To the Members of the United States Congress and All State Legislatures:

Our most vulnerable children are being left without basic protections behind closed doors. We, the undersigned parents, families, and advocates, urgently petition for the immediate introduction and passage of federal legislation—and emergency state-level bills—requiring mandatory video and audio surveillance in all public school Special Education (SPED) classrooms and private Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) Centers and Clinics nationwide.

These are our babies—many non-verbal and as young as 2 years old—spending up to 40 hours a week in these settings. They cannot tell us if they are mistreated, neglected, or abused. Their only reliable witness must be a camera.

Texas Education Code § 29.022 already gives public schools a mechanism to install audio and video surveillance in certain self-contained special education settings upon a parent's written request. Yet this critical safeguard is not available in every state, and no equivalent protection exists for the thousands of children in private ABA centers.

This is a serious safety gap that every parent needs to understand:

• Non-Verbal Children Have No Voice: If something goes wrong, these children cannot come home and tell their parents. Without continuous recording, families are left in the dark, unable to advocate or protect their child.

• Major Oversight Blind Spot: Private ABA centers operate as therapy businesses, not licensed childcare facilities. This means Child Protective Services (CPS) and DFPS do not conduct routine inspections or provide the proactive monitoring that exists for daycares. While mandatory reporting laws (Texas Family Code § 261.101) still apply, there is no built-in system ensuring incidents are caught and addressed independently.

• Unlicensed Front-Line Staff Handling Our Kids: Licensed Behavior Analysts (BCBAs/LBAs) supervise, but the front-line technicians and "therapists" aka technicians who spend the most hands-on time with children are not state-licensed. A high school diploma or GED is often enough to start, followed by only 40 hours of training (which can be completed in as little as 9 days). These are the people physically working with our most vulnerable children.

• Built-In Pressure to Handle Issues Quietly: Front-line staff work under supervisors whose licenses, the center’s revenue, and everyone’s jobs are connected. This creates real disincentives to report problems externally, even though the law requires it. Too many incidents may be kept in-house instead of being properly investigated.

• Exempt from Childcare Safety Rules: Because ABA centers are classified as clinical providers, they are exempt from standard Child Care Licensing requirements. Basic safeguards that protect children in other care settings simply do not apply here.

• Limited Transparency on Background Checks: While criminal background checks are required, parents have far less ability to verify them compared to licensed childcare. There is no easy public access to confirm fingerprinting for sex offender registries, drug testing, or full criminal history the way there is for regulated facilities.

Parents, the clock is ticking. State legislatures like Texas meet on limited schedules, but our children cannot wait two more years for basic protection. Every day without cameras is another day a non-verbal child is left without a voice or independent record of what happens when we drop them off.

We demand action now: Mandate audio and video surveillance (with appropriate privacy protections) in all SPED classrooms and ABA facilities. Strengthen background check transparency and oversight so families can trust these programs.

Our children deserve to be safe. They deserve a voice through technology when they have none of their own. Sign this petition, share it with every parent you know, and contact your lawmakers today. Demand the protections our most vulnerable children urgently need.

Together, we can demand accountability and force real change. Sign and share now—our kids are counting on us.