buddy program.	No fee stated on the page read	Not addressed on the page read; no documentation requirement is stated	Read September 10, 2026
River Oaks Baptist School	A Student Support team in each division that provides and implements learning plans and classroom accommodations for documented diagnoses, on-campus reading intervention in K-2, a grades 7 to 8 reading and writing seminar, and guidance through outside evaluations.	No fee stated on the page read	Learning plans and accommodations for documented diagnoses and recommendations for psychoeducational evaluations as needed; does not name an IEP or a 504 plan	Read September 10, 2026
Strake Jesuit College Preparatory	A Learning Resource Center for students with diagnosed learning differences: extended time on tests, non-distracting testing environments, preferential seating, alternative note-taking, coaching, study hall and executive functioning classes.	No additional charge for Learning Resource Center services to qualified students	The accommodation guidelines are in an embedded document that could not be read as text; the page does not name an IEP or a 504 plan	Read September 10, 2026
St. Agnes Academy	A Student Success Center providing up to six accommodations for documented learning differences: extended time, testing in the testing center, preferential seating, note-taking assistance, marking answers on the test, and a four-function calculator; the school decides in its sole discretion whether an accommodation is within its reasonable ability.	No fee for the Center is stated; a parent may be asked to pay for special equipment or staff training	Requires documentation within four years with achievement and aptitude testing, a diagnosis and recommendations, with deadlines of December 1 and May 1 for first-time accommodations; does not name an IEP or a 504 plan	Read September 10, 2026
Westbury Christian School	A Learning Center for grades 5 to 12 for students with a documented need: extended time on quizzes and tests, a small group testing environment and coordinator support, with no curriculum modification.	Learning Center fee for 2026-27 on the tuition page: $1,500 for grades 5 to 8 without study hall, $2,000 for grades 7 to 12	Requires an evaluation by a licensed educational diagnostician within three years submitted with the application; does not name an IEP or a 504 plan	Read September 10, 2026; fee from a second page
Incarnate Word Academy	An Academic Support page mostly about advising; one paragraph says students receiving accommodations must have a current full psychoeducational assessment with cognitive and achievement data no more than three years old, and routes families to the wellness counselor; no accommodations list.	No fee stated on the page read	Requires a full psychoeducational assessment within three years; does not name an IEP or a 504 plan	Read September 10, 2026
St. Anne Catholic School	Lists a Learning Resource Director and Reading Interventionist on staff; publishes no program description, eligibility rule or accommodations statement.	No fee stated on the pages read	Not addressed on the pages read	Read September 10, 2026
Corpus Christi Catholic School	The pages read publish no learning support or accommodations statement.	No fee stated on the pages read	Not addressed on the pages read	Read September 10, 2026

Each row summarizes, with the school's own wording where it has some, the page on the school's site linked in the last column, read on the day shown; where a fee comes from a second page, that page is linked beside it. A statement is not a promise to an individual child; admissions decides that. Ask the school the questions above before you rely on a row.

What the state account adds for a Houston ISD child with an IEP

The Texas Education Freedom Accounts program pays $10,474 for 2026-27 toward a participating private school, and its special education funding page, dated May 18, 2026, says a student with a current IEP on file with the state, meaning from the 2023-24 school year or later, may receive up to $30,000, that the added amount is what the student's school district of residence would have received for the instructional setting code on the IEP, that funding is capped at $30,000 and most students receive less, and that it is posted in quarterly installments. The TEFA guide has the program's rules and tiers; the priority rule that matters here, from the families page, is that tier 1 is a child with a disability in a household at or below 500 percent of the federal poverty level, where a disability means either an IEP on file with the agency or a program-approved proof-of-disability form, and only the IEP earns the added money. The program's lottery update of May 18, 2026 says every tier 1 applicant and their siblings were funded for 2026-27, 28,233 children and 16,520 siblings for about $415 million, and that a family whose IEP could not be matched to the agency's records was moved to tier 2 or 3 by income and invited to appeal.

The state publishes the amounts by district in a funding table dated April 2026. The Houston ISD row is below, with the setting code meanings from the agency's instructional setting code table; the code is printed on the IEP in its least restrictive environment or instructional arrangement section. Each add-on goes on top of the $10,474 base, and a setting that also carries speech therapy adds about $920 more. A family in another district reads its own row, and the state says the award notice amount can change when the district of residence is confirmed.

