##VIDEO ID:6RAInOBH_EU## research with the State Board again good to see everyone uh joined by a few colleagues from the department and state board so those folks if you wouldn't mind introducing yourself um I'll start with uh Jennifer good morning Jennifer Nelson senior director of educator preparation here at the Tennessee Department of Ed happy to be here good to see everyone Brianna hi all Brianna director of policy and academics with the State Board Martha good morning Martha Moore senior director of educator Effectiveness for the Department of Education Catherine hi there this is Katherine Johnson I'm the communications officer for the State Board oh I just hit the next page and I see we have a few more folks from the board and Department Nathan Nathan James insert interesting title here with the State Board of Education so happy to be on uh Brooke good morning uh good to see so many familiar faces um Bri is assistant commissioner for human capital at the department Erica hello everyone I'm Erica light director of research for the State Board of Education Robin hi everybody uh Robin yay director policy and external Affairs for the Department Hey did I miss anyone got a lot of boxes here I'm uh Senator Hensley uh Joey Hensley I'm on the Senate education committee thank you Senator Hensley sorry I was late Bob Nardo from liberas monory Charter School in Memphis all good Bob good to see you all all right we have a this Holly Coleman also sorry Holly Coleman from the Hy Family Foundation in Memphis hi Holly hi all right we have a whole lot to cover Michael I don't mean to interrupt I'm get in here this William Slater I serve in the house Vice chairman of uh Ed Administration committee representative Slater good to hear from you all right folks we have a lot to cover so I'm G go ahead and and Dive Right In um share my [Music] screen make sure I can still see folks there we go can everybody see that all right yes all right um so here's our agenda for this meeting welcome obviously we're going to spend just a little bit of time recapping our previous meeting which was all the way back in April April 1st which feels like forever ago but also just like yesterday um give a a few up updates on some things that have transpired between that first meeting and today we will revisit clinical practice and ntpa requirements a bit just to kind of ground everyone's understanding in those two topics and then similar to the last conversation we'll dig into some key policy issues so we'll talk about the internship the length of the internship coursework allowances during the internship clinical practice frequency of evaluations and clinical experience settings some topics that I know some folks on this call know very very well and others may not so please feel free to ask questions there are no stupid questions at all um we've got a wealth of knowledge on this call we've got ep's uh public private uh education related organizations school districts everyone so please be open to asking questions if you have them throughout um we we will open it up to any other topics that you all have for discussion and we'll uh move to next steps at the end okay so our first meeting back in April uh we provided some details about the edtpa and the reason why we focused so much on that if you recall uh was because in the summer of 2023 we conducted a survey of stakeholders across the state and edtpa was probably one of the biggest issues that was raised by those stakeholders as a potential barrier to entry for uh indiv idual seeking lure in Tennessee we discussed that stakeholder feedback um we explored possible policy shifts so at the State Board we kind of always have this balance of needing to um increase flexibility while maintaining a sense of quality and rigor and not feeling as though we are significantly lowering the bar and just letting any anyone into the classroom so where this group ultimately landed your recommendation was to strengthen the requirements related to clinical practice to provide a pathway for educator preparation providers to meet those requirements to allow candidates completing this more rigorous clinical practice to be exempt from the atpa assessment and to allow EPS to maintain a less prescriptive student teaching clinical practice that does require completion of the atpa before we move on are there any questions about that sort of recap it's that was a very quick way to sum up a very lengthy and detailed conversation okay some updates um so what I did following that meeting we had some internal conversations with uh board staff with the Department of Education staff uh and we kind of sorted out in order to move forward with this committee recommendation because I think we all agreed that it was the right thing to do what would need to change in Rule and policy and the first thing that that we found in rule was related to tools that clinical mentors are using during that evaluation or observation in the clinical practice right now that is kind of completely up in the air it's up to EPS to determine what tools are used as they evaluate teacher candidates and so we added some language in a recommendation that went before the board in August to modify the rule that language is here before you it says beginning on July 1st 2026 clinical mentors supervising candidates completing an internship clinical practice that is the year-long clinical practice as defined in educator preparation policy 5.54 shall use an observation tool approved by the department so that's the language that was presented on first reading to the board in August it will go before the board on Final reading in November it's possible it may get tweaked and we can come back to that but I I want to share just right out of the gate that that there there have been some recommendations to modify this slightly so it is possible that we will uh tweak this language just a bit in the inter room we've had ongoing meetings with Department program and policy teams to discuss some of these uh issues I presented with our board chair during a a National Association of state boards of Education Office hours meeting just last last week um where we had an opportunity to share the work of the lure Review Committee with other State uh folks across the country from state boards we hosted a a board Member Retreat just uh this past Monday where we we Dove deeper into uh issues related to clinical practice and ntpa and I shared information about this committee with them as well and I put November on this but I'm realizing I've got my conferences mixed up because it is conference season I don't know if that's true for some of you all but it is that time of year the nasby conference is not in November it's actually next week and so we will also have a presentation uh in Louisville next week to another group of um state boards of Education across the country uh where hopefully we can get some feedback and gather a little more information about how other states are approaching some of these uh complex issues related to clinical practice and candidate assessment any questions before we move on uh Bob asked a great question in the chat about the observation tool is uh being designed to strengthen the clinical practice requirements um great question um I would not say it is the move but it is a move um it is one of many things that we are discussing and in fact the bulk of the time today will be spent on some of the other um issues related to strengthening in clinical practice but yes it is it is a move um toward doing so and some of that have a followup I wanted to hear that answer but I do I do have a followup um it says unapproved tool um is the department are there tools the department will provide and then also is there a process that for existing tools that may have met acceptable criteria to be applied for upon approve I mean for approval yeah great question so some of this comes into um back to the conversation about potentially tweaking this language um there has been a proposal to just simply approve the team rubric for use for this purpose which I think many many EPS are are using that tool and it would make a lot of sense I think um there are potentially other tools out there so it does seem right to leave the door open but what I think we don't want and I think the department would very much agree with this is 47 different tools uh that are um you know submitted to the state for approval that probably more or less cover some of the same things um but look a little different and so that's that's the tweaking we'll probably see is we will refine the language a little bit to uh clarify which which tools are already kind of approved out of the gate I'll also say that the reason why that date says July 1st 2026 is to give the department some time give EPS some time to figure out uh what tools they plan to use the department will need to develop a process for reviewing and approving um but again we will likely have some guidance on the front end that that makes it clear that there are some some tools already out there that that are approved Brooke Jennifer anything else you'd add there since this is kind of Your World um one thing I want to add whatever tool we use will have some validity and reliability built into it um so that it supports the EPS as they go through comprehensive reviews and track data over time good point any other questions great question Dr Stevens I'm glad you brought that up um Jennifer and I had a conversation about this yesterday my personal opinion is probably yes um if we do tweak this language we should probably point to the evaluation policy but I don't want to say that with certainty because we haven't had very many discussions about the appropriateness of doing that I like that i' say those are in line with some of the internal conversations we've been having but again I think we're here to listen um to the conversation today okay y thanks Bob okay um a little refresher on current policy for folks who may not be as uh well versed in some of these issues so stateboard rule provides the following definitions and I am going to read this I usually don't but I'm going to in this case because I want to make sure everyone hears this information and and fully internalizes the differences here because they're they're kind of uh important so clinical experiences that means guided Hands-On practical applications and demonstrations of Professional Knowledge of theory to practice skills and dispositions through collaborative and facilitated learning in field-based assignments tasks activities and assessments across a variety of settings lots of words in that definition here's here's kind of the the sort of easier way to to think about this in my mind clinical experiences is that umbrella term that's used uh to Define any activities that a candidate is doing during their preparation that puts them in a classroom setting and that a school or a classroom setting and that could be uh things like field experiences right so field experiences could look more like shadowing a teacher observing following them around um meeting with administrators those sorts of activities whereas clinical practice which is defined below is student teaching and this is the Tennessee definition student teaching internship or job embedded opportunities that provide candidates with sustained school-based responsibilities assignments tasks and assessments that allow a candidate to demonstrate the Professional Knowledge skills and dispositions to be an educator I think the key word here is sustained so this is where that candidate is in a classroom for an extended period of time working alongside an effective Mentor uh who is supporting their preparation there's probably this balance of what they're learning in in their coursework uh with the activities that they're doing in that classroom but this is the more sustained clinical practice and really what the bulk of our time today will be spent discussing interesting question uh could clinical experiences include teaching training tasks performed outside of a school