9AM, and we are beginning again from yesterday. And I would like to just welcome, anyone that is here to as stakeholders, and thank you for your participation thus in leaning in and providing perspectives. Again, I would like to thank all of our board members for their time and their commitment, that is significant, especially with, all that we have before us and how exciting it is in making these decisions, for the prep programs and for our students in our state. And I'd also like, again, to thank staff for all of their work in coordinating all of this information and,
making it manageable for us to work through these. I know it's a huge job and I thank everyone for that. We are going to pick back up, on twelve. Thank you for all of your input yesterday and working through these, very, you know, so many questions and directions and really being thoughtful and providing perspective. So we're gonna finish 12. We're gonna go ahead and take items thirteen and fourteen because they're related, and then we will come back to item 10. Thank you, Ms. Yoder. Thank you, Chair Streepy.
And I echo your sentiments. My head is just exploding with all of the wonderful, robust conversation we had yesterday. And I was also reflecting that we talked about different layers of implementation. We talked about how in this in the implementation of HB two and the prep allotment, there are program requirements, right, that the district and the EBP are accountable to in order to, engage in those funded candidate preparation pathways. And then underlying that, we have our requirements for our preparation routes board,
where you have been providing us so much feedback and support, and direction. So with all of those layers, one of those areas that we'll dive dive back into that we left off on mid discussion, is related to the prep program requirements for EPP content training. And we began our discussion taking a look at the areas of the content areas, that are either statutorily required or currently, being proposed, through commissioner direct directed rulemaking as well.
So we're gonna head back into that discussion and taking a look at some recommendations related to your, your authority, for approval of those content areas, and then also setting requirements for training and certification of educator preparation program faculty. Go forward one more. Awesome. So that first area around us back approval. So we talked a little, we got a little bit into some of the design considerations yesterday and board, we'll look forward to bringing you back more updates related to those design considerations in
future and subsequent meetings. So appreciated that early conversation yesterday. But by design, I think hearing everything you all had to share yesterday, it is so important that by design that these, materials meet a bar for quality, and there's also statutory requirements that they need a bar for quality. So, by design, we would ensure that these materials are research based, that they do include and bear alignment to requirements pertaining to educating all students, including students with disabilities,
and I'll add in here, of course, that they're going to bear alignment to your roles in chapter two thirty five, educator standards. And then the other piece of this is making sure that these materials are high high quality in and of themselves, that they include practice for candidates, where candidates will engage in that gradual skill development, get feedback, and then also, those performance based assessments of candidate skill and proficiency. So those are the baseline, right, those are the baseline things that we would quality control and board,
you could, would direct staff to make sure that these materials meet these parameters. From there, staff would recommend to the board that they take action to approve, that you take action to approve those materials that have been developed, under the purview of, of, the commissioner rule. Sure. Excuse me. Are you saying approve the reading academies and the math academies? Are you talking about the HQIM skills or the management? Which piece are you saying that we need to Yes. Sorry. More.
The commissioner developed materials. And then the other piece, I think, we nodded to yesterday. So the reading and math academy is will be required. And as we were discussing with associate commissioner McLaughlin and deputy commissioner Oser, those would we would take those materials and make sure that they meet the needs of candidates. So those training materials would also be modified, in in that process. Will we know more about, the reading academies and the math academies? Do you can you give us some kind of timeline on or,
like, what do those materials look like? Is it a, is it a set of course materials? Is it videos? Is it what would it be that we would be approving? And then, of course, I know you don't know the hours because you're working on those, which those that would be appreciate that as well. Yeah. And I think, like, what I'm hearing is being able to provide you all a little bit more of an intro in the next board meeting potentially around, like, hey. Here's here's the makeup of these materials. Here's some of the priority activities candidates would be engaging with.
Providing that overview may be helpful. And I know I'm asking carton the horse, so I I understand the difficulty. Yeah. And then board, I think, also, did everyone have a chance to, provide input on those last two, the HQIM and the discipline management as to whether or not that's what we want to require in there, if that's all we want to require in there, if we we do or don't, or if there are additions to that. So I know there are probably prep programs looking at that and thinking of what they'd have to change internally,
to be able to provide those. So the number of hours, I think, will be important even if we look at HQIM and Splendid as well. Okay. Mister Gore and then miss Andrews. I'm positive answer to this is yes. But believe it or not, it seems like there's a few states that may have actually gotten ahead of us on the science reading and and the training of teachers, etcetera, for that. And even England's doing has done some interesting things over the last five to seven years. Long story short is our it would seem like a great learning opportunity if because
some of those states have iterated two or three times already. And is there has there been a focus on evaluating those states' programs and even other countries' programs? Yes, certainly. And I think we've learned from some of our, colleagues across other states and seen some of those models, and continue to conduct that research. Deputy Commissioner, sorry, Vazenda. I I think in addition to so, the reading academies, we were early adopters across the nation in terms of reading academies, in the science of teaching reading, in educator preparation.
I think what would be new about this that some other states have already, experimented with is requiring specific reading content that's been kind of predeveloped in educator preparation. So we have colleagues in other states that we've kind of, collaborated with and and learned, you know, shared some learnings back and forth around. Yeah. I do think though that naming we have done, now two years of piloting That's correct. Of implementing reading academy content in ed prep. So we've also had, you know, test Texas examples are the best examples. So we also have,
some good learning too about what, our Texas Reading Academy content looks like in an EPP program at this point. Go on record. I stand corrected. Texas was not behind. No. Just perhaps was not as aggressive at moving into the prep programs, making the requirement. Miss Andrews, yes. You keep asking about the hours and then, are we changing the hours? Because currently, it's the sixty hours that is required for the reading academies and eighteen for the math. Yeah. We're we're gonna be addressing, that to meet candidate needs for sure, and we'll be able to bring that back. So are you assuming that there's gonna be more or less?
There would not be more. Okay. It's a it's a it's a lot. And then the other thing, to, you know, my opinion on, the HQI and skills, you know, like Bluebonnet learning because it's being rolled out across the state. You know, for me personally, we're using Bluebonnet, so I'm like, oh, that would be great. But then the other side of me is like, well, what if people aren't adopting Bluebonnet? Like, then it's again, it's like boxing everybody in, like, you have to do this one certain thing, and it really kills innovation.
And I think that that's, you know, all the rules, legislation, a lot of that has a tendency to kill other people's ideas or innovation. And so just to require that from everybody, just a question there. I wanna I wanna address that for sure. So I think while the training content would leverage Bluebonnet as the example Mhmm. Content in that training set training materials, those skills are transferable, right, across any product, any content area. So I think that's the priority there, right, that we're training candidates with those skills because we know when they like,
as you've said, like, when they get to the district, they are not necessarily using that those bluebonnet materials. Okay. And and that makes sense too. And especially if, you know, if the majority of people are using this and obviously you wanna go with the use the example that the majority, but I like you're thinking about just transferring the skills. Yeah. We're Okay. Using the open education resources, that in currently, in in in your goals, ed prep programs are required to train and prepare candidates to use those materials. So it kind of it helps them to also address address that requirement.