Code	Instructional setting on the IEP	Houston ISD add-on, 2026-27	With the $10,474 base	Add-on and total with speech therapy
00	No instructional setting, such as speech therapy only	$919	$11,393	Not applicable
40	Mainstream	$6,344	$16,818	$7,264 and $17,738
41	Resource room or services, less than 21 percent of the day	$5,257	$15,731	$6,177 and $16,651
42	Resource room or services, at least 21 and less than 50 percent	$5,257	$15,731	$6,177 and $16,651
43	Self-contained on a regular campus, at least 50 and no more than 60 percent	$5,257	$15,731	$6,177 and $16,651
44	Self-contained on a regular campus, more than 60 percent	$5,257	$15,731	$6,177 and $16,651
45	Full-time early childhood special education setting, ages 3 to 5	$5,257	$15,731	$6,177 and $16,651

The table's other Houston ISD columns, for a nonpublic day or residential school ($3,862), a residential care and treatment facility ($15,171) and off-home-campus settings ($6,643), describe placements outside an ordinary school search and are listed here only so a family reading its IEP knows the row exists. The homebound, hospital and vocational codes have their own amounts in the same table.

What the numbers mean in practice came out in July. The Dallas Morning News reported on July 7, 2026, from program records dated June 23, that of about 28,700 awardees with special needs fewer than 25 received the full $30,000 and the average was $16,000: 7,355 received the base $10,474, 2,340 between $10,475 and $14,999, 10,432 between $15,000 and $19,999, 196 between $20,000 and $24,999, and 20 between $25,000 and $30,000. A larger district produces a smaller award under the state formula, which is why the Houston ISD row sits where it does. The same report noted that a specialized school in Arlington raised tuition from $15,900 to $23,000 for 2026-27, and that private schools can turn away students with disabilities.

Two timing facts decide whether any of this applies for 2027-28. First, the added money needs an IEP on file with the state, and a private diagnosis does not create one: KSAT reported on September 9, 2026 that the evaluation runs through the public school district's special education process, that a private diagnosis does not count for the program without it, that an IEP is good for three years, and that the expert quoted advises requesting the evaluation in writing now for next year's window. Second, no 2027-28 application window had been published on September 10, 2026; the families page offers an interest list, and its own text still gives the 2026-27 window as February 4 to March 17, 2026, while the lottery update and the Houston Chronicle record that a court order extended it to March 31, 2026. Our calculator shows what is left of a listed school's tuition after the base award; add the row above for an IEP and treat the sum as an estimate until the award notice arrives.

Schools built for learning differences, and what they charge

The Houston Chronicle reported on March 31, 2026 that more than 200 Houston private grade schools had joined the state program and named eight schools for students with disabilities or learning differences among them: The Briarwood School, The Parish School, The Monarch School, The Westview School, The Harris School, Texas Autism Academy, The Journey School and The Joy School. Participation is confirmed only on the state's finder, which the Chronicle said was being updated weekly as schools joined, so ask each school. The Special Schools Coalition, a Houston network of such schools, listed 28 member schools on September 10, 2026.

What four of them charge for 2026-27, from their own pages read September 10, 2026: The Parish School $48,910 a year, for children ages 2 to 12 with communication delays and learning differences and average to above-average learning ability, plus a $200 application fee and a $150 placement fee; The Westview School, for children with autism, $34,000 for pre-K rising to $43,900 for high school, plus a $1,750 enrollment payment; The Joy School, K-8 for learning differences it lists as dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, ADHD, language disorders, anxiety, level 1 autism and executive functioning, $57,500 for lower school and $58,500 for middle school, plus a $2,500 enrollment fee, with financial aid up to 85 percent; and The Monarch School, whose tuition is set by the level of support after admission and ranges from $38,521 to $69,628 across its day programs, before any fee for one-to-one support staff. The Briarwood School, which is in our twenty-school list, stated $31,000 for lower school and $32,000 for middle and upper school when read on September 7, 2026. Set those figures beside the $16,000 average award and the Houston ISD row above, and the account covers roughly a quarter to a half of tuition at these schools. Each school's financial aid page is where the rest of that arithmetic starts, and none of the four promises to cover it.

Help that this report is not

The School Decision Report researches schools; it is not an advocate, a lawyer or an evaluator, and it does not research a self-contained or ARD-determined placement. The report asks one optional question before payment, whether the child has a 504 plan, an IEP or another accommodation the schools should be compared against, and never asks for a diagnosis, an evaluation or a record. With that flag, each shortlisted school's section adds what the school states about learning support and its fee, whether the school is bound to implement a plan, the ARD-before-enrollment step for an HISD seat, the campus's program status after the 2026 consolidation, and an estimate of the state account with the IEP row above and its caveat. For the questions the report cannot answer, these are the places the intake points to as well:

Partners Resource Network, which runs the federally funded Texas parent training and information centers, with free webinars and workshops on special education rights.
The Disability Rights Texas IDEA Manual, updated August 2026 for the 2025 legislative session, which walks through each step from evaluation to graduation with sample letters.
The Houston Special Education Parent Association, a nonprofit created to help parents navigate special education in HISD, which Navigate Life Texas lists with the email info@houstonsepa.org; its own website did not load on September 10, 2026.
HISD's special education parent liaisons at 713-556-7042 and spedsupportingparents@houstonisd.org.
The Special Schools Coalition, for the specialized schools themselves.

