School Not Following IEP in Texas? How to File a TEA Complaint

Your child's IEP says they receive 30 minutes of speech therapy per week. You have been tracking the session logs. The sessions stopped happening in October. It is now February.

You have emailed the campus coordinator three times. You received one reply asking you to call. You called; you were told the speech therapist is "hard to schedule." Your child is falling behind on goals that the district agreed were necessary.

This is exactly what a state complaint is for.

The TEA Complaint Process: What It Is and What It Is Not

A Special Education State Complaint is a formal written allegation filed with the Texas Education Agency's Office of Special Populations and Student Supports in Austin. It is designed specifically to address allegations that a school district or charter school has violated federal IDEA requirements or Texas state special education law within the past calendar year.

The complaint process is free. It does not require an attorney. The TEA must complete its investigation and issue a written decision within 60 calendar days of receiving your complaint.

What it is not: a due process hearing. Due process is a formal adversarial legal proceeding for complex disputes about the substance of the IEP — whether the program is appropriate, whether FAPE was denied. A state complaint is for procedural and compliance violations: the district agreed to do something and is not doing it.

The most common violations addressed through state complaints are exactly the kind of situations Texas parents face every day: failure to implement IEP services, failure to conduct evaluations within legal timelines, failure to provide required IEP documents before ARD meetings, failure to conduct manifestation determination reviews, and denial of a parent's right to participate in the ARD process.

What Qualifies as a Valid TEA Complaint

Your complaint must allege a specific violation of federal or state law. "The school is not responsive" is not a violation. "The district has failed to provide 30 minutes of speech-language therapy per week as written in the IEP since October 15, in violation of 34 CFR §300.323(c) and the student's IEP" is a violation.

Common qualifying violations include:

Failure to implement IEP services. This is the most straightforward complaint category. If the IEP says the student receives specific services at specific frequencies, and the district is not providing them as written, that is a violation. Document the gap: save the IEP pages showing the required service, and gather any available session logs, communication records, or teacher notes showing the services were not delivered.

Failure to implement a Behavior Intervention Plan. If a student has a BIP and teachers are not following it — documenting incidents differently, applying consequences the BIP prohibits, or ignoring the agreed behavioral supports — that is a separate and serious violation. In Texas, BIPs are legally binding components of the IEP.

Failure to meet evaluation timelines. If the district exceeded the 45-school-day FIIE timeline, failed to respond to your evaluation request within 15 school days, or did not schedule the initial ARD within 30 calendar days of completing the FIIE, those are all documentable procedural violations under TAC §89.1011.

Failure to provide Prior Written Notice. If the district changed your child's placement, reduced services, or refused your request for an evaluation or a specific service without issuing a written Prior Written Notice explaining its reasoning, that is a violation of 34 CFR §300.503.

Denial of parent participation. If an ARD meeting was held without you, if you were not provided adequate notice, or if the committee predetermined outcomes before you arrived, those are violations of your right to participate as an equal ARD committee member.

How to File a TEA Complaint

The TEA accepts complaints online through a form on its website and by mail. The complaint must:

1. Be submitted in writing
2. Identify the student (by initials or another non-identifying designation if you are concerned about privacy)
3. Identify the school district
4. Describe the alleged violation with enough specificity to allow investigation
5. Include the date the violation occurred or began
6. Include a proposed resolution
7. Be filed within one calendar year of the alleged violation

You do not need legal language. You need facts, dates, and documentation. Be specific: "On November 3, 2025, I emailed the special education coordinator at [campus name] to report that speech therapy sessions had not occurred since October 15. I received no substantive response. The IEP (attached, page 4) requires 30 minutes of individual speech-language therapy per week."

Attach supporting documents: the relevant IEP pages, communication logs, session logs you have received, and any written responses from the district. The TEA cannot investigate facts it does not have evidence of.

What the TEA Can Order If It Finds a Violation

If the TEA investigation concludes that the district violated the law, it can order a range of corrective actions. These can include:

• Requiring the district to immediately begin providing the services specified in the IEP
• Ordering compensatory education — additional services to make up for those that were not delivered
• Requiring specific staff training
• Ordering a new evaluation or a new ARD meeting
• Imposing corrective action plans with monitoring requirements

Compensatory education is particularly important when the violation has been ongoing. If your child missed 16 weeks of speech therapy that the IEP required, compensatory education is meant to provide equivalent services to remediate that gap. The TEA can specify the quantum of compensatory services the district must provide.

Build Your Paper Trail Before You File

A state complaint with no documentation is weak. A complaint backed by a communication log, date-stamped emails, and copies of the relevant IEP pages is hard to dismiss.

Start documenting now, even if you are not ready to file. Every time you communicate with the school about a compliance issue, do it in writing — email, not phone calls. If a staff member calls you, follow up with an email summarizing what was said: "Per our phone call today, you indicated that the speech therapist has been unable to schedule sessions due to staffing. I want to confirm this in writing." That follow-up email becomes part of your record.

Keep copies of every IEP your child has ever had. Keep session logs if the school provides them; request them if it does not. Request progress reports in writing.

The TEA reported a 22% jump in written state complaints during the 2023-2024 school year. That increase reflects how widespread compliance failures have become as Texas districts manage the surge in special education enrollment following the removal of the illegal 8.5% cap. You are not alone in this situation — and the complaint process exists precisely because it is a common one.

The Texas IEP and 504 Advocacy Playbook includes a state complaint template that meets TEA's filing requirements, a communication log format for building your paper trail, and a PWN demand letter for when the district refuses a service without explaining why. Filing a complaint without documentation is possible; filing one with a complete evidentiary record is the version that leads to corrective action.

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