Special Education audit reveals inconsistencies in IEPs

The audit and evaluation of the Socorro School District’s Special Education program were presented at the recent school board meeting, following more than a year of ongoing concerns from the Socorro School Board.

In January of 2025 The Socorro School Board unanimously voted 5-0 to conduct two third-party investigations: one into their special education operations and another into their school finance operations. In August the Socorro School Board reevaluated the relevance of its financial and special education investigations citing the emergence of new information. The board approved negotiations to be made with the Cooperative Education Service (CES) vendor for an audit not to exceed $18,000. David Hicks, Sharon Sessions and Tara Jaramillo voted in favor, and Pauline Jaramillo voted against.

At the March 9 school board meeting, CES consultants Lisa Oliphant and Shelley Henderson, presented findings from the district’s special education internal audit to the board.

According to the consultants, the audit reviewed 243 recent student files and focused on compliance with IDEA and New Mexico Administrative Code, including provision of compensatory services, evaluation timelines, behavior plans, Individualized Education Plans (IEP) quality and documentation.

Oliphant and Henderson told the board they found notable strengths including parent rights consistently documented with required IEP team members present, meetings and notices were generally timely, and most students were served in the least restrictive environment, with strong communication and procedural safeguards offered to families.

However, they also identified several areas in need of improvement in the audit. Many IEP goals were not measurable and lacked clear methods for progress monitoring, and alignment with students’ transition or post‑secondary outcomes was inconsistent. Prior Written Notices (PWN) frequently lacked clear rationale, contained repetitive or contradictory information, and sometimes conflicted with the IEP, especially around extended school year decisions and service changes.

They also found that service minutes and schedules were sometimes missing, misaligned, or not clearly tied to student need, and setting levels did not always match the documented amount of time in special education versus general education.

Documentation of least restrictive environment and placement rationales was often weak, generic, or missing, with little differentiation between students and unclear justification for movement between settings. In behavior supports, the audit found very few students with clearly documented behavior needs had appropriate behavioral goals or measurable supports in their IEPs; abbreviated days were sometimes used as a behavior intervention without a clear, documented plan for returning students to full days, creating potential Free Appropriate Public Education (FAPE) concerns.

Superintendent Gormley said corrective actions were already underway, including IEP training, Public Education Department site visit participation, and multiple professional development engagements.

“As you know, our special ed population is increasing, or the needs have increased. And no excuses. I’m not trying to make excuses. We know that we have some work to do.” Gormley said.

Parkview Elementary Principal Julie Romero confirmed they are struggling with an increase in students with higher needs

“The issue that we’re seeing is that we have so many students who have extreme behaviors.,” Romero said, “When I started teaching 22 years ago, we had very few, and now we are seeing students come in exponentially with extreme aggressive and violent behaviors.”

Gormley said they are in the process of updating the special education manual but ultimately the school policy is following the law.

“The law doesn’t differentiate whether we have the funds to provide or whether we have the educated and experienced staff to provide. It’s the law, and it’s something that we have to figure out how to do, in spite of whether we’re short on funds or whether our employees are brand new to the field. We have to figure out a way to provide what’s required in the IEP,” Gormley said.

Board Members asked questions regarding the timeframe of the review, the availability of PED checklists for PWN development, and whether existing policies and procedures were sufficient or required revision. They thanked the staff and consultants for their work.

“Thank you so much for this information. Knowing what the needs are and what needs to be fixed goes a long way in helping us answer ‘How do we fix it, and what resources do we need to allocate?’” School Board President Session said.