For a two-school comparison once the plan questions are answered, our two-school fit checklist holds the school day, the trip, the cost and the entry rule side by side.

What this page is not

It is not a recommendation of any school, public or private, and it ranks nothing. It is not legal advice on IDEA, Section 504, an ARD dispute or a complaint; the organizations above and the district's own dispute processes are for that. It is not a statement of any child's chance at a School Choice seat; no campus publishes the counts that would support one. It is not an eligibility determination for the state program, and the amounts in the table are the state's published figures for Houston ISD, not an award. The rules, counts and prices here can change after the day they were read, so before acting on one, open the linked page and check it, and if something has moved, send us the link and we will correct it and date the change.

How this page works

The rules come from pages read on September 10, 2026: HISD's special education, Success Programs and Section 504 pages and its School Choice special education and resources pages; the Texas Education Agency's Section 504 fact sheet and instructional setting code table; the state program's families, special education funding and lottery update pages and its April 2026 funding table; Navigate Life Texas; the four specialized schools' tuition pages and the coalition's member list; the twenty listed schools' own pages for the support table; and reports from Houston Public Media, the Houston Chronicle, the Dallas Morning News and KSAT, each cited on its date. Where a rule is held in full on another page of this site, that page is linked and only the sentence this page needs is restated. Research is AI-assisted and a person reviews it before publication. No school pays us. Our method explains the checks in full.

The $195 School Decision Report does this work for your child's actual list: which schools state the support your child's plan needs and what they charge for it, which are bound to implement it and which are not, the ARD step and the program status at an HISD campus, the state account estimate for your district row, and the school day, the trip and the cost beside them, delivered with a discussion guide and an action kit dated to the deadlines. Tell us the grade, the schools you are weighing and whether a plan is in place. See if this report fits your family.

Audio details

AI-generated narration. A person reads this article and listens to the whole recording before it is published. Full rules and sources are in this guide.

Audio transcript

Alex & Jordan · 7 min 21 sec

Alex: Hi, I'm Alex. Welcome to School, Clearly.

Jordan: And I'm Jordan. We're your two hosts, and this episode is for the parent whose child has a five-oh-four plan or an I E P, and who's looking at schools for twenty twenty-seven to twenty-eight. The plan changes a few things about that search, and none of them is which school is best.

Alex: Let's start with the sorting question. Our article is for the family whose child is in a general education classroom with accommodations, some resource time, or a related service like speech. The Houston Independent School District says most of its special education students are served that way, and a child with a five-oh-four plan and no I E P is in a general education classroom too.

Jordan: Right. The other situation is a child whose I E P places them in a self-contained program for half the day or more. There the A R D committee decides the placement and the district's program assignment decides the campus. That's a different decision, and our article points to the district and to the parent organizations for it.

Alex: So, first family. How does the School Choice application handle an I E P?

Jordan: The district's pages on School Choice say a student with a disability applies through the same application as everyone else, and a parent can indicate the I E P on it. If the child meets the program's requirements and is offered a seat, an A R D meeting has to be held before enrollment, to confirm the campus can implement the I E P in that program. The pages also say placements are subject to the A R D committee and the district adjusts program locations to match resources.

Alex: And a five-oh-four plan is different. The School Choice pages don't mention it, and we don't invent a rule. What the district does publish is how a five-oh-four plan works on a campus: a service plan with accommodations, decided by a campus committee, started by contacting the campus's M T S S liaison. So if you're applying out with a five-oh-four plan, ask the receiving campus's liaison how the plan carries over.

Jordan: Now, the news. In twenty twenty-six the district changed its special education programs. What actually changed?

Alex: For twenty twenty-six to twenty-seven, the district moved or consolidated some of its self-contained programs at designated sites. Its pages say one hundred forty-two of its two hundred fifty-nine schools will have one or more of those programs, and, on a page published three weeks later, that they're offered at one hundred fifty sites. We print both numbers. It also capped adult-to-student ratios and class sizes in those programs, and said mainstream, inclusion and resource services stay at every campus.