Great. Melissa, can you also, help us understand with the, HQIM skills be within the reading and math the reading academy or the math academy, could those, rather than being a third course in the k six or e c six, could it be Yes. Yes. So by design, we are doing everything possible to streamline where applicable. So we'll be able to bring back, some updates regarding, like, some of that streamlining and work with our, incredible colleagues, in the instructional materials team.
And then for someone who doesn't teach, a core subject or an elementary subject, excuse me, then they would have would we require them to also have HQIM Yes. Training so that they because there are other HQIM materials, available for different grade levels. Correct. Correct. So that would be standalone for, somebody not e c six. At at least that's what we're Correct. Speaking. Yeah. K. Doctor McFarland? Yes. And then miss Saffron. Alright. So I do believe that the, current suite that you've identified is definitely, high would be high leverage,
areas to start with because as I think about PD that we've had to offer over the last sixteen years, for lack of a better word, lack of a better statement, we have had to do we, meaning school districts, have had to spend a significant amount of time retraining, first year and second year and third year teachers in these specific areas here. The thing that I would you know, I do agree with Charles Streetby in that we may need to know a little bit more about the content of the different academies because I would I would, think that HQIM skills could be integrated in those academies in some form or fashion
so that so that the HQIM skills are not something that's separate. And so that that would be the only only thing. But I and also but I do love the discipline management. I love those those facets. I will say, having served on the teacher vacancy task force, one of the difficult things, of course, for teachers is planning and the amount of planning. So if they are if they have a, training in that, then it might also alleviate some of those pieces for, frustration for the teachers. Miss Saffron. Thank you. I just wanted to chime in on the, discipline management requirement.
Just from the field experience and from, the administrative experience that we've seen with our teachers, it's an essential skill also to have in a classroom that children, in general, typically will do or perform better on testing and everything when the teacher has the classroom under control. What I mean by under control is not necessarily, you know, being strict or anything, but having providing these teachers with tools, providing them with different, different, methods of getting their students to be on task. And when they're on task, their learning environment becomes a lot more conducive to them.
So I definitely think that that is one that's on there. Within content and skills, I I would like to see a little bit more, definition on those, but I think we can all agree that reading and math are essential. Great. Doctor McFarland? Yeah. Just a point of clarification. I understand that this is, this this content suite is in addition. This is not removing anything. This is just to get us in alignment with h b two. Is is that correct? These are required by h p two. The first two are. Okay. You we got to tell more about that for a moment. For the for the prep pathways only.
Okay. And it wouldn't be for, the nonfunded pathways. Required for nonfunded pathways. So it will it will be required or not will not be required for nonfunded? It will not for nonfunded. Okay. So it's just the funded pathway. So in order to get the funding, you have to yeah. That's weird. Good morning. I know I might have missed this, but, are the secondary programs required to do the reading and math academies to qualify for prep? No. So, the reading and math academies are required statutorily for e c three and e c six candidates,
so it would not be required for the secondary. So someone who's not in the prep pathway, those teachers will still have to take those, if they're an EC six, they just wouldn't take them within their own program. That's correct. So like the district would likely still be offering those. Associate Commissioner? One additional thing I would name just in terms of the the requirements here. So, in statute, it spells out explicitly that for prep funded routes, PPPs are required to offer reading academies and math academies. And then it also names that,
if the commissioner, develops additional course content for educator preparation, then the board can review and approve that content. You'll also be required as part of prep. So, it's it's kind of a a little bit of a bizorated path. Reading and math can be used as a required in statute. What, staff is recommending is we're gonna create an EPP specific track for that so that it's feasible and reasonable for educator preparation programs. But then this additional set of content, this is the additional set of content, the development is under, commissioner rule making authority.
And then the intent would be that we would bring proposed content to the board. You all would have a chance to review it against the, your criteria and determine if that was additional content that would be approved as well. And is there any, breakout of the math by someone taking e c three versus e c six? It's a good question. We've thought about a bit in the design of specifically for Math Academy. There's because math academies were also, statutorily, now required as part of h v two, and there's some additional updates being done to math academies.
So, Melissa's team has been in close coordination with the team that's developing math academies for the k 12 setting to think about, are there grade level specific, focus areas, etcetera? So that's something that we're we're definitely exploring. Great question. Deputy commissioner? So I the one of the things that I think is interesting here, because the only content that was required in HB two is the reading and math academies, and that is focused only on elementary, We've actually been hearing from programs like,
what about secondary? Like, why aren't you creating content for secondary? And so I do think this HQIM skills actually allows us to do that. And so we have high quality content for all grade levels and content areas within the context of also making sure that teachers know how to know what high quality instructional materials are and how to use those to help them deepen their content knowledge, internalize, deliver lesson plans. So I think this is really an opportunity to,
like, deepen content knowledge across the board beyond just what is required in the reading and math academies for elementary. Thank you. Doctor Rodriguez and then doctor Galvan. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Would you be so kind as to go back to slide 69, please? Thank you. This is only a requirement for prep along. Correct? Correct. So if there's going to be funding, it would seem we have to distinguish no funding, funding. Since Teach Us is piloting the reading academies,
one thing that we found is, one, it saves the district money. Teachers that are new, it's very it's very difficult as a first year teacher to then have to complete reading academies during my my first year of teaching. So getting that in the prep program helps with the science of teaching reading. And then the math academies will also help. I think the strength of that chart is, yes, there is a requirement for the program. We're gonna have to step it up because there has to be training.
You have to be certified as a program to offer. So, the advisers at Teachers with doctor Eubanks went through training. They delivered this. The strength of it is we're complying with House Bill two, and the last two are developed by the agency. So now we have more coherence. We've got that fidelity because there's this consistency. It there's funding for it, and it seems like it's an outstanding guide for a prep allotment program and a great way to collect
data to see test scores, students' scores, the reading scores, and math scores should be improving when a candidate goes through their traditional coursework or alternative certification coursework, and this could be embedded as part of the coursework. If we have to teach classroom management, can we not incorporate the discipline management that is already developed? So there's more coherency within the program,
but also within all the programs and traditional and nontraditional because there's this consistency in the discipline management that has already been developed. Thank you. Doctor Rodriguez? Thank you, chair Stripi. Earlier, you you asked about what it would take to implement this or, the the Sorry. I couldn't I can't hear you quite. Yes. But earlier, you asked about the what it would take to implement this or the perspective of of the programs. And so, for higher education programs,
particularly in public institutions, we are capped at one hundred and twenty hours of, of course of course course credit. And so, it it will be a significant curriculum revision to make room for these requirements, a lot of decision making on what will have to be prioritized and and keep in our curriculum, what will have to, be modified, perhaps removed to make room for this or how to integrate in a way that
we are not tasking our, teacher candidates with piling up additional requirements that just for the sake of of, you know, needing a a a requirement. Right? So a lot of decision making, a lot of review of the curriculum. So that takes time. And the sooner we know what these requirements will look like and how long in terms of hours or whatever requirements will be in place,
the sooner we can start those conversations. The other thing to take into account is that we have, a lot of students in the pipeline. These are students who are pursuing their degrees. So they are following, their their university catalogs into what courses are required to complete their degrees. So we need to take that into account as to implementation dates, cohorts of students coming in the pipeline, and how to, make sure that the revisions that will be required are
being made with the candidates in mind and and and the entire pipelines in mind. So I, appreciate the comments that were made earlier about integration because, the more we can make sure that as we are required to implement the the reading academies, we are also addressing the other components, you know, the easier it will be to, to integrate rather than having to think of how to add a third component and a fourth component.
