Under local policies, districts may add local criteria to those listed in Texas Education Code Section 29.081 . For example, a district may implement local criteria in order to include other students that may fall below grade level because of extenuating circumstances, such as students residing in a homeless shelter or a shelter for battered women. In order to appropriately charge to the state compensatory education allotment supplemental costs for services provided to children identified under local criteria, a district should be able to explain that children identified under local criteria were added to a listing of children that were identified under Texas Education Code Section 29.081. This means that the state compensatory education allotment may not be used to serve students on a particular campus under local criteria, if a district has not identified any students on the same campus that meet any of the criteria in Texas Education Code Section 29.081 .
Some judgment is involved when applying local criteria.
The larger the proportion of students identified under local criteria in comparison to students meeting the criteria in Texas Education Code Section 29.081, then it will be more difficult to defend the use of local criteria. If local criteria appear to involve more than an incidental benefit to other students then there would be an adverse consequence to students in at-risk situations meeting the criteria in Texas Education Code Section 29.081 .