setting say in an adult workplace training context I haven't thought much about that I think it's a good question um many of our EP folks do you have uh any other settings that you work with uh and if the answer is no um is that something that would be advantage ages especially for certain um I'm thinking about Career and Technical education potentially yeah that's why I raised it yeah and even in a non CTE context uh in my corporate experience there's a good deal of training that happens particularly in large organizations on a you know large nonprofit or corporate setting so I I thought okay you know is that uh it seemed analogous to what's being described in here in clinical experiences in the letter of the of the rule yeah I also can see a situation uh if somebody is Li getting licens in special education and um is at a facility with with older individuals and Child Care Child centers yeah I just wonder if that should say education based instead of School based are we um Jennifer just point me to exactly where you're referring so the the last bullet clinical practice does opportunities that provide candidates with sustained school-based responsibilities I think we I think we could add something that that broadens this a bit I think the only challenges we want to make sure that they also spend a bulk of their time in a classroom um I Pat I could also see a situation where there are local nonprofits and other organizations supporting directly supporting a school and District uh and this prospective educator could spend time in those settings understanding the work that they do but I think that's a interesting and good question Megan Michael you mind if I chime in just for a second on on that sure just one thing to to keep in mind in terms of the creation of rule is is how um words can be interpreted differently by different readers I mean it's uh the thing to remember with rules is that rules are a delegated um form of legislation in other words they have the force and effect of law because the legislature says we can create a rule about a particular thing and so you always kind of have to think about when putting together a rule that um you know there'll be seven different attorneys and 10 different opinions you know uh on it and so when if you if you say education based and somebody later wants to interpret that to mean something entirely unintended that that can happen and not to necessarily shoot it down it's just there's a way you have to kind of think about how could it possibly be read uh whenever you're talking about rule changes so a good point that's my two cents thanks for listening and it runs to how specific either the statute is or you know the how much detail you go into in the rulle making process doesn't it you know in terms of defining the definitions absolutely absolutely it's just you know I was reading that thinking okay well everything they're doing is education related right and so it it'd be pretty easy for an a Dean to look at that say well what you're doing here is education related it's related to your education therefore it satisfies that that language um so it's it's just a you know it's always rule making is a bit of a mindfield so um it's not to say the the word changes entirely without Merit uh it just you kind of have to put yourself in a semi paranoid way of looking at things whenever you're putting them into rule ask a clarification question sorry just one question Megan's had her hand up for a little bit okay thanks Michael so how I how would these settings interact with the current non-public list of approved sites so I'm thinking through um when we have candidates who want to complete a clinical experience or job embedded placement at a non-public site and we go to the listing that's currently on the doe website and we look at the levels if we're considering these entities that are not schools how would that yeah I want to be clear I I don't think that there's a proposal to change where clinical practice can take place that is I I don't think that that uh would fly for for a number of reasons I think the the question and proposal is and I don't even know that it's a necessarily a formal proposal but it's one that probably applies more directly to field experiences if that makes sense I I don't know if we if we are going to prepare an educator to be licensed in Tennessee they are going to need some experience and there are a whole host of other rules and policies that require this for them to work alongside a licensed and experienced clinical mentor and most of those settings or many of those settings may not have that which is not to say there's not value in them spending time in those settings because I think there probably is um but you we are not suggesting that your clinical practice could be completed uh in a outside of a public or one of the approved private school settings if that makes sense perfect thank you bua my question was along those same lines the way I read Pat's initial question uh asking about clinical experiences I understood that to be field experiences not the clinical practice uh since the lure is for um the K through 12 setting I guess it should be school-based and we wouldn't have to change it to education based but then if we just looked at other field experiences that is a valid question to maybe look at could that also be for example in CTE teaching at a teat like a postsecondary setting um or other field experiences it's a great great question I I think this definition of clinical experiences is Broad enough that it could so it I do not see the word [Music] school it says across a variety of settings and so I think the intent there uh is that it could include locations like teats and and workplace and I think that would be a pretty great experience for a candidate uh to to be exposed to to some of those other settings and and be able to make some of those broader connections um Beyond just their individual classroom okay I'm going to keep us moving if that's all right uh we have a a host of questions to to dig into before we do that though just a reminder on clinical practice types our Rule and our policy require that all tency approved prep programs must include one of the following clinical practices student teaching which has a 15-week minimum requirement candidates are not allowed to serve as teacher of record unless they're on a clinical practice permit and it has to take place in two settings I will just put a pin in that two settings piece it it's been a point of contention for a while and uh we have a slide on it we'll discuss it so if that is something that is sticking out to you U just know that in a little bit we'll spend some time on it the internship which is a full year of experience again candidate cannot serve as teacher of record onless onic clinical practice permit has to take place in two settings job embedded clinical practice one full year of experience they teacher of record this is post undergraduate degree with a clinical experience in a second setting meaning they don't have to leave their classroom and and have direct teaching of another classroom they have to have some field experiences uh in that should actually say field experiences I think in a in a separate setting so just to ground Us in Tennessee's clinical practice Pathways we have pretty strong requirements for clinical mentors in Tennessee um which is a great thing every time I see a report come out about the um you know best practices for clinical mentors there's a lot of yep we do that yep we do that yep we do that um so that is a good thing mentors must hold an active Tennesse license with an endorsement in the area or closely related area where they will be supervising the candidate let me back up just a minute for folks who aren't clear on the term clinical Mentor this is the school-based mentor so the educator who is licensed uh who is you know teacher of record in a classroom and is directly supporting the teacher candidate as they're going through preparation they have to have a level of overall effectiveness of above expectations or significantly above expectations so that's a four or a five LOE in the prior school year and they have to have a minimum of three years of experience as an educator how is closely related defined great question's point you know yeah I I don't know that it is I think there's purposefully some latitude there so you might Jennifer you probably have seen this a bit or any of our EP folks um you know what are some examples of areas where you've kind of had to be a little flexible um special ed yeah Library yes there's only one librarian yeah CTE as well yeah so there's transferable skills it's just a a challenge sometimes to to find someone I would imagine you see it too in some of the uh really discipline specific areas like physics um might be a challenge okay atpa requirements so again atpa performance-based assessment it is a a pretty labor intensive process it is one that we introduced um and and began requiring in 2019 but many EPS in Tennessee had been doing it since I believe 2010 uh so quite a while before um Tennessee has been kind of a leader on ntpa it is a strong assessment uh but it is one as we discussed the last meeting that uh has posed some challenges for folks and and may uh also be kind of misaligned to what districts are are requiring of of candidates so ntp is still required for candidates completing a state approved educator preparation program with a student teaching internship or internship clinical practice it is no longer required for job embedded um and this was something we dropped fairly recently um given sort of the challenges that were faced by Educators who were being evaluated by their principal their administrator they were doing the job and also this TPA thing was sort of um on the side posing some Alles for them so we are basically now coming back to this conversation and and digging into that internship clinical pathway and saying what would that pathway need to look like in order for us to feel comfortable removing thepa there out of state Educators um can complete either the principles of learning and teaching assessment or the atpa the PLT is a a multiple choice assessment um but kind of had to have some flexibility there because not every state requires or or has the atpa pathway okay um Cynthia this is a good note um when you say this requirement just to be clear tell me a little more about which one you're referring to yeah what two or three slides ago where you're looking at who's going to be the mentor teacher in the classroom um for our um student teachers interns um we've just seen a decrease we I'll give an example um sometimes we're having to send people an hour and a half away from their home to find even closely related um so it's the endorsement piece that's a challenge yes and just there was a lot of early retirements people who didn't intend to retire that early but Co gave them a little reason to go ahead and move out of the profession it's become more and more challenging and and then there is some concern that some institutions have indicated that they're kind of just going with what the district said and not really doing checking their you know dotting their eyes and crossing their tees regarding this policy because it is so challenging H that's that's a tough one and I think in in some cases has to be really um driven by that partnership agreement and and the work that the the EP and the district are doing um on the front end to to Really Define what strong clinical practices look like um but I don't know if anybody else has any other I don't think it's the practice I don't think it's the clinical practice I think it's just the are their qualified mentors based on state policy that we've got high quality and we follow it to a te to the point that our students are just sometimes driving an hour and a half to find that qualified mentor so I mean let me ask this question and it may be a stupid one but as far as experience goes that's probably not difficult to find right folks who have three