In regards to the HQIM, I appreciate the the comments about the transferability of skills. I think that for the sake of clarity to the field, it's important to name those skills. Like, what are those skills that we are needing to develop in our candidates? Again, in institutions of higher education, we have, experts. We have individuals whose whose careers have been to become educator educators, teacher educators with with terminal degrees, with people who have,
are conducting research on on these things, people who are invested in in preparing quality educators. So I have no doubt that, they are fully equipped to, impart this instruction. I think that we need to be very clear about what are those skills that we are expecting our teacher candidates to have at, at the end of of their preparation. So some some thoughts. Right? Of course, discipline discipline management can be well integrated into classroom management. But,
again, it is, defining so that we can start thinking of of all those components that are coming. Thank you for that, Vivette. Thank you, doctor Rodriguez. Miss Andrews? Sorry. I just have a question. I I like it. I like the buckets. The thing that I like about the the reading and the math academies is because that's already putting on the school districts. And then it I feel like, you know, I can't speak for an EPP, but I feel like for an EPP, they're like, yay. I have access to this, and I can actually prepare, you know, the the candidates. So then now the question is you you had talked about maybe slimming it for
the EPP programs. Well, then what does that look like for the school district? Because if they're not gonna do the entire program, you know, I know, you know, the school districts again from a school district perspective is you already have, you know, all of the training, all the things that you need to do. And then when legislate like, oh, now we have to do these math academies. We have to do these reading academies. Squeezing that in is very hard to find the time. It would be amazing if this was already done when they come to us. They they took their test. They got their certification. They come right out of the EPP, and I'm not trying to figure out when to squeeze in the math and reading
academies. So what did you mean about maybe not doing the whole program? So once so if the EPP I just wanna frame this quickly. If the EPP is in the prep route is preparing candidates in the math and reading academies, that will satisfy those requirements for math and reading academies. So, you as a district, which I think is what you're asking, wouldn't have to come back and say, oh, I didn't, you know, we didn't do these different pieces, but we want to prioritize and amplify practice opportunities, and make sure that we're not overloading like,
cognitively overloading those candidates, and making sure that, like, those skills are the most important tied to the science of reading as well. So so to restate what you're saying, you you're saying there's a possibility that they may be required to do less than the sixty hours of reading, but then when they come to a school district, they don't then have to finish it? Correct. They would be they would be complete they would have completed it through the RadPrep program. Yes. Of course. But they wouldn't have completed it. They won't they wouldn't have done the whole sixty hours. Miss Andrews, can I give an example?
I think so within the reading academies, there's multiple pathways. So there's a, you know, that kind of they call it, like, the regular reading academies. And there's also the dual language pathway of reading academies. And then there's also a, STR pathway of reading academies that says, because you, completed the science teaching reading in your preparation program, you actually get to skip these modules and go through, and do these other ones. What what we're envisioning is and and all of those pathways meet the statutory requirement. What we're recommending is that there be kind of an additional pathway,
that, fully satisfies the statutory requirement for reading academies and math academies that would be EPP specific pathways for the prep allotment. So if I'm and the benefit here is that, you know, so a benefit to school districts to say, I I wanna pursue the prep allotment, partner with a prep program, and then, my candidates that are going through this complete this EPP track and fully meet the requirements for reading and math academy. So once they become the teacher of record, there's no additional expectation for them to do any additional Reading or Math Academy requirements
if they fully completed it in the context of their preparation program. I would say separately though, if a candidate because the reading and math academy requirements are still in statute. So if a candidate was going through a non prep funded pathway and their prep program did not provide reading or math academies, then that would be on the district to, train them in reading and math academies, and that's where those other pathways would be available. Yeah. That makes that makes sense. But then going back to the port point about this is being funded, so it needs to be rigorous,
Thinking about maybe not slimming that portion. I mean, it's already there, and it's very robust, and it's very rigorous. So you don't want people going through an EPP program, and then we're blaming the EPPs. Oh, they're not as prepared as when we prepare them at our district. So it's just something to think about, on the you know, and I'm also for slimming down. But because we're you know, they're not gonna get the whole sixty hours or the eighteen hours. I don't know. You know, that that would just be my thoughts is making sure that it is going to actually prepare them. Thank you. And I and I think one clarification here,
which is why we've been hesitant to be like, no. It's fifty hours. Right? Because what what we know is that it's about the quality of the content and the practice experience and what they're actually able to then be able to do as a result of the experience. So what we I don't know that sixty hours is actually some sort of magical number that we couldn't, like, get our EPP candidates to magical number that we couldn't, like, get our EPP candidates there, in a slightly more streamlined way when we're combining it with other content. But, like, but that's what we're trying to figure out because we also know,
I think to doctor Rodriguez's point, is that there's a lot already happening in our ed prep programs. And so, like, this can't just be added on top of everything. This act we actually need to figure out how we integrate it in to the Ed Prep experience. So I think what we're committed to because I don't think we can say candidates have met the Reading Academy bar unless they've met the completion of the Reading Academy bar. So we're not changing the rigor of the expectation.
It's really like, is there a different way that we can get there through combining what's already happening in ed prep programs and, like, thinking about the experience as a whole while still getting them to that same level of rigor. It's really about the learning, not the number of hours that's required. Is that correct? Yeah. And be and because I feel like this it has this kind of additive effect if we're not careful. So people are, like, okay. I have to do this on top of everything that I'm already doing. So I feel like that's where, like, we can get candidates there by,
like, integrating it into their experiences. Yeah. Doctor Rodriguez? Thank you for for those comments. And and in that train of thought of of integration and and a seamless flow in the in the preparation and not just, adding and and piling up. I'm trying to picture how we would do this again at a university. And I'm I'm having a difficult time visualizing how to require it for candidates who end up in a
funded prep partnership and those who wouldn't. In my mind, our curriculum is our curriculum, and all of our students are coming in through our curriculum, get earning their bachelor's degree, all following a particular, you know, the the 2526 university catalog, right, with all of their requirements and everything they have to do to to complete their preparation. So keeping in mind at what point the partnership comes into the picture is very important.
The districts have certain caps on number of, funded, partnerships for for residencies and for each of the components in in that are part of the of the prep partnerships. Some of us have a lot more candidates than than that, but we also partner with many districts. So it's all very fluid. It's very complex. It's it's a it's a big, big project. And so I just want us to to keep in mind that as we recognize that these are only requirements for the prep funded routes,
in some cases, unless we want to start adding things outside of the curriculum for those candidates, if the best approach is to integrate it in the curriculum, we might end up integrating it for everybody. And so just just ideas that that I'm bringing up because we just don't know how we're going to get this done, But it's important to recognize all of the complexity that comes with it. And and, again, it's true. It's only required for prep allotment or prep partnerships.
