January 11, 2025
Parents should be aware that the reforms passed in the 89th Texas Legislature are being treated largely as recommendations rather than binding laws. Senate Bill 12 included amending the Texas Education Code by adding section 26A. Section 26 is the portion of SB12 that is commonly referred to as the Parents Bill of Rights. Section 26A addresses improvements to district grievance policies, aiming to correct the imbalance of power that favors districts over parents, teachers, and students who bring grievances.
The 2025 grievance reforms shift power back to parents, prevent harm from being buried, and ensure schools are accountable to the people they serve. Before these reforms, many districts treated concerns as informal complaints. Administrators could delay, deflect, or dismiss issues without creating a record. Parents often had no meaningful relief or remedy.
The 2025 reforms require that districts formally respond, follow timelines, and issue decisions when a grievance is filed. This matters to parents because safety, discrimination, bullying, special education violations, curriculum violations, and retaliation are no longer handled internally, without accountability. Parents gain due-process protections, not discretionary courtesy. Chapter 26A was enacted because the legislature found that existing grievance systems were failing parents and students. Opting out of Chapter 26A defeats the Legislature’s corrective purpose.
DOI authority was never intended to be used to evade accountability reforms. A DOI opt-out converts a statutory floor into optional district preferences. Anyone who has had the displeasure of filing a grievance with their school district knows the process is anything but fair, transparent, and timely. The Texas Legislature agreed and intervened. Opting out signals resistance to accountability, not efficiency.
School Districts opting out of 26A may frame this as local control. They may even claim 26A is an administrative burden. They may even go as far as to claim that opting out avoids costly litigation. But from a parent’s perspective, opting out means fewer protections when children are harmed, less accountability when laws are violated, and more power being concentrated in the very institution being challenged.
Districts and their lawyers claim that record-keeping takes more time. A decision about a grievance without explanation and documented reasoning is arbitrary, unreviewable, and legally vulnerable on appeal. Parents already incur time, expense, and emotional labor. The district’s inconvenience is not a valid reason to deny transparency. Time spent explaining decisions is the essence of due process. If a district cannot explain why it made a decision, the statute is not the problem.
Districts opting out of 26A claim that parents could add claims “too late” or unfairly. Parents often do not receive documents until late in the process. Districts control records, witnesses, and timelines. This provision, allowing parents to add evidence and responses later in the process, balances the power that has unfairly favored the institution for years. This provision makes the board hearing meaningful rather than ceremonial. Courts routinely add amended pleadings when justice requires it. A grievance process that punishes parents for not knowing what the district withheld is not fair. It is known that when children are harmed they full truth does not always come out at once. Late disclosure is an element of child harm, not evidence of abuse of the system.
School Districts and their pathetic attorneys may claim that open hearings required by the new statute for level three hearings could expose employees to allegations. Existing law already protects confidential student records and private personnel information. The statute does not override confidentiality laws. Parents, not districts, bear reputational harm when grievances are dismissed in secrecy. Open hearings protect the public from abuse of discretion; secrecy protects institutions, not children.
District lawyers and board members may claim that the district could be forced to decide “late” or “procedurally flawed” grievances. Procedural traps have historically been used to avoid addressing misconduct. The statute prevents dismissal of grievances based on filing mistakes or misunderstood timelines.
Slimy school district lawyers claim that timelines set forth in 26A are harder to meet. Parents are not full-time compliance professionals. Grievances potentially involve student records, special education issues, and retaliation concerns. Districts have staff, counsel, and records access. Timelines were expanded because families, not districts, were being timed out of justice.
The new rules dictate that an administrator must recuse themselves when they are the subject of a complaint. These grievances will be elevated to the board. An administrator cannot fairly adjudicate a grievance against themselves. The districts opposed to 26A implementation claim the board will have to hear more grievances directly, but self-review is not due process; it is conflict management.
Chapter 26A does not create new grievances; it creates fair ways to resolve existing ones.
Opting out does not improve efficiency; it removes accountability. Districts of Innovation are meant to benefit student learning. Students cannot learn in an environment where they do not feel safe. A system of delays, disempowerment, and secrecy does not create a safe learning environment for children being harmed. District of Innovation plans are being abused by school districts to opt out of laws passed to protect children. Several districts in Texas have opted out of 26A, weaponizing the district against the taxpayers that support them and the students and parents who rely on them.
Contact your Texas House representative and your Texas Senate member and tell them that you expect them to remove the District of Innovation from Texas Education Code in the next legislative session.
MadMommaBear Blog 