Jordan: And who does that reach? A child in a self-contained program. The district says a child in an inclusion setting stays there unless the I E P changes. Houston Public Media reported on July fourteenth, twenty twenty-six that the state education agency found the district had violated provisions of the federal special education law when it moved certain specialized programs, and required it to review each affected I E P for potential harm from a proposed placement or service change, and to meet with families before a move.

Alex: So a family should ask a campus four things. Whether the service in the I E P is delivered at that campus, and by whom. If the district later moves a program, how and when the family is told. For a School Choice seat, when the A R D meeting happens and what happens to the seat if the committee says the campus can't implement the plan. And if the I E P includes transportation, what the route is.

Jordan: Let's turn to private schools. What are they bound to do?

Alex: Less than a public school, and the state program says so in its own notice: a private school is not subject to the federal and state special education laws in the same manner as a district or a charter school. The state's Navigate Life Texas guide puts it plainly: private schools aren't required to have special education services or to follow an I E P, and many don't offer accommodations. A charter school, by contrast, follows the same special education laws as any public school.

Jordan: So the questions for a private school are about what it chooses to do and what it charges. Will it carry out the accommodations in the plan, or write its own. Does it have a learning specialist, and is that an extra fee. Does it want a current outside evaluation. Our article has a table of what each of the twenty private schools in our list says about learning support on its own website, in its own words or a close summary. Where a school says nothing, we print that it says nothing, which doesn't mean it offers nothing.

Alex: Now the money. Everyone's heard thirty thousand dollars.

Jordan: That's the ceiling, and almost nobody reaches it. The state's education savings account pays ten thousand four hundred seventy-four dollars for twenty twenty-six to twenty-seven toward a participating private school. A child with an I E P on file with the state from twenty twenty-three to twenty-four or later can get more, and the extra amount is what the child's home district would have received for the setting code on the I E P.

Alex: And the state publishes that by district. For a Houston Independent School District child, a mainstream setting is worth six thousand three hundred forty-four dollars more, for a total of sixteen thousand eight hundred eighteen dollars. A resource room or self-contained setting adds five thousand two hundred fifty-seven dollars, for fifteen thousand seven hundred thirty-one dollars. Speech therapy adds about nine hundred twenty dollars more. Our article has the table.

Jordan: That's a long way from thirty thousand, and the statewide numbers show it. The Dallas Morning News reported on July seventh, twenty twenty-six that of about twenty-eight thousand seven hundred awardees with special needs, fewer than twenty-five received the full amount, and the average was sixteen thousand dollars. A larger district produces a smaller award under the state formula, which is why Houston's figures are where they are.

Alex: Two timing facts, then. The extra money needs an I E P on file with the state, and a private diagnosis doesn't create one. The evaluation runs through the public school district, so the advice a station in San Antonio reported on September ninth, twenty twenty-six was to request it in writing now for next year. And as of September tenth, twenty twenty-six, the state hadn't published a window for the coming year. There's an interest list, and that's all.

Jordan: What about the schools built for learning differences? What do they cost?

Alex: The Chronicle named eight of them in the program on March thirty-first, twenty twenty-six. From their own pages for twenty twenty-six to twenty-seven: the Parish School is forty-eight thousand nine hundred ten dollars. Westview runs from thirty-four thousand dollars for pre-K to forty-three thousand nine hundred dollars for high school. The Joy School is fifty-seven thousand five hundred dollars for lower school. Set those beside a sixteen thousand dollar average award and the account covers roughly a quarter to a half. Each school's financial aid page is where the rest of that arithmetic starts.

Jordan: Last one. What does the report do here, and what doesn't it do?

Alex: It asks one optional question before payment: does your child have a five-oh-four plan, an I E P or another accommodation to compare the schools against. Never a diagnosis, never a record. If you answer yes, the section for each shortlisted school adds what the school states about support, its fee for that support, whether it's bound to implement a plan, and an estimate of the state account with the caveat.

Jordan: What it doesn't do is research a self-contained placement, or act as an advocate or a lawyer. Our article lists where to get that kind of help: Partners Resource Network, Disability Rights Texas, the district's own parent liaisons, and the Houston Special Education Parent Association.

Alex: You'll find the district's rules, the Houston funding table and the statements from the twenty schools in our guide to choosing a Houston school with a five-oh-four plan or an I E P at school clearly dot com.

Jordan: We provide AI-assisted research and decision support. No school pays us for inclusion, referrals, or advertising. We don't guarantee admission, a seat, or any particular outcome. Your family owns the final decision.

Alex: This is AI-generated narration. Thanks for listening with us. I'm Alex.

Jordan: And I'm Jordan. Ask each school what it will do with the plan and what it charges. The school's answer is the thing to compare.

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