However, how are we in practical, in in in a practical sense, going to implement is is a rhetorical question at this point, but I would love to engage the field in in these very deep up in in substantial opportunities to give feedback and and to to start thinking how might they do it so that they can bring the different perspectives. I understand. The size of the program will matter. The the nature of the program will matter. So many things.
That's an excellent point, doctor Rodriguez. And on a small scale right now, we have already started to work with a pilot of educator preparation programs for the reading academies integration, as well as for, integration of our one point o version of the high quality instructional materials skills course. So we have a already have a strong base of, to your point about feedback, of, folks who I think we can turn to to think about, which I think this ties to the second area for SBEC approval around this training
and certification, what additional supports and structures would be needed to support that integration into the program. Appreciate your comments. Melissa, one thing I'm hearing consistently is that, the different perspectives. So being in what I think when you're seeking stakeholder feedback to be intentional about seeking, whether it's, our IHEs or whether it's Yeah. Our Alt Cert programs and the specific things and candidates that are likely to come through there and and thinking about that too.
Because to, all of our points of knowing what's coming helps for planning, and planning takes a long time. And then also, where that can be integrated. But knowing by pathway and marking that out and making sure you seek stakeholders from each of the pathways. Could not agree more. And we're really lucky that in these pilots, we've had a variety of pathways. I'm looking at Doctor. Galvan here, who's participating in both pilots her program. But yeah. So I totally agree with that. Thank you. Doctor Galvan? Thank you. Because everyone's brought up a lot of valid points.
And when we get to getting stakeholder ideas and feedback, I wanna go back to, superintendent Andrew's point of we will don't think this will be the first time of if we abbreviate it, are we then lessening the quality or the preparation when they get into schools? We need to keep in mind that reading academies is project based. It's it's got an academy leader. It's got projects. But then that candidate in that prep allotment has to earn a passing score on
the science of teaching reading. That has a written component and multiple choice. So then whatever hours have been, I don't wanna say taken out, but perhaps we go through some activities that could be or an activity or a concept that we know, like, when they get to science of teaching reading, that is a very rigorous exam, and it's more than multiple choice. It's viewing exhibits and and and responding and writing what was the strength,
what was the weakness, what activity, why is that effective, and viewing the different exhibits and trying to say, this is this is what I know will get the student back on grade level reading. So even if if some of the hours are abbreviated, it's not the quality because that candidate then is preparing for the science of teaching reading. May I say, may I say something about that? I I kind of stopped on the point because, you know, you mentioned that it wasn't about the number of hours,
and my mind was immediately, like, right. It was about this is all excellent, and this is how many hours it takes. And I also was thinking about there's no one busier than our teachers. And some of them have been teaching for twenty years, and they had to stop and do the sixty hours. So then I'm thinking a rookie student is gonna do less. I you know, but just because one has to suffer doesn't mean they all have to set. So then my brain you know, I I but I was also thinking I'm not an EPP. I mean, I am because we prepare educators, but what you guys are saying,
like, I don't know what you would be able to take out. But maybe an EPP is like, no. No. No. No. We'd love to take all of our reading stuff out because if this is actually gonna prepare them. But I I do still kinda have a pause on shrinking the sixty hours because it's not about the hours. You know, when we were given reading academies, they're like, every single minute is super important, and we can't slim this down. Because I would have loved for it to be slimmed down for our school district because it was a heavy load. So but I like, again, I don't wanna just then pass that heavy load to someone else because we had to do it.
So I'm just trying to really think about that, and I don't know where I've landed. But you you brought up the same thing I was thinking about. Thank you for thinking hard about that. I think this is the these are the conversations that help drive our stakeholder into put and I might say also from teacher vacancy task force, we know that a well prepared teacher is likely to stay long in the retention. So, so these important these conversations are important for that piece as well. Thanks, chair Strictly. Thank you. Thank you, Bard. The last piece here when it comes to your your, authority for decisions and implementation of HB2,
is pertaining to the staff training. I think associate commissioner McLaughlin, had noted yesterday, kind of in our early part of discussion, that we would be engaging in design of not just making sure this is strong content, but that there's a company training for educator preparation programs, that bears bears to a train the trainer model where faculty will be able to step into that training, experience it as as might as they might be experiencing it as a candidate, and then engage in kind of those moments to pull back out.
Alright. I'm the teacher. I'm the instructor. What are the moves I need to make to adequately prepare my candidates and making sure, they're be able to see it from the candidate perspective and then thinking about what am I doing as the facilitator and the trainer of my candidates. So we are I will be vulnerable here and say that we are working on considerations for just exactly how that training structure will look. Knowing there are multiple strands of content training here, and there's some complexities there,
right, as Doctor. Rodriguez has pointed out. But I think related to all of this, it would include opportunities for those facilitators from programs to engage in practice and and opportunities to demonstrate proficiency in delivering content, in engaging with the the materials, that would lead to a certification process. So our proposal here is for that you would include a, guidelines around the requirements for training and certification for staff who will be delivering the
materials, and that staff must be certified to deliver those materials, in in those areas. And then this goes back to that first statutory requirement we looked at a couple of slides ago as well, designating, like, a a certification process. And then I think, like, the related piece here, we recommend also setting parameters for recertification knowing that on on some cadence, content could be developed. Right? We're gonna learn a lot of lessons, in the implementation. So there may be space to develop,
or to adjust and then make, wanna make sure that, faculty is adequately prepared for those adjustments. Doctor. Rodriguez? Thank you. Chair Streepy, can you please clarify for me what aspects of this are, statutory requirements and which ones are being to talk about to meet those statutory requirements. Of course. Let me just get this up here for a second. So the statutory requirement says that the instruction provided has that person has to be trained and receive training certification.
