For thousands of students in San Antonio, they left their classrooms last March never to return. For Teresa Banda, that also meant the stoppage of speech therapy for her hard of hearing daughter Gabriella.
"When the pandemics started of course everything just stopped," Banda said.
"Because she's older and to a level that she wasn't dependent on that service we felt comfortable with her where she was at. Now to other families whose child is at a level where they need that speech therapy, of course, they were at a disadvantage. It can be a real setback for a child that is learning how to speak."
Now the Texas Education Agency is trying to make up for that lost time. Last week the TEA announced a $1,500 payment for 20,000 parents of special education students.
The funding, which parents can soon apply for, would cover services like private tutoring or certain therapies for students with specific special education criteria, like developmental disabilities or hearing or vision impairment.
But for Dustin Rynders the attorney for the Disability Rights of Texas, it's just not enough.
"We're surprised by it," Rynders said via Zoom on Monday.
"There's over 500,000 special education students in the state of Texas but the TEA appears to be targeting a subgroup that is very small."
The TEA did confirm the specialized program targeted a certain subset of special education students with severe cognitive disabilities.
Deputy Commissioner Matt Montano told KENS 5 he did understand the concerns some had and added additional funding down the road, was not off the table.
"I do believe we're looking in that direction," he said.
"Our goal is to successfully get this launched and then take steps forward for providing similar types of services to families."