years of experience for some areas becoming more and more complicated to be quite honest Michael I mean it's the the levels as well as the experience both of those factors and then school system saying shoot we've got this person who'd be really great but they're missing one of these things and so they can't so it it is problematic at the moment due mostly due to retirements and I see head nod so I feel like I got an Amen on that one interesting okay well that's something we may want to come back to um because that can get really complicated because this is best practice but there is the reality of of you know what's happening on the ground yeah or whoever chimed in Michael and also like it's often times it's those mentors who are being asked to do the Thousand other jobs in the school and so we we run the risk of running like these people into the ground um like if we're not careful and so like we could be contributing to like the teacher retention issues uh if we're not careful um so it's a good point um I know we have had some conversations over the years about supporting mentors and recognizing them some states certainly pay stiens and that sort of thing um obviously there are challenges with that because you have to secure funding uh it would be great if we had Statewide funding to support uh clinical mentors because I think it would incentivize them to to do this good work um and it means we would uh strengthen our pool of teachers coming into the profession but right now that is not the case um this so while we we don't have set aside time to really dig into these issues I we do have a slide at the end just kind of anything that is bubbling up for you all that we would like to have during our our next conversation or that we'd like to consider between first and final reading um so let's just kind of keep this one in the back burner is something we should continue discussing yeah good point David okay um all right now it's going to get real real heavy and we're gonna have a few conversations about some uh very specific and and weedy topics so intern okay let me back up just a little bit so just as a reminder we're we're really looking at the internship clinical practice and the idea here is that we would kind of redesign that uh strengthen it so that we can then say if an EP has an approved internship candidates completing that clinical practice do not have to complete the edtpa and so the idea is to to strengthen it to standardize some of it uh in order to feel confident about the the quality of that clinical practice so the first thing we're going to look at is the length of the internship and this is this has been a we've had a lot of conversations about um words we're using here so I anticipate we will have that conversation here but the current policy says that the internship shall for one full Academic Year with at least 100 days of the internship including direct teaching experiences so our proposed change this is a draft for you all to review and react to is The Internship shall take place over the course of one full Academic Year candidates shall engage in delivering instructional content part-time during the first half of the internship and full-time during the second half of the internship and and field experience activities uh shall be completed prior to the beginning of the internship so meaning those going back to the discussion we had at the very beginning about field experiences um this full year would not be spent engaging in those types of activities candidates would actually be in classrooms working alongside a mentor engaging in direct teaching and delivering instructional content small groups um large groups full class by the and they should be delivering full lessons potentially full days if that's uh feasible but this this is probably a structure that many EPS have for their clinical practice um so I'd love to hear for those that you feel like you you do have it is this uh rigorous is this feasible is it does it does the language seem intentional uh for those who do not uh what would be the the challenges with this and and could those challenges be um overcome I'll say start go ahead someone else was go ahead I'll say this yeah this looks like what we do right now for for most of our um non-job embedded candidates I I like the clause about the field experiences prior um a question that I'm thinking about as I read this um there at this point there isn't language about um different settings and I know that that's elsewhere but um as we're thinking about the the two semesters is the intent for all of this to take place within similar settings or is the intent to have two diverse settings yep great question and one that we will come back to so let's set that aside um and and really just just think about the the part-time during the first half fulltime during the second half um and the one full Academic Year piece yeah you were getting in to that Michael to describe like what types of activities might be done in a full-time iteration versus full-time a part-time versus full-time but I am curious how that might be defined more fully and then how we might be expected to demonstrate what qualified as part-time for the first half what qualified as full-time as there I mean you were starting to give some activities like small groups versus a whole group instruction those were things obviously on a gradual release but is there going to be a time allocation or like some submission like how you know I I look at that and looking at our candidates experience which is currently classified as internship but with these definitions actually starts to not be defined strally an internship a residency does start to be different because some of our gradual release the full-time components would be in the first semester for example and some of our part-time components um um and mostly they're part-time components because there's a gradual release like there's that's the structure but I could see that we might not potentially meet full-time during a second half depending on how it's defined because our residents are with a teacher of record the whole time and that is I'd just be curious for more definition there and then how that will be um how we'd be justifying a candidate's completion of a part-time for a half and a fulltime for other half so I have a couple thoughts but then any of my colleagues please feel free to chime in because I'm sure you all have uh some some thoughts as well so we we batted around the idea of saying something like at least 50% during the the first half uh and 100% during the second and that felt a little too prescriptive um part-time and full-time felt more like it aligned with that gradual release of responsibility and gave some flexibility um also I baded around the idea of actually spelling out the types of activities and I think that felt a little too prescriptive um but I do think this could be something that the department could provide some guidance on or as you know they they reviewing applications for um The Internship that that could be part of it this I will say this would not be a candidate by candidate situation right it would be part of your program design right so as you identify that a candidate completed an approved internship as long as that internship was in fact approved under these criteria then that candidate wouldn't have to complete atpa but I'll be quiet anybody Jennifer or anyone else have any additional thoughts Michael Michael this is Stacy Stacy just a couple of things and this doesn't answer this question but um one thing that's concerning to me is that this whole discussion seems to around be around internship and there are a world of eps that do not have an internship program they have student teaching programs and we had quite a bit of discussion about this at tati um I guess I've got a couple of questions when I look at what you've defined here in this proposed change we have what we call a residency one and a residency 2 semester our residency one very much fits the defi definition of what you've got here yep but if we're going to only consider the these changes based on internship I'm assuming that's going to mean any EP that has a student teaching experience would have to submit saps and we have 28 programs that we would have to resubmit if that's the case um I know that other EPS have expressed that concern so is there any going to be any discussion around any changes that take place it be um that the student teaching component be considered also when we think about atpa or will everyone have to change to this model to you know make this work work if we want to see these changes that's that's a big question that we are just now starting to Grapple with um and we received feedback I'm sure you all are well aware of feedback we received from ta te membership which was uh more direct in than the last time we received feedback when the job embedded uh recommendations came out so that that is a point we're discussing um I'll be quiet for a minute though I want anybody else kind of who's who's deeply engaged in this uh to get some some thoughts on it Michael uh this Jennifer um just a couple of thoughts right now as it stands EPS have the opportunity to um add internship or keep their student teaching it's it's a EP Choice as of today um whether you go and I know with we've talked with you Stacy uh and other grow your own participants and and did uh a special call to change your student teach to internships so um I foresee a situation because we will have EPS wanting to switch over uh working with them to uh ensure that's done in the by the July 1 deadline and Jennifer let me just ask this question would would it require full sap proposals to be resubmitted for every single program or could there be a blanket uh here's how clinical practice is changing for these X number of programs as opposed to like a resubmission of every single program yep so we we did a uh a modified version of that that just really focused more so on the clinical experience part yeah and I see us uh in you know possibly tweaking that it was there's some things that need to be tweaked but um we allowed that uh that for EPs and think that we'll probably do something similar to that we do understand that there are EPS that have lots of saps and um we will again work with them to get this all approved by July 1 so I think Stacy to kind of more directly answer your question hopefully um right now the thinking is really just around internship but we could find ourselves in a place where ep's redesign clinical practice across the board to align to this and student teaching becomes that student teaching meaning the The 15we Experience only becomes a thing of the past I think that's possible um but still an open discussion for sure thank you Ann asked another great question in the chat looking at the field experiences being completed before internship some of those field experiences are likely embedded in coursework assignments um and may not be completed in the summer before a fall part-time internship begins so uh the question is will candidates be completing coursework during the year-long internship or is that not an option yeah so that is the next slide actually um so we will spend some time talking about that though I think you're raising a question like if our language is so prohibitive that it says you cannot do field experiences during that um maybe we don't want that right as as long as you are engaged in clinical practice during that first semester we we probably don't want to say you're not allowed to do any field experiences any thoughts on that because that could include things like what what Pat Raised earlier about you know going out and and spending some time with some of the community- based organizations or that sort of thing I I don't think we want to limit that and and that's not the way the bullet point is written but that interpretation because if I shall complete it it's almost as like complete me done so there's a there's a difference between completing things and having ex adequate