So we're just proposing here, like, that we would include guidelines and parameters for staff related to that training. Question. Doctor Rodriguez? Yes. I I was wondering about the certification piece. So that is a statutory requirement as well. Okay. Great question. Miss Andrews? That was my same question because that was unclear. It is that they have to be certified. Correct. Correct. Yep. Great. Yes. Associate commissioner? I need to clarify, because you all certified the candidates. Right? The whole educator certificate. We're we're using the language of certified here as in,
like, they have been certified to teach that specific Yes. Course in the preparation program. Thanks for that clarification. Tied to the certificates that you issue, but just certified for delivery of that course. So the person doesn't have to be a certified teacher in order to become certified to deliver the content? So your requirements related to preparation faculty, I have to look back at your chapter two two eight rules again, but we can follow-up on that to make sure you have clarity around access parameters
for faculty. Is that what you're looking at? I think that that's important because you can, you know, recruit a doctorate. You can recruit someone with an MBA. Is there a path for them to take the courses and then they get a certification? Are we saying it has to be you know, because sometimes you have a doctorate degree and they're like, oh, you have to go back to school and get teacher certified so you can add these certifications. So that was my question is are we sending people back to school or can they just get certified? So this would be, educator preparation program staff and faculty. So they have to meet requirements to serve as a faculty or staff member already
within your rule. So, I I don't believe they do not have to hold the Texas, certificate. I do believe there's other parameters though that they ask me. But this is this is not for the teacher candidates themselves. These are for the folks who lead the preparation program. Great. Thank you for that clarification. Great. All right. Well, I'm going to move us forward. We've got one more section, Board. Thank you for bearing with us through, this robust conversation. Our final area centers on approval of those routes to participate, to offer the prep route. I'm sorry,
approval of programs to offer the prep route. So we're gonna just walk through, the proposed approach to review and approval and eligibility. And again, I may have skipped a slide here, but there I'll put this slide on. No. Okay. It is statutorily required, of course, that that programs, are approved to offer these routes. So I'm gonna start off with this the first two columns here around the interim and full approval. So imagine we've talked about some of these training requirements. We talked about at length yesterday around other requirements for the prep route,
digging deep into that preservice alt cert prep route as well. So, having talked through these requirements and pieces, for each each preparation route that is a prep route, programs would make those adjustments necessary to offer the prep route and then submit an application with evidence of how they're addressing those requirements. Board, I would reference this akin to the process you have in place right now for your residency approval where programs make the make the make clear in their application how
they're meeting their requirements, submit it, and the agency will oversee that review of those submitted applications, check for that alignment with those requirements, and then make a recommendation to you for approval. So that would be a desk review of sorts. Right? We're looking at paper. We're looking at, artifacts, and we're looking at an application. We're not necessarily seeing the work in practice yet. Right? So for full approval, the proposal is that review of EP the EPP's implementation of these requirements would occur
in their continuing approval review. Keep foreshadowing this item 15 but we're going to talk a little bit about your redesign continuing approval review and your review will include those quality components, review for quality components so be you'd be able to review the quality of implementation of those requirements as well as certain areas for compliance. Right? So during that time, they would be reviewed in their continuing approval review process. And not as a spoiler alert, but the continuing approval review will center review of quality of coursework and training,
and would be able to, review for the coursework integration across across the program's degree plans for per candidates and then also, pertaining to ensuring that it's meeting strong candidate performance and outcomes as observed. So I'll pause there. So I think with the full approval, we're recommending integrating it into this redesigned approach. We think it's a we believe that this would be a streamlined manner in which to be able to review, but you're already doing the work to have this high quality quality review process.
So we think it is probably the most streamlined approach versus including an additional subsequent review within a year, just may not be as tenable for programs to manage that. But open to your, your feedback here around this interim and full approval before we take a look at this initial and ongoing eligibility piece. Doctor Rodriguez? Just just a quick question on programs that are already approved to offer the residency Yeah. Enhanced certificate. Will those programs also be required to seek an interim approval for PrEP?
The PrEP program? Yes. Yeah. That's great. Yes. So and then I think but the good news is, doctor Rodriguez, the majority of what is required in statute for the residency route, your programs have been approved for most like, those concepts, the thing you're you'd be adding would be the content. So it would be a less less involved I know I know that application was very involved. So a little bit of a less involved process for programs who are already approved for residency, and that's a really important consideration. I'm like looking at William over here.
We'll take into mind, you know, in in in supporting the design of that approval process. Associate commissioner? One additional thing I would name there. As we talked about in July, residency programs will be eligible for the prep allotment beginning in 2627, so in the next academic year. You know, we've been talking about the fact that this is gonna take a little bit of time to get this up and running. There is a specific provision in statute that creates a carve out for residency programs that says that they can begin to draw down the prep allotment before they've implemented
the new content requirements, which is, as Melissa said, the lion's share of what the interim and full approval will be looking for. So, an a residency program does not need to go through this interim approval process prior to the twenty six, twenty seven year. We know there's gonna be a runway in your rules for transition and implementation. So prep, residencies will qualify next year. But, any program who wants to qualify subsequent to that would need to go through the interim and full approval, to verify that they're offering the content. Thank you.
That's a great clarification. Thank Thank you for the question. Yes. Mister Gore. This is kinda going back to the the incorporation of science of reading in the prep programs. What is the a typical three hour class doesn't meet for sixty hours. Right? So is it can I mean, just a practical question? Can is there a forty five hour program that can deliver that quality of instruction that would fit the typical three hour? Yes. That's the right way to Well, that's a good point, mister Gore,
because, Maryland, forty five hours. Right? A a three hour college course is equivalent to forty five hours of training, and that's how we do the math. So I like that suggestion. You should do that for You know what? You said you should do that for everybody. Makes you wonder why. Thank you. I was wondering, along those same lines about the gates within STR, whether those could then be classroom assignments as opposed to, something that has to go through a third party. I don't know how those gates work. Are you referring to the within the reading academies,
the kind of artifacts that are submitted? I think that that's that's part of what we're we're really trying to consider in the design. I think there's a there's a real benefit to those performance tasks being centrally graded. I think in our pilot works of our communities, there might be some logistical challenges. So, that's certainly a topic that we, I wanna be able to figure. Well, I was wondering, particularly for IITs who have, you know, typically have research people there to look at those. The other question I had about those was for our EPPs that are watching or
or go back and look at this. How I I know you've mentioned pilot several times. How will they know and perhaps want to be involved in a pilot? Great. We had we had previously, communicated and worked with some interested, programs for, like, previous pilots. But, Shirdreet, Streep, are you referring to, like, engaging in, like, initial training around this content? Well, it Building awareness there? Yeah. Well, what it occurred to me that, there's so many pieces of this puzzle and and you're Yeah. Trying to run pilots, but then to, when doctor Rodriguez was and doctor Galvan were talking,
how said being intentional about getting different ones along the same pathways, but then also allowing people around the state who are now stepping into, all of this work, how they might become, one of the pilots. Is there something that you could put in our Ed Prep newsletter that Absolutely. Yes. Someone's interested so that it's available to the program across the state. Exactly. And I think I think that's right. And then I think also and I don't wanna over commit here, on on, you know, on the record here, but, like, there I think there's a lot of opportunities to think about as these are developed,
how we're strategically engaging with strategically engaging with educator preparation programs in the development process. That's a very vague vague statement right now, but I'm thinking about ways that we can, be really intentional around that. And I know I know you can't take everyone that that might be interested, so I'm not trying to put you in a box on that, but that you that it gives you a source of tracking different pathways and the Yeah. If you're involved with each of those. And and then in terms of, like, training, we are proposing in and this will get we'll get to this in,
like, a slide, I think. I think. I think we're almost there. You know, we are proposing to provide broad training to programs in 2627 in preparation for the 2728 school year as well. So, we'll have further details around that shortly as well. I've I've just had several questions about the piloting. So Yeah. Reminded me about that. Thank you. Great. Alrighty. I can move us to this third column here, and I think this is one more important piece for you to consider. So for initial approval,
we're proposing the following, that EBPs must be accredited to initially apply to offer this prep route. The thinking here is that and, again, going back to our continuing approval review. EVPs who are below that accredited status would actually engage in that quality that ex potentially, that expedited quality review pending your policy decisions. Right? And focus on the foundations first before engaging in this preservice partnership program. And I know we've talked to this is a it's a rigorous level of engagement
here. So that was our that's our first piece here. The second piece is once in the partnership program, if an EBP and I'll explain a little background on this after I make this statement, but, who fails to meet program goals related to the partnership or the prep allotment, so there'll be a set of goals, they may become ineligible to offer a prep program. Yesterday, we talked a little bit about how running side by side with your work or to establish rules for the routes,
commissioner rule making is occurring to set requirements for the prep partnership program. So the application, the approval, what continuing approval may look like, and within that work, also establishing goals and standards that must be met for each of those individual programs. So what we're proposing here is that, for example, in the residency program, if, the program is not meeting those residency goals, like candidates are not getting certified, for example, as, like, a concrete example. Does it become ineligible to offer potentially offer that program as a partner,
with that district? So it's, like, two separate things here. Would be would be open to hear board any of your feedback around either of those of those areas. Yeah. Do you have a threshold, miss Andrews? Sorry. Do you have a like, what you're thinking about that? Regarding, like, failing to meet the program goals? Right. That's a great question. I think we are going to take some time to understand and, like, set some benchmarks and parameters, in the initial implementation. It's an excellent question. Doctor Rodriguez? So you mentioned, an example of a program goal,
the candidate earning certification at the end, so being fully certified. What are other examples of program goals? Great. So these are also underway, and we we just received some great feedback from some stakeholders on on these things. But some of the goals may be meeting some of the requirements within, within, like, within the program requirements as well. So, for example, if we have a set of requirements pertaining to, like, partnership practices, If if your program was not, like, supporting with I don't know,
in what world this would happen, but it's not committing to, like, the governance structures, data analysis, those types of things. Like, if we're not meeting those goals, you know, there could be there could be repercussions there. And then, I think but I think, like, the big one of the big things we're thinking about is, like, candidates getting certified as, like, an outcome goal, from that program. Doctor Rodriguez. Thank you for that clarification. So a follow-up question here. These will be partnerships. Correct. And in being successful in in completing all of the governance meetings,
for example, just just using that particular example that you gave will require the the participation collaboration from both the EPP as well as the school district. So in the in the language that I see here, I only see EPPs who fail to meet program goals may become ineligible. But my question is, what about the school district? Great question. Will do they remain eligible So For for the funding, they just need to look for a different partner. But how are we going to make sure that we get down to why a
particular program goal was not met? No. I think that's that's right, doctor Rodriguez. And what we're also looking at in this process is there's it's about it is about the partnership. So if a district is not meeting those priority goals, right, there are there's also, like, a there's going to be requirements around. Do you remain eligible right to participate in this program. Now, if I have an EPP partner who is incredibly strong, candidates are getting certified, things are going really well. And I have another partner, who maybe who maybe is not working with me in that capacity,
I could make I could also make the decision as a district that I'm gonna pursue continue to pursue partnership with program a versus program b as well. Doctor Rodriguez. Would the EPP have the same ability? Because, there could be instances in which a school district may may not be allowing the the residents to be in the classrooms, to meet the required number of hours, for example, or all sorts of scenarios that we could imagine that could impact,
candidates meeting the the requirements. Absolutely. And I think what you're pointing out is the importance of that partnership agreement piece that we had talked about before and having systems to monitor that and make sure that those things are happening. But I think, you know, any p p p could very well have that same consideration around that partnership if we're not meeting that requirement. Excuse me. Deputy commissioner? And I think one helpful, clarification here is that it's under the SBEC's authority to approve the programs.
And so then it would be under your authority to also review and decide which programs get to continue to provide these routes. But it's under the commissioner's authority to approve the partnerships. So, I think at the same type of consideration will be, for the districts on the is the partnership itself meeting the outcomes? And if not, partnerships between the EPP and the district could be revoked. So, so I think there's, like, accountability on both. And I think this partnership is,
like, that is a willing agreement between the program and the district. So it's only as good as both partners continuing to agree to do that together. So at any point, the program could say, district's not leaving, like, living up to their agreement. We're not gonna continue to this partnership, and the district could do the same. The other interesting thing about the the prep allotment is that it it has success based funding. So there is, like, inherent, incentive in the allotment itself for both partners to get to the success of the
candidate. Because if not, they won't get the second part of the allotment payments. So, again, that will make sure both partners are coming to the table both to, like, keep being able to be funded and because they are you know, in order to actually get that funding, they need to get all the way to the success of that candidate. Yeah. This reminds me at some level about, closure procedures and that if there is a partnership that's dissolving, how we support those candidates through that, just if it does dissolve. Doctor Gavon.
Thank you. I would like to go back and and elaborate more, because doctor Rodriguez brought up a wonderful point as to you. How can we do this? Let's fast forward. The program is approved. The accountability will be very multifaceted because the program will still have to maintain that accountability with ASAP and then the success or the prep allotment and then evaluating the the collaborative
part and the partnership part. So it's very, very multifaceted because you're viewing it from the lens of, okay, program. You've gotta keep that accountability. You've gotta have those fast rates. You've gotta meet that accountability and not be under the below accredited. And then the success of the program and the candidates, and then the success. So to what level of proficiency are we gonna look at? And to make sure we keep it the whole is not fragmented,
but that we view the accountability in a very multifaceted manner. And and what is the weight gonna be? Because is accountability of the program more important. And if we don't do well, if a program x y z program doesn't do well with the partnership, that it not impact their accountability rating. So it's kind of keeping it unified towards the goal, but in a separate data compartment that measures a whole different component.
And that will be a lot of of work and and a lot of thinking too. Thank you. Great. Yes. Miss Andrews? The other caveat here, you guys mentioned school districts and then you mentioned EPPs. And I I'm not sure, you know, that it's not the exact same process of enrolling in a university than maybe, you know, trying to get into Texas teachers or something like that. Like, you're already on the pathway, and we just need to add the certification. But I'm just wondering too because sometimes it may be the candidate. I don't wanna show up.
I don't wanna do the work. And and so my question to the EPPs is is does this raise the stakes where, like, it's actually a harder process to get in because, you know, we are trying to recruit the best of the best. And if this candidate is going to put my EPP on the line, then maybe I don't accept you. And so I I don't that that because that's another third caveat, but I I'm not sure that, that you guys would be able to control the candidates coming in, but it does put pressure on the EPPs of, okay, there needs to be the standard because that's across every university.
Like, to get into this program, you have to have the scores and you have to have the want to and maybe there's an interview. And so it may raise the caliber, you know, where the EPPs aren't just accepting everybody, but let's get the best, teachers in Texas. So it it it could do a third thing that we're not, you know, talking about. Yeah. Because I can see the candidates also getting the EPPs in trouble, but then it puts the pressure on the EPP to maybe just not accept everybody. Like, we're looking for the best in Texas. Thank you for that. And, actually, that's a great segue into one of your next items. That was beautifully put because it's a perfect segue into your Chapter two twenty seven
item that's I think it's next. So I think we'll we should hold that thought there and then, we'll engage in that discussion. Thank you for that. Ford, thank you for this discussion today. I was going to close us out here. We've talked a lot about a lot of decision points, and I'm sure your minds are racing with, gosh, like, this is impacting our current two two eight in many ways. You know, we're gonna have to have a lot of considerations for implementation timelines, how things interact. I heard a lot of that coming out today, and I made some additional notes of things that I was like, I hadn't even, like, thought about that yet.
So I did wanna just ground us in, like, just some big bucket, high level implementation timelines, and then propose a next step. So just high level in 2526 this year, which we're already in. So right now, the application for the prep allotment will launch in just a few short weeks, so that those residency, grow your own, and mentorship programs, partnerships may apply, to implement in the 2627 school year. During this year too, and I think I already nodded towards this,
we're on a timeline to develop that training content we discussed as well as your review the proposed review and approval process for those prep routes. So lots of work there as well. And then, of course, alongside all of these these other these related deliverables, we have the rulemaking for the commissioner of education rules, which we talked about that those in force the program and the partnership programs and the allotment requirements. And then your aspect rulemaking pertaining to your requirements for educator preparation, and certification and admissions.
Coming into twenty six-twenty seven, this is a big year. Prep allotment launches. So, we'll have those first grow your own residency and mentorship programs implementing, LEAs or districts will be able to apply for the 2728 allotment to occur the following year. And then this is the year we we are looking to conduct that content training for programs and then also, conduct that that initial approval for participation in to offer this the prep routes.
Excuse me. And then in 2728, we have the second year of implementation of that allotment. And now, we have all of our partnership programs implementing. It's a big year. And then, the annual, allotment application would continue year over year from there. Programs would be implementing that training content, and and the other prep requirements as they're supporting candidate preparation and working in their partnerships. And finally, that redesigned continuing approval review would be able to be begin to be leveraged to
look for some of those on-site, quality review of, those allotment requirements. In addition to the other requirements we talked about as well. And then I think, like, in terms of next steps, there are a lot of different timelines at play. So we, as we've discussed already, we're going to be engaging with stakeholders on a number of topics, including, transition language to transition from our current chapter your your current chapter two two eight requirements to these redesign, the redesigned requirements that would come out of your rulemaking. That's it. Other questions from our board?
Can't imagine, but you never know. I'm sure you'll have some more by the time you think of it, by the time you get home tonight, probably. Melissa, thank you so much for all your on that. We sure appreciate it. Thank you all for all of your thinking and and questions. It's helped us tremendously already. So appreciate it. Terrific. Ward, it's 10:13. We're gonna take a ten minute break, and we'll come back for, the next item. Thank you. 10:25AM, and we are ready for item 13. Good morning, miss Harris. Good morning, board. I, thank you again for hanging in there with us for 228,
and I promise you that 227 will be very brief. Okay. So the chapter two two seven is the chapter that contains, your admission rules. This chapter has two subchapters. One of them is, subchapter a, which is your admission rules. The other is subchapter b, which contains information about the preliminary criminal history evaluation. And initially, when we were putting this item together, we thought there may be some talking points for sub b, but there aren't. So I'm just gonna talk about subchapter a for now,
and we're not gonna be talking about subchapter b because we decided there probably isn't anything we need to really go over for that. So okay. So just to kind of center us let me keep clicking through so I get all these little like this graphic, but I gotta do a lot of clicks to get where I need to be. Okay. Here we are. So just to kinda center us on what we're doing again, Chapter two two seven and chapter two two and chapter two thirty, as I alluded to yesterday, are walking through the HB two update process hand in hand, with chapter two twenty eight.
So it's two two eight, two two seven, and two thirty because those chapters are all related, and the revisions related to house bill two are gonna be sort of hand holding, as we go through. So I just wanted to kinda have you keep that in mind, and then fantastic, Marilyn Cook is gonna talk to you about 02:30 in just a moment. Okay. So this the the probable revisions to the admission rules for EPPs in subchapter a, we know that we're going to be having to update some definitions in that subchapter
to reflect some of the new updates that are coming from house bill two. And so there's really no need to kind of go over those because we're gonna be updating those across all of these chapters, so you'll be seeing those. Also, we have been doing some thinking about how well aligned our definitions are across all of our chapters. And so as we're looking at those, we may do a a quick inspection and maybe try to update some of those definitions so that they align across all chapters, maybe not necessarily those related to h p two. So you might be seeing some of those coming back,
for discussion in December. So in terms of the admission requirements for teacher programs, this is where we expect to see some potential tweaks to some of the rules in 02/27, because of the house bill two updates. So we're mainly gonna be refining some rules, that are impacted by the HB two updates. So, for example, there may be a rule about a traditional program, an admission requirement about a traditional program. Well, because of the way we're looking at traditional programs, they're no longer just including undergraduate candidates.
They're now including what we used to call post back candidates as well. So we're gonna have to tweak those rules so that they make sense for all teacher candidates in university based programs, that might be pursuing a bachelor's degree or a master's degree concurrent with teacher certification. So those are the kind of minor cosmetic updates we expect to see in 02/27 in alignment with the new route designations, etcetera, in 02/28. And then the in 02/27, there is also an implementation, section. And so you saw that, Melissa showed you some of the implementation dates potentially at the end of her,
02/28 presentation that she just did. And so I expect that we will dovetail that implementation dates and runway in 02/27 to meet what we're going to be doing in 02/28. So, again, just lock stepping what's happening in 02/27 with what's going on in 02/28. There is one potential decision point with 02/27 that I wanted to address with you today and get your feedback on, and that is around the statutory language in twenty one dot zero four four two two,
and I put it up there even though it's kinda small to see. And this is around an admission requirement for residency programs. And so what this one says is in proposing rules for a teacher residency preparation route, the board must require the program use research based best practices for recruiting and admitting candidates into the program. And so what I wanted to do was just level set with you now and see if there's anything you wanted to do to these your current admission requirements that you think we need to,
update to meet this this statutory language. So for comparison, your current basic admission requirements for teacher candidates are that they must have, at minimum, a GPA of 2.5 or higher. If they're, if they're not pursuing a bachelor's degree, then they must have a bachelor's degree. And then subject specific coursework hours, as, Jessica mentioned yesterday, you do have a minimum subject specific coursework hour requirement on admission transcripts that candidates
have or applicants to your program have to have a minimum of 12 semester credit hours in the subject area of the certificate they wanna pursue, and that requirement is fifteen hours if fifteen hours of college credit on their transcript if they're pursuing math or science at the secondary level. Or if they don't have that and they wanna pursue a subject area that they don't have hours on their college transcript for, they can take the preadmission content test, and if they achieve a passing score that meets the requirement for, content knowledge.
Additionally, there's a basic skills requirement. There's also an English language proficiency requirement that we actually import from two thirty, which is actually a requirement for standard certification. But we we put it in the admission rules just to make sure candidates, you know, can meet that requirement. And then there is also a screen required. And right now, that language is that applicants must participate in an interview or other screening instrument, to demonstrate whether the applicant's knowledge, experience, skills, and aptitude are appropriate for the certifications sought.
So across EPP world, those admission screens look very different depending upon the EPP and what they're trying to uncover about their candidate's disposition to be, a a teacher in the certificate area they wanna pursue. So those are the, minimum requirements that you have already in your rules. And so thinking about the statutory language there, I actually gave us a jumping off point. I went to your effective preparation framework that was adopted recently. And in lever two, there are a couple of essential actions that we might want to consider in terms
of of the language if we wanna update any of these. And so, in those essential actions, there there are admission and recruitment selection language. One of them says EPP recruits and selects based on a set of normed criteria using multiple measures. And then the other one is the EPP offers counseling and support for candidates to consider areas of need for their partner LEAs when they're being admitted. So, what, what we're seeking now from you is, is there anything you you think we should be updating to meet that language in
twenty one dot o four four two, 02/02? And there's some suggestions right there from your effective preparation framework. So any comments that you have, we would appreciate. Mister Gore. I'm wondering what at what point the two two five GPA came in, and I'm assuming it was it's been in statute for a considerable period of time. And I don't know that, this has been evaluated. But in general, at the college level, there's been a significant amount of grade inflation. And I I you know,
this would be up to the EPPs, but, you know, in in my business hiring, I'm, you know, it's a three, four cutoff unless they have an exceptional, and we're taking care of plants. We're not taking care of children. But I just wanted just raising the question, you know, EPPs obviously can screen higher than that. Do some of them is you know, I I just raised that question if we've looked anytime recently about the idea that, if somebody with a 2.5 GPA is going to be as the level of subject matter expertise that we would
want in our classrooms. At the same time, I understand we are dealing with challenges in staffing and shortages and enough conventionally prepared through EPP programs and so we don't want to put additional restrictions on. So, not advocating for anything, just reflection and perhaps looking into it more deeply. MS. Andrews? And, again, we're talking everybody keeps making this clarification is that these are for the programs that there's funding connected to this, right, for this residency. And that was my same thought when I saw that GPA. I was like, oh. And then I was like,
okay. There's a teacher shortage, but then all of this legislation is supposed to be to do the high caliber. And if there's funding connected to it, then I think we need to bump it up because it's like, you know, you can be in these other programs, but if you want to be in the program that's funded, then it's a little bit more rigorous and you want the the the best of the best in those programs that you're funding. Let me just clarify. It says, requirements for residency programs. So is this for all residency programs or just the prep allotment residency programs?
So my understanding is that residency was going to be a prep funded. Yes. Oh, all of the residencies are going to prep funded. Good point. Thank you. And then, well, go ahead with Saffron. I concur with both, both of the board members on the, the GPA standards. Again, we were just talking about, previously about the quality of our teachers and everything. So if we're going to require a, you know, a c average or c plus average, I mean, I think at least a 2.7, which would, you know, be equivalent to a b minus,
you know, especially if it's going to be funded by, you know, by the state governments, we should at least bump that up. You know, why are we giving them money if we want, we wanna increase the standards of our teachers? Well, and I do wanna remind everyone that, through the residency program, as it stands now, we had such debates over this in the last years. They're not required they have gates for proficiency rather than taking the pedagogy test. So they do take their content test. Correct me if I'm wrong.
They take a content test, but the gates suffice instead of their pedagogy test. So I think that's one reason for that as well. Doctor Rodriguez, then deputy commissioner. Thank you, chair Stripe. The language in statute calls for research based best practices. So my recommendation is that we look at research studies and what they show about, what are those conditions that lead to teacher effectiveness, and then we we take it from there.
There's excellent, research being conducted out of Texas Tech and Texas State and other, you know, focusing on on teacher effectiveness. And so maybe that's a starting point. K. Okay. Deputy commissioner. Thank you, chair Stripey. I was gonna say something similar. My memory of this research, which I haven't looked at more recently, is that there isn't a statistically significant correlation between GPA and teacher effectiveness. So I think, like, philosophically, I agree that we should be, like,
raising the bar for, you know, who we want to become a teacher. But when we actually look at, like, what are the predictors of teacher effectiveness, it tends to not be GPA. So, so I feel like there may be just a bit of a, like, philosophical kind of, like, what are we pointing towards in terms of who we think should be teachers versus the, like, you know, what actually predicts teacher effectiveness tends to be those, like, practices in the classroom and being able to meet these performance gates, and actually demonstrate effectiveness versus, like,
your GPA in college classrooms. And so, you know, I do think it's probably something helpful for us to take a look at and maybe and it's possible Texas Tech has, you know, proven me wrong by this point. So who knows? Thank you. Additional comments? Yes. Doctor McFarland? So so I would agree. I I just would need a little bit more information on on, like, these requirements to know whether they're good or bad or whatever. I I I just don't have enough information to to to really to really change a current requirement unless it's clear like,
we have clear evidence that it that it needs to increase. I'm all for that. I don't know that we have that right now. Thank you. I was wondering what the basic skills entail. Gotcha. The basic skills are part of the, Texas Success Initiative, in the, chapters four and seven, I think, intact. And that's just that candidates, have to demonstrate basics they have basic skills before they're admitted into a an EPP, and those are based on the basic skills determinations that the universities use for incoming
students. And they're taking either the TSI assessment or they're demonstrating through coursework completed that they have the basic skills, you know, English language arts, you know, writing, reading, writing, those types of skills, math. Or they're taking remedial coursework when they enter college to demonstrate basic skills. And then also, some of the basic skills requirements allow for evidence of basic skills to be something like a degree conferred. So we have it in our list,
but most applicants, by the time they get to an EPP, have already demonstrated that because most of them are not in their freshman year of college when they're admitting into an EPP. Most of them are in their sophomore or junior year. And then, of course, for our, non teacher programs where candidates have to have a bachelor's degree to be admitted, they've all demonstrated basic skills through their bachelor's degree. Okay. So at first, when you said they're looking at basic, reading or writing and math skills, you're not saying that the teachers actually take a reading,
writing, or math, assessment of any kind? Correct. Yes. Miss Andrews. Yeah. I think maybe thinking about that, I obviously, I'd be looking for somebody else to do the research, but I did a quick hit. And, like, the first 10 things are like GPA matters, but it's very modest. They're, like, it's doesn't actually things that matter most is, like, creativity and your EQ. So I can understand that, but I also if you have to be able to teach the content. And I think, especially when you're getting in higher grades and you're, like, trying to hire an algebra teacher or,
you know, advanced math, like, those things, you wanna make sure that that candidate's able to do that. And so maybe for the the the programs, there's a proficiency test, you know, instead of highlighting the GPA. It's like, okay. Can you do the content? Because I think that's I mean, even for our aids, we will do a map test on them just to make sure that, you know, you're gonna be a good support for our teachers. So I think that that's ultimately what we're looking for is that you can do the content because then how can you teach. And so maybe if the GPA is not a reflection of that,
is there something that's happening before they get because usually that teacher certification test and everything that's after, they've already done this long year long residency or however long it would be. And it would be nice to know before we invest all the time, can they do the content? It it's similar to the conversation we had yesterday with the all cert prep is how do we get teacher know that that teacher needs help on content earlier than later, and what might that look like? Miss Saffron? Thank you, chair Streebelle.
Is there evidence based research when we're looking at, for example, like we just said, like Miss Andrews just said, with content, again, with these higher grades, anything from six six to 12, when we're looking at algebra and we're looking at, biology, chemistry, physics, all of these, higher core subjects, the content is very important. