The Waxahachie ISD Special Education Department is committed to supporting all students to ensure educational success in the least restrictive environment. Efforts to fulfill this statement are reflected by the many services provided for students with disabilities, ages 3 through 21 (and beginning at birth for those who are deaf or hard of hearing and those with visual impairments). A continuum of instructional settings for special needs is found on each campus.  Special Education supports and services the district. 

Special Education is defined as support and services provided by special and general education personnel to meet the individualized needs of students with documented disabilities.

To be eligible for special education, the student must be between the ages of 3 and 21 (from birth for AI or VI). The student must have documentation of one or more of the disabilities listed below (as defined by the federal law titled Individuals with Disabilities Education Improvement Act, IDEIA) and demonstrate an educational need that requires specially designed instruction: 

• Auditory Impairment (AI)
• Autism (AU)
• Deaf-blindness
• Emotional Disturbance (ED)
• Intellectual Disability (ID)
• Multiple disabilities 
• Non-Categorical Early Childhood (NCEC)
• Orthopedic Impairment (OI)
• Other Health Impairment (OHI)
• Specific Learning Disability (LD)
• Speech or Language Impairment (SLD)
• Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)
• Visual Impairment (VI)

In addition, under IDEIA, “related services" are a wide array of supportive services provided to children with disabilities to assist them in benefiting from special education. Specifically, the IDEIA defines related services like transportation and such developmental, corrective, and other supportive services necessary for a child with a disability to benefit from special education. The need for related services is typically considered during the student’s admission, review, and dismissal (ARD) committee meeting as the committee reviews and discusses the student’s evaluation data.

Special education services are provided on all district campuses PK-12. A request for a special education evaluation may be made at any time.

Waxahachie ISD adopted a Dyslexia intervention program provided by special and general education personnel to meet the individualized needs of students with documented disabilities.

The Texas Education Code defines Dyslexia as a disorder of constitutional origin manifested by a difficulty in learning to read, write, or spell, despite conventional instruction, adequate intelligence, and sociocultural opportunity. Students struggling with some or all of the many facets of reading, writing, and/or spelling may be provided specialized assessment in order to determine if they should be identified as a student with dyslexia.

Those students who are identified are provided with an appropriate instructional program. The WISD Dyslexia Program includes the components of phonemic awareness, phonics, vocabulary development, reading fluency, and reading comprehension strategies. The instructional strategies utilize research-based, explicit, multisensory phonetic methods and a variety of writing and spelling components to meet the specific learning needs of each individual student.

The guidelines and procedures adopted are designed to correlate to the identification and instruction of students with dyslexia and related disorders adopted by the State Board of Education in 1992 and most recently updated in November of 2018, mandated by the state of Texas and presented in The Dyslexia Handbook: Procedures Concerning Dyslexia and Related Disorders.

Dyslexia support services are provided on all district campuses K-12. A request for a dyslexia evaluation may be made at any time.