experience with things uh so again I think look I'm again I'm sure that we all embed field experiences in our coursework yeah and this does really start to cause us all to think structurally about our programs and I think that's what we're all thinking about yeah good point Michael uh I just want to address David's question um the intent is for the academic year to start in the fall and end in the spring thank you Jennifer um I had two kind of notes I think some of the language and or I think internship predates some of the residency push have we considered like some other states to codify like a resident true residency pathway um and I think like separating the two could be really helpful here because I think like as I read this it really Narrows uh some of what we what we are defining as a residency great question I remember conversations years ago where we were trying to to do this and it it proved to be very difficult um and part of that is because the national from my recollection though there are folks on this call that are probably way more versed in this than I am um the national definition of residency was it included a whole lot of things that that I think some programs are doing uh that Define their clinical practice as a residency and others might not be doing um and so we could potentially do that I think you know this whole idea of using internship as the clinical practice umbrella for residency has its pros and cons um but anyone else have any thoughts on that if we we tried to define residency what yeah as a residency model I'd love to speak into that and appreciate you bringing that up Matt I I think as I look at these um like the internship uh and I I I really feel some solidarity with Stacy like there's there's definitional challenges to current practice that may be really strong that we don't want to lose and there may be structural challenges that help us align more appropriately together to produce great candidates so I think that's tricky um but I think you do have now I don't know how long ago that conversation was about residencies but I do think you have some residency practice in the state that it could it could be a different um conversation at this point to be able to define the minimum requirement for a residency in the state of Tennessee and I really advocate for the group the Tennessee Department of edit or the board to consider that only because as I look at this the challenge becomes to the mentor teacher in a residency experience like when I look at how those gradual release experiences for the candidate here part-time full-time I'm thinking about how does this impact the work and the employment of somebody who that is their full-time classroom this isn't job embedded there this isn't isn't student teaching boundary that way like I I do think we are considering a couple of stakeholders here when we're making some definitions um and that is a a key difference to consider I was just going to Echo that um I i' like the idea of exploring what a residency is you know we we partner with several residency programs and um but at the same time I don't want to kind of lose our student teaching um vast majority of our programs are internship but by Design our math and science also kind of do student teaching because some of them are still thinking about do I want to go in the lab for example um and are really kind of pursuing both um potential graduate school to be those math and scientists and and or maybe go in the classroom so um yeah just wanted to kind of share those two points and kind of agreeing with Cynthia Chambers I'm echoing your your call on that too we're seeing more and more students um starting college with some college credit and finishing a little bit earlier or getting ahead and so sometimes we're seeing like hey I'm done and ready to start an internship in Spring um and and I understand I really prefer the opening and closing of the school and um but a lot of times then we're just pausing them the start coming in Fall so um haven't really sorted out any potential Solutions in that except you know take fewer classes but that's a hard cell well David is that happening because of the um you know dual enrollment yeah stuff that yeah so you want to encourage yeah it's yeah it's all the good stuff our high school friends and our P2 partners are doing it's all that good stuff it's got federal financial aid implications they can't just sit and wait like they used to or take other stuff you can't take extra you can't even take add-ons yeah it's not within their programs of study and so they can't do something else while they wait for fall and so if you say you have to wait or you have to pay out of pocket to make it happen then students are going to change their Majors it's just inevitable how many I mean what percentage of of of students are we talking about here ours is pretty small I mean we're talking about 10ish yeah so in terms of how many about 10% I would say overall okay but these are sometimes your top students like David mentioned these are your students who were gung-ho and in high school taking a bunch of classes at the college level so you're talking about top tiered students that are a part of that 10 mention and and I'll mention Cynthia I'll underscore that it's also those math science uh disciplines that I think that's something we'd have to talk about on the side thinking about sort of the what is the sort of gold standard what is the the most appropriate approach for a candidate to be able to see the impact of their experience and their their direct teaching activities on student learning and growth would really be to for them to see that full school year and not a disjointed piece but given that there is uh maybe some unintended consequences we we should definitely have that discussion as well and what that could look like whether that's some sort of approval process at the candidate level or or exception or something like that I don't know um but as far as policy goes I think we'd probably want the norm to be fall and spring all right we're getting a lot of questions too to David's point I think like having the two would probably like an internship like for the student teaching Place uh like having a true like student teaching and residency I think having two of those would probably clear up some of the confusion and uh provide like clear distinct Pathways for folks I think that could be beneficial the other piece that I just wanted to name is that like anytime we talk about like time and like like the Lang the focus is on time I worry that we're shifting away from like the focus being on the teachers like teacher quality and like the teachers and proficiency and so like you know as we think about and this is me talking from a alternative pathway uh and you know PA professionals who have are coming to us with you know years of experience like they some of them are ready that first like they could take over a classroom after that first quarter um and like they they're they're great teachers um and so like you know does that mean that they can't like they have to continue doing some of these part-time experiences and they have to wait um and so I I think I would love to see a shift to like the proficiency of the candidate versus like time constraints um and I think that could be really impactful just on like then that would shift the conversation to students as well that's a really good point um a couple couple thoughts on that um I think at at this if we have more of a standardized process for evaluation it gives us a tool and and and structure to be able to look at things more like proficiency because right now if we were to add some sort of proficiency definition it would probably be a bit all over the place and be driven by whatever the EP is is using if that makes sense um I had another point and it totally just slipped my mind oh on The Residency uh definition I I think and please chime in for the folks because defining residency again I think would would be a challenge in in Tennessee especially when in my mind we've got these programs who are using the internship uh umbrella for The Residency program but in a lot of cases the resident the true residency model kind of goes above and beyond uh what the internship minimum requirements are so I don't know from from a communication standpoint and from a Clarity standpoint it makes a whole lot of sense for us to to add residency in there but at this point in time I think that would pose some chat like we would need to spend a good chunk of time talking about what is the difference between an internship and a residency model uh such that we feel confident including that language in Po codifying in policy because then what it also means is any that is not meeting those minimum requirements for The Residency would need to reclassify that residency as something else um and so I just want to kind of throw that out there that I think this is an important conversation to have around you know defining residency just not an easy one which is not to say let's not have it it's just let's let's kind of um maybe focus on that one in a different meeting but please push back if you think we need to do that right now let me sift through some of these um comments and see if there's anything else I know I saw one uh Michael while while you're looking through there I I just wanted to give a shout out to representative Slater U they passed a a law public chapter 284 and my I guess this kind of ties in with my concern that Stacy also has about edtpa only being for internship and not student teaching we've had ISU with uh public chapter 284 what what that allows the commissioner to do is to issue a a temporary license teaching license for stud student teachers as long as they've completed all their coursework well that's great for us because we get a teacher of record and we that that's great and the student teacher also gets paid however some of the things that we've run into is that not having all of their coursework so I just want to make sure that I go on record saying that internships are great I think they're good but I want ever what can happen on the EP side to try to get their coursework done so that we can employ them as a teacher record and they can get paid would be preferable from us having to to try to work with and get teachers in our classrooms because it is like many of you all mentioned it's getting difficult finding qualified teachers for mentors just like it's difficult getting teachers in the classroom so I just don't want this push to push everybody going into internship and then we have less student teachers that we could utilize uh public chapter 284 for hey uh Eddie let you know I'll just remark on that as well I mean you know part of the reason that this conversation and frankly this this committee this step back is is so important is because a lot of times uh the legislature and I you know certainly Senator Hensley and representativ SL yall correct me if I'm wrong but a lot of time they're they're brought you know certain anecdotes and four or five circumstances and and changes and kind of led to believe that that uh that really suits all the districts across the state and all the circumstances and um and it doesn't and you know sometimes we end up with this Patchwork that that particular Bill you're talking about was uh based on you know Representatives White's experience back in the yeah I I always called it the the representative white in the 70s bill because that you know when he first became a a teacher and there were certain ways of you could go about and and do some of those things but this point you're making here I think is is so important for for our legislators to hear and uh you know that that there's always a lot of of different uh sides of the pancake no matter how flat it might be you know so I just uh I appreciate you um I appreciate you making that point and and also frankly that you know every time you you you pull it a different way there are there are quality implications there and and uh you know what the board's responsibility is is to always walk that tight rope right of accessibility in a in a very tight labor market uh vers verus also the the fact that you know our our reports of educator misconduct keep keep going up year over-year and we can't pretend that those things are not related to each other um so you know it's it's a tough business I think I think it's a very very well-made point I will just add to that conversation that you know the clinical practice permit and any permit is is truly an emergency credential um and I I think as we talk about kind of structuring clinical practice and and when coursework is taken and how candidates are supported um similar to this conversation about residency uh including folks who are paraprofessionals and have deep experience already in the classroom um personally I see some of these as kind of sitting outside of the the the core of the conversation that impacts the the majority of candidates who are pursuing a license um and not necessarily some of these other kind of uh cases that are are a little I don't want to call them Fringe because they are becoming increasingly more common um but some of the more kind of emergency situations or more advanced situations where we're dealing with folks who are um a little different from the the standard pathway there was a comment um in fact looks like John is rejoining I just want to clar ify um from a school perspective what is the impact on the teacher shortage if we eliminate student teaching and go to a residency I just want to clarify that is not the proposal to get rid of student teaching um so that that would not um you know that is not being proposed at this time to eliminate student teaching I think the conversation though and and I I I just based on what everybody's saying having this in the back of your mind as we go through these additional recommendations are you all leaning to a place where we should just have one clinical practice pathway if all of these things could apply to that clinical practice you know should we do that um setting aside the conversation about residencies because I think that's a slightly different one but I I just want to kind of highlight that yeah Cynthia the job embedded conversation and and some of the discrepancies there my my former boss wrote a dissertation uh that was focused on whether job embedded programs or alternative pathway programs were emergency certification uh Pathways and that I think that question still kind of looms around you know we're we're we're providing job embedded folks with a pathway to get in the classroom pretty quickly without some of these sorts of quality experiences and and I was one of those those individuals myself um whereas we're really beefing up I think that is a difficult one um and one that if you can kind of think through some of the the sort of policy implications how do we strengthen that job eded practice I highly doubt there's a world where we get rid of it and I don't know that anybody would advocate for that um but who wouldn't advocate for it but we have right now with the clinical practice permits they're held almost to a higher standard and they're at the end of their program they still have to do edtpa they now are in their first year of teaching and you know just what we're hearing from a district specifically academic coaches is those students are far more prepared going in than our job embedded candidates who are overwhelming them yeah Michael I'd like to just remind this group um that and I've told you this before we are seeing several students the students have gotten smart now so they can see that if I finish all my cours workk it would be easier for me just to graduate and get a job on a job embedded pathway just to avoid atpa and that's becoming increasingly um more and more among our students and so I I think I think the concern I have as we continue to go through this I'm anxious to hear what all is laid out is that we're this process is great and I agree that we need to have it to be rigorous and intentional in our approach but I feel like we're just adding another layer of something that we're going to have to all do and make work and it's not going to work for all programs and we're not really going to end up maybe helping our students the way that we need to in the immediate you know the concern is right now our students are struggling and not just because I don't want them to do atpa atpa is a great assessment but because they are not getting the experience they need the majority of our candidates us do their student teaching component in the spring we have close to 100 80 to 100 every semester M they're so focused on edtpa the first part they don't get the the experience they truly need and then by the time they get to that second placement then the schools run testing and so they don't get the experience that they really really need so I feel like if we didn't have this huge assessment for them to worry about we could really come up with something else and just keep our internship if that's what we like or keep our student teaching is that if that's what we like and then find something else whether it be we utilize team and have some you know um parameters around what that expectation is we need to do something rather than I think try to have to go back and reinvent the wheel for some of our programs um just to negate having to do atpa that that's just my opinion well let me ask this question uh do folks think we should just drop that TPA for for all clinical practice Pathways not not separating the conversations around you know some of the specific things we'll talk about here in a moment related to clinical mentors but let's just ask that question I I would say so I think that this has the potential of creating the same same type of situation that the drop of atpa for job embedded did in terms of um the inconsistencies in or just the the options that that teacher candidates have and it doesn't take long for them to figure out how to work around and if a EP is is not able to adapt quickly to an internship um that they don't have what happens with the students between having the job embedded option and potentially getting connected with another institution I will say that I recognize that the the CPP is intended to be um an emergency credential but the truth of the matter is in our fall group and I also in the conversation about you know having a fall to Spring intention this fall we have nearly 70 candidates those are all candidates who are off of a traditional kind of timeline for their degree and so I think that's something to consider in terms of the impact of requiring a fall start um and a spring finish we have a number of students that that would impact but this fall I have 15 teacher candidates on a clinical practice permit and their student teaching last spring I had um nearly 25 cand um on a clinical practice permit during their student teaching and those are all students that are district Partners um had a need for right now and there are so many things that they're balancing there is an inequity in the expectations in terms of different schools approach their evaluations and observations differently depending on when they start but as an EP we're held to keeping them to the same standard of our other candidates and trying to manage those differences so my concern with this focus on the change of atpa specifically for the internship is kind of a combination of all of the challenges um that everyone has mentioned and the fact that for some EPS all of those challenges might come up at the exact same time I understand that for some it could work with the small tweak and with some you know it would be off the table for a while but everything that has been brought up as a challenge um to this I could see impacting our EP immediately because of the variation of our candidates in our programs and all of those things other folks I see some some people in the chat but I I want to I want dissenting voices to be heard too um because just a a short while ago we we had a memo from from tati that said that the contingency was was pretty much split 5050 um and I I but I I do want to note that I think that part of the reason that was the case for the folks who wanted to keep it is that they were concerned about sort of the inequitable pathways to lure and and so just want to be kind of transparent about that Michael I I most of the people here run much larger programs than we do but from our last few years of experience with both job embedded and internship perspective I I would disrespectfully say that while I I agree with some of the content comments that there's quite a lot of Merit in in some ways to etpa I I would say that we feel really confident that the field experiences we have designed for our folks are effectively preparing them that the job embedded pathway has also given us a chance to reduce barriers to access to Bringing people from different backgrounds into the profession and they're moving forth and and moving the needle for kids and so I I I think that there is a sort of rigorous pathway through that job embedded experience that could allow us to consider ways that some of the testing requirements can be again while not sort of attacking some of their merits nevertheless sort of burdensome for some people and so I think the possibility of more flexibility and more Pathways around the assessment for folks in a place like I am you know in an urban setting you know trying to bring people into kind of a different approach and pathway I think would be really desirable if that could be considered thank you John do you have your hand up uh Hey from a principal's perspective and and i' hire every year your graduates um I have yet to ask a student how they did in the edtpa or anything in that manner I I'm I'm more worried about what I see through through their internship calling their teacher that they did an internship with talking to a long-term or their student teaching that means more to me than the ATP atpa so um I I know we're we're talking a lot about and that's a barrier to intership entering the profession for a lot of people uh with if they start talking about that and I hear from my interns that they're you know they get all worried about and worked up about their atpa and I'm like I've seen them teach all year long I know whether they're a good teacher or not I know whether I want to hire them or not I know whether I want to recommend them or not regardless of an atpa uh so just you know from my perspective we've got a team evaluation system uh or team tiger whatever your District's on um that I think really does a good job of helping us to categorize and and collect data on on good teachers and good young teachers that's an important perspective all right I want to pause for a moment just pose this question because on on April 1 of of this year this this group convened and one of the proposed policy recommendations was was drop Ed TPA entirely uh and and this group did kind of say well let's let's create let's have the option right let's create this one pathway of more rigorous clinical practice no atpa maintain another pathway that requires atpa does this committee now believe that that you would recommend to our executive director dropping at TPA not not setting aside these these additional conversations we'll have in just a moment around kind of creating some more structure around clinical practice and mentoring but I just want to put that out there Megan yeah I can offer and I've certainly been at this far less than some people on the call so I appreciate the learning I get from this group I I was hesitant to drop it seems like the right incremental move yes forward to drop at TPA like that seems like a no-brainer to me I think the challenge of committing to that is what are the next steps then that the department would propose or that we would come up with that does help us navigate quality metrics that are consistent across a l insure pathway and that feels um stressful to to like say in this conver like we've had a good conversation about the differences of program structures inside of an individual pathway so it um yeah I mean it seems like I could vote a different way on etpa but I'd be curious to know what the outlay is to help that that would come from the Department or that would come from the script recommendation and I and I get that that's what this conversation was and so that's where we drill into details around part-time full-time time allocate yeah um yeah and what David's typing yes yes okay so I am not hearing many dissenting voices there so I if if you are or any I say many not hearing a single um if you are kind of feeling kind of uneasy about that and want to share your perspective offline please feel free to send me an email um let's let's do this just to shift a little bit so we we have I think two three other topics for for conversation does it make sense to you all to go through these and if like for example this one that's on the screen right now really would just apply to the internship right if we maintained a student teaching practice we'd have to think differently about how do you strengthen that student teaching practice um setting aside atpa right if atpa was was no longer uh required for any clinical practice pathway um this this language would just apply to the internship and I think all it really does is it clarifies what candidates can do or should be doing in the first half versus the second half uh and when they have to do field experiences so it doesn't do a whole lot right but let's move on to the next one um which is around coursework there's already a requirement a Prohibition on cour workor being taken during student teaching so let's set that aside for a moment the proposal here would be that candidates may take coursework for internship may take cours workk during the first half of the internship while engaging in clinical practice activities but may not take additional coursework during the second half of the internship I feel like that kind of aligns with current practice for the most part but please speak up if that's not accurate um and the idea there is that during the first half of the internship candidates would complete coursework that integrates both clinical practice activities and curricular content it is seems to me to be best practice to have sort of that balance where candidates are spending time in a classroom uh applying what they're learning in their coursework and they're coming to their their courses and they're sharing some of what they have been engaged in during their clinical practice activities and making those direct connections does this seem like a reasonable approach um and does it allow enough flexibility for candidates to complete programs in four years being mindful of candidates who have to work uh to sustain themselves um does does this language adequately do that yes I think so um you know currently that is how I mean we had internships since the 80s I mean that's how we've always operated that we're teaching our pedagogical courses during the opportunities for students to practice and coach and get that good mentorship um that I feel like is important um as we moved from you know a 4 plus one accelerated Masters into a 4-year what functionally some of the challenge becomes in because we also want these candidates to have early experiences um during their first year sophomore year and so there sometimes especially in our uh World Language or even our some of our math and science where they could be still taken some of those content courses during the last semester or during that internship year so they are usually at that point maybe taking a pedagogical course but there also could be you know like again in the world language in those areas um taking a Content course too um just because we want the early experiences as well before they get to that senior year junior year and we have a clinical experience and they go oh teaching is not what I thought it'd be so um but for the vast majority of our programs they're just taking those kind of how to teach pedagogical kind of courses are in the internship but we do have again some of those um secondary endorsements that you know we really want to have robust um experiences quote in the Arts and Science in English in math in science so you know just needed some of that space to do everything thanks David uh Megan nope you're muted Megan thank you it was helpful to hear a comment David uh it reminded me to name um internship is different at The Graduate level so um currently we're a residency model of preparation categorized as an internship license or pathway only existing at The Graduate level and So currently our structure matches this summer fall spring iteration um but we have the 35 credit hours that everybody else does for the state and I it would blow our program up for a graduate to complete in three terms to have to do that coursework in two um so just structurally again this is what brings me back to what is it and and then it makes me think about like a residency is potentially an internship model at an accelerated Pace or a different intensity pace and I don't know what that's like at the undergraduate level so it was really helpful to hear thanks and you know there this timing as Matt was talking about is going to be very challenging for alternate accelerated or graduate level programs and in the one residency we kind of work with and I'm not even and I don't know enough about residencies that's where I'm hoping to learn a lot more from you and man and as I'm dipping more into this space but our model is kind of stuff they do I don't want to call it internship but basically they're opening and closing the school in a practical field experience and then they pivot to job embedded year two and so in both those models they're able to take Hors work concurrently so they still become a teacher record in a pretty quick way you know that our districts really value uh but they're getting both that support at the pre-service and inservice um level but I don't know if that meets like I said I I I I've not been to the National residency conferences lately and need to learn a lot more to learn and I think it's different for different residencies I'm learning in the state but I can name for us that our teachers are never the teacher record so our teachers never shift into job embedded so it is this very when I come to these conversations I'm really listening and finding a lot of synthesis with our students in colleagues and um because it is very much inside someone else's classroom to learn I'm also really simp you know Finding synthesis with um internship when it's not job embedded but our people are never job embedded so that does make it there is a Nuance here again I'm not trying to take us back to residency I don't care for a different category but I do think we're a group of there is a group inside of internship that is unique whatever we're going to call them how do you all meet in the this is just my ignorance how do you all meet the 100 day requirement our residents are in a mentor teachers classroom Monday through Friday every single week of the year starting with inservice then when do they do cour work I'm sorry Monday through Thursday and they're out on course they do course work Fridays so res so Monday through Thursdays it's we are at minimum 100 1,700 uh contact hours for direct Serv for service and classrooms so um yeah so structural I mean Monday through Thursday in a mentor teachers classroom not as the teacher of record almost as a student teacher Fridays some Saturdays coursework anyway s excuse me similarly um similar design um except for our coursework this evening okay um okay so it sounds to me like this is not necessarily A a bad proposal but we would need to be considerate and mindful of of the way that some of our residency programs are designed in particular yeah it really doesn't seem to be a quality challenge but it will be a structural challenge the way this is written for us to operate can you coming back hold on just one second real quick so Megan you mentioned something about 35 credit hours as a state requirement can you explain what you mean by that okay probably is not a state requirement um we are inside an institution of HED and so I guess the accreditation for the Master's Degree we culminate in a master's degree it so at The Graduate level that is the compounding variable got it um and David I would I like I would take it Megan ours is 24 okay well and so this is lure plus a masters yes ours is lers plus some Masters and so we are you know it used to be closer to that um it is not right now so again I'm talking structure and there's flexibility clearly with that comment in yeah put it our design but in terms of real life seat hours and the content people need uh I was here when we were at another institution in before was sufficient I'm we migrated to another institution in 35 was sufficient and I'll be honest we always need more time with our candidates in terms of content so again I um when it's just a year so it doesn't it's just I'm just naming the structure and I appreciate anyone listening and hope hoping this helps our conversation around structure Advance Megan just just to clarify what I say 24 we lean into a competency based model where that students can through a proficiency exam be awarded uh University credit and we're able to transcript that which keeps cost down and keeps things moving a little bit quicker with greater flexibility for those adult Learners that we that we were finding you know because we we have um you know some states have a minimum credit hour requirement for lure programs and I don't think anyone in in this state has any interest in moving to that um um we we are of course more standards based and we've got District prep programs we got some on the call who are able to meet that standards requirement um but but then I I think we also recognize there are degree granting requirements that that be transparent I don't know a whole lot about um that you all know way more about um in that regard uh somebody just raised their hand Bob I don't want to belabor the point but I I just wanted to draw your attention I made a comment with a couple of details about some of how our program works that I think also could be a little bit problematic if I'm understanding correctly a potential prohibition on quote second half coursework so I just wanted to chime in from a quote residency standpoint about that as well thank okay um I think that's pretty clear and helpful um let me move on to the next one all right so in light of the recommendation that I think is coming from this group let's look at this one through the lens of of any clinical practice does that make sense to you all because it just kind of again taking a big step back here if you all are recommending dropping a TPA I would assume then any conversation about increasing rigor of clinical practice would not just be for the internship it would be for every clinical practice are we in agreement there cool okay so the current policy around frequency of evaluations um we've got some language in policy it says EP shall require formal evaluations and feedback opportunities for candidates completing clinical practice from the EP clinical supervisor and clinical Mentor for those who aren't clear the clinical Mentor is that school-based support the clinical supervisor is the EP based uh uh supervisor and um individual who who oversees multiple clinical practice placements um the proposed change and and this I know we've me well I think we've mentioned this I shared it with you all that's what it was the nctq clinical practice framework I personally thought was very strong nctq uh seems to be in a slightly different place uh these days and and I I thought that that was a pretty um Strong Guide and so this language comes from that but I wanted to pose it to the group clinical mentors and clinical supervisors shall formally evaluate let me pause for a moment on the word evaluate we had this discussion um Jennifer and I had a really robust discussion about this the word evaluate versus observe and and felt that formally evaluate was a a better word to use um because observe is just quite frankly kind of weak and could mean a lot of different things and evaluate adds some um strength to the the experience that is more akin to what they would experience once they are in their own classroom so clinical mentors and clinical supervisors shall formally evaluate candidates using a department approved evaluation tool a minimum of five times during the and let's just say during the clinical practice evaluation data shall be used to support developmental feedback while the candidate is engaging in direct teaching activities discussion questions do you believe five is sufficient is it too much should we remove the number in align with new teaching teacher pacing guides which I would Point some my colleagues at the department to remind me of what those pacing guides are for new teachers I I see you Martha um and lastly is the purpose of evaluation is clearly articulated in the language above before you get too far into this conversation I want to push back on the word evaluate versus observe in the teaching profession with Team evaluation that's a three-prong system with observation growth and achievement an observation is the assessment of teaching practice evaluation is the combination of the multi measure system so I do not agree with your your terminology around evaluate versus observe however I do live in this every single day and I don't want to split a hair that is not worth splitting but if we are going to consistently use language throughout policy I would strongly ask that you reconsider using the term formally observe versus formally evaluate just put that out there um and yes I can share the pacing guides for novice teachers if that's necessary can you just remind us of the frequency artha just how many um they would have three instruction two planning two environment at least 90 minutes um typically that looks like three observations over the course of a school year um I don't I don't know that that is what I would suggest for candidates that are growing in their practice and I will also say that I have a few concerns about norming around what we are doing with the team rubric with novice teachers that do not yet have a full toolkit of practices ready um but again I do not live in the world of educator preparation I live in the world of educator evaluation so I am open to learning from my EP colleagues what they feel is appropriate thank you well I will say your perspective is highly valuable and that was helpful so other folks kind of on this um evaluation versus observ oh thanks Brook yeah um the one con question that I would have or concern potentially is on the observation of the candidates if you're using team you know our administrators go through team training and all that these mentors would would probably not have done that so that would be a concern that I would have on how do we make sure that they are trained to use that observation instrument strument we can support that and provide documentation that it's been successfully completed all right we got some hands up um David sorry I just clicked the wrong button um okay there we are all right um we used to do five once upon a time and then we dropped it to follow the uh the early career uh you know model that Martha was talking about and thank you for that clarification um now that was because of our partnership agreements and uh because our data aligned with our school Partners uh reporting of their scores so we were able to kind of check what are we giving cuz there was a discussion out there are we overinflating you know if you will and we actually found out we were underinflated you know under and yeah we found it the other way which and and we Ed the team and give the formal because you know there's a host out there and my faculty is going what about tiger what about coaches and you know we've just experienced um that our pre-service folks they like numbers I mean we do the grow and glows and the informals or the you know the little walkthroughs um as well but our pre-service likes numbers it just kind of anchors them and um I appreciate Martha because that's what we require all our supervisors get team certified they upload that certificate and that's how we ensure that they are meeting those things and um and I think that's what really tries to keep us aligned with what our partners are are are experiencing on that day one or those first three years for our graduates but um so yeah that's what we basically follow um the team guidelines on all that thanks Megan thanks yeah I really appreciate the the Fidelity explanation around team Martha I think that's really important we um started using team with our candidates uh two three years ago we also find it I appreciate that point it's very challenging to navigate that as an observational tool with a pre-service candidate who did not have any education background so that is usually 70% of our candidates that language is not appropriate the tool is unwieldy it does not actually promote growth we have to find ways to use that tool in a more discreet way uh five formal observations feels wildly excessive given the amount of um feedback that our Kates receive but five observations would be wildly insufficient and so uh our kits again Monday through Thursday have a clinical mentor's eyes on them um giving them feedback regularly which uh is important observationally not quite an formal observation but at least uh three weeks have a clinical supervisor or coach we call them coaches but clinical supervisor formally observing and depring their practice and so it is not an evaluation system alone uh and that isn't how team is built but it is unwieldy for that speed that depth of knowledge for a candidate and it is not content specific enough in terms of our candidates when we need to talk about lesson planning and content speciic spefic strategies and so um I mean it's it provides again numbers some like for our Ed Majors who come to us that is a real that really pushes their practice um it provides a great standardization tool it's really pushed our practice to um think about an aligned tool but it is this is a lot and Megan Megan I do agree with that the content specificity is not built into team because it's not designed Ed for that it is designed for instructional practice as opposed to content specific planning so I I hear your challenge in that which is why those unique engagements with that clinical mentor and I may have my words wrong again I don't live in the EP world with those supporting people um having those oneoff conversation momentto moment coaching conversations is where that massive growth is going to take place not simply because of using the team rubric which we document in our gradual release so I feel like there's I feel like there's space to document uh so this formal and observe and evaluate I I'm also curious with the um clinical permits again if I am getting ahead of us or using the wrong terminology but the people who are being identified as teacher of record as they are finishing their EP work how's this going to play in their world with the requirements of being a teacher record and the requirements of being an EP student they they still would have to meet the requirements of the clinical practice and that's true today right so whatever requirements the EP has for clinical practice including you know observations sure and what are the challenges with that and I see lots of hands so maybe I need to be quiet and let let you run through our questions oh that's okay I mean any EP want to weigh in on how you're supporting candidates on a clinical practice perit we support ours just like we do any other student teaching candidate they have to go through the same processes as everyone else so they're evaluated the same they have a you know University supervisor and a clinical Mentor yeah we as well they get exactly the same experience in terms of supervision and mentoring I would say that we do as well but one thing that I have noted is some candidates um speaking to a number of administrative evaluations District evaluations um other sort of kind of popup building evaluations that they struggle to um manage I think between the student teaching requirements and more of what I I so we we kind of look at their clinical practice permit as like the two full-time job role right and so there are their student teaching requirements in that role and then there are there new teacher requirements in that role um and in my experience so far not every CPP candidate has had the same approach taken with their new teacher kind of evaluation and responsibilities though we have stayed consistent with their student teaching um evaluation or observation responsibilities so and and I know that might be a different conversation but I would love to see a world where we somehow kind of match the EP and and and District Clarity on expectations around that for clinical practice permit candidates so that you know as an EP we can better navigate how overwhelmed particularly our candidates might become from balance ing those two things yeah um okay AA I know you had a comment um having one foot in our school system being a Lea based uh EP I would like to point out that a lot of the um districts do not pay their mentors for this additional role that they often take on in in addition to their own full-time teaching job and they often have more than just one mentee uh it is a timec consuming in additional responsibility if done well and I myself had trouble actually this year finding mentors who fulfill all the requirements per policy plus our team certified um several of them took on that additional task to get certified but it is I mean it's time consuming and uh not just a given or easy so um there's a potential to fail the team um test so um some mentors may just not want to be willing to be a mentor again um I know years ago the the issue came up that mentors were concerned that supervising a candidate would negatively impact their own evaluation and I hope that you all are communicating the research that has come out more than once now that shows that their evaluations either remain consistent or actually they see a bump um which I think you could probably see the logic there but that is of course I I recognize that's a very challenging role for them to be in and any way we can uh at the state level um you know celebrate that or recognize that and I know we've had some conversations around that uh for years um we certainly are advocating for doing so funding funding funding would be super helpful uh Matt um so I think one question that jumps off the page for me is like well to what end and so like so they do these five pieces and so again to like bring the focus back on kids it's like well like what happens if the observ like it's all one uh and like this you know and I think that falls on the EP I think that's probably the reason why it's broad but we should probably know be clear there um and and like is what what role does the mentor play in that um and you know I've seen Mentor relationships go south and all of that kind of piece there so there's just there are some things I would want clarified um before we make a a change um and then I do like like has been said um I'm just going to advocate for mentors like this would be one more thing on their plate and they're they're asked to do a whole lot um in the space uh and and like I think um you know we we really should consider like how like Statewide how are like what are we considering the role of a mentor and like you know we compensate them like NTR does that um but like how can we do something more formal um I I will push for something that shows up on their license um on CN Compass I would love to see that um because like their work is like really matters and um I know like one of the reasons why people leaving the professions they don't see career advancement um and if we could like encourage people to to grow um and to want to pursue Mentor this role of being a mentor and uh it shows up on their license like hey I'm a qualified Mentor in the state of Tennessee I think that would you know carry some weight um in the uh in the profession so I think if we anytime we're talking about mentors I think we got to balance the care and then also like raising um the expectation great points can I jump in and actually director puit if you're still on um does your Lea utilize strategic compensation to identify additional roles and responsibilities as a as a stien or the stien for Mentor teachers in that we have strategic compensation we have not used that as a as a source of where of giving that money though we have not used that as a as an identifier I guess you could say is that something that would be appealing to an Lea to lean into that for their their supporting teachers it would be if there's additional funding coming from the state but unless there's additional funding coming from the state they're probably not going to spend that money there or have you all been able to think about using title 2 funds for for that purpose again our our the amount of money we get from title two funding is so limited uh I just don't know that that would be and Dr Stevens can uh she can chime in too to to vouch for it or maybe disagree with me yes please I would love to hear that same same as you Eddie we um have additional responsibilities within strategic compensation mentoring is not one of them um and we do use title two for some of those opportunities for uh appropriate coaching professional learning Dr Stevens you had something else I think you wanted to I wanted to Echo uh the the word evaluate versus observe um I when seeing the word evaluate and Martha stole my thunder right away uh that did not hit well with me because evaluation is a multi-prong item and I would say as an EP there may be other elements that an EP would want to consider as a part of their evaluation of a candidate and observation would certainly be one of them right the other thing I want to lift up we're project coach District so our observations for an entering uh novice teacher is eight the count is eight it's 130 minutes and so it may be rooted around minutes that might be um better than times I suppose because you do have state approved measures that are a bit different in nature and so when looking at EP agreements you know my comment back to the universities is instead of saying team let's put in state approved measure because we use a state approved measure and we want to make sure that when our student teachers and interns are here they are experiencing what their supervising teacher experiences so they can have healthy conversations around that observation tool super important points I appreciate that Dr Stevens um we are running a little tight on time so I want to kind of get right to the questions that have been batted around a little bit observe versus evaluate could you please just put in the chat which which term do you prefer um and to this conversation around the frequency um so we put five uh in here based on that research-based nctq report what would be your proposal um whether that's a number or something else please also put that in the chat Michael um yes to the point of five one of the pieces I was thinking about I pulled some data just from our current group um they had five in the first eight weeks of the school year um and so I think like the would a mentor then be like all right I've fulfilled this requirement um continue it and so I think like the spacing is important um and so and that language like probably should be in there Matt you you gave you gave me some thoughts that I wrote down around kind of beefing some of this second sentence up a little bit uh I wrote down EPS shall determine how observations or evaluations wherever SLS are used to support candidate progression um and how evaluations are paced I don't know that we want would want to be that prescriptive on on those issues at the state level but it would send the signal that EPS need to be intentional about it um I I want to just here we've got some really strong folks on this call to EPS are if you look at some of our our U teacher prep report card uh EPS are not all in the same place and so I just want to acknowledge that we have some EPS that may not be in the same place as some of the folks that are on this call and are sharing some of the really good practices that you engage in so just want to we have not said that but that it it kind of highlights the whole purpose of why we do this at the state level is to set minimum requirements for some of these things so so that every EP can either meet or exceed those um okay so I want to keep us moving please continue throwing uh comments in the chat around frequency of observations and observations versus evaluation the last two slides are around clinical practice settings and let me just cut to the chase here the proposal here is to get rid of the requirement that clinical practice has to happen in two settings and replace it with this language that gets more to the intent of why we we recommended two settings in the first place because that was partially my doing um clinical PR experiences shall provide candidates with opportunities to engage with a variety of student populations including students with diverse learning needs and from diverse backgrounds that is the intent right and whether that happens and let me also note that the the word clinical experiences is used intentionally there so it's not necessarily saying that your clinical practice has to take place in two settings or or rather has to uh expose candidates to all sorts of uh diversity whether that be class race um you know need um and and that sort of thing it is encompassing field experiences so thoughts on this I've heard a lot of chatter over the years around the challenges that the two settings requirement makes I will say that especially with the student teaching practice only being 15 weeks splitting that up probably provides for some some challenges related to continuity of experience um but any thoughts on this one I'll say I absolutely support the language would there be would it be up to EP interpretation as to what constitutes diverse learning needs or diverse backgrounds my assumption it and it probably already is part of your comprehensive review it is but yeah I'm just thinking about and these are few in far between but our our candidates who have a placement in somewhere very rural and what that looks like compared to some of our more common placements with our primary partner in mmps yep okay I Echo Megan I I I I like that it does that clarification because I know historically we always interpreted setting as two different builds but you know that we got away from yeah and that's where we got away from especially with our folks seeking dual endorsements or multiple endorsements you know to still get the depth of a school um while being having those opportunities work a variety of kiddos um so thank you anything else on this topic pretty straightforward um okay so this one I think is even more straightforward uh we we have current policy language that says for candidates enrolled in programs leading to more than one endorsement the field experiences and clinical practice shall be divided among the contaras that makes a whole lot of sense right if you're in a dual endorsement program you need to have some exposure in both but what we don't talk about I don't think unless somebody knows that we have this elsewhere and I'm just missing it is for those folks who have are seeking endorsement in really broad grade spans K12 even 612 um we don't really have any language that that specifies that they need to have some experiences across those grade spans I don't think anybody wants somebody who is getting a K12 endorsement to only spend their time in a ninth grade classroom um I certainly wouldn't uh so is there any are there any challenges with this proposed language or any recommendations to make it stronger okay yes a I notice in the parenthesis it says applies to all clinical practice types would this include job embedded because they are kind of locked into their job and if it's a high school job that's where they are and they can't easily do their job embedded than also at a middle school they can though go for their field experience and observe for example a teacher at middle school that's how we handle it right now yep I think that would be cover that that would cover that that would be sufficient your current structure okay okay well we are limited on time and we've we've discussed a whole lot so let me actually uh jump to next steps and then we'll come back and just kind of recap some of what was discussed and then allow give you all some time to surface anything that maybe we haven't talked about that you want to make sure we get on our agenda for the next meeting um so feedback from this committee on on these issues will be shared with our executive director um if we bring policy recommendations we will those will be proposed to the board in November on first reading final reading in February additional feedback will be gathered between readings this is not a oneandone sort of thing um if if you all want to now go for and discuss some of these issues with your stakeholder groups and provide additional feedback our timeline for getting red lines to our members is very tight uh for the November meeting but we've got a a fairly long on-ramp um to our final recommendations or final reading uh in February so please do that I know we've discussed a lot of issues here and we we need to take your recommendations uh and and sit down as a a leadership team and with the department and kind of work through what some of this might mean and and um that sort of thing uh but if you have any other topics you'd like to highlight for our next meeting which I anticipate we will have in Spring 2025 um I feel like etpa was at the top of the list and we seem to at least from this group have a fairly strong uh consensus around um where you all would like to go um I will send this PowerPoint deck out because what I want you to do is go back through it with the lens of um application to all clinical practice types because that that is not how this PowerPoint was designed initially because that's not where our conversation went back in April um but given the course of this conversation I I want to give you an opportunity to revisit some of this on your own time and provide any additional feedback you may have out of state that is always a big one John I appreciate that um David love your list um all right any anything else uh let me let me just do a kind of quick step back and and recap so this group is now sort of recommending that one we have a gradual drop of the edtpa requirement both for internship and student teaching clinical pathways and in in all of these sort of more nuanced issues we've discussed related to clinical mentoring and observing and uh coursework and placements and that sort of thing uh that we would potentially beef up both clinical really all clinical practice Pathways uh and include additional language and our policy to do that um and that would make you all this committee at least feel confident in dropping the atpa requirement does anybody on this call want to speak up and say I don't agree with dropping at tbaa all right well if you are sitting here and you are not feeling great about that again please feel free to to reach out with um those com comments and counterpoints anything else anyone would like to share any of my colleagues from uh the department um Michael I just want to say thank you to everybody I've been pretty quiet but sitting here taking it in and look forward to having those conversations um and uh if anybody shares any in uh details with me I'm happy to share them with Michael vice versa um because we're all in this together but thank you thanks Jennifer all right thank you all um enjoy the rest of your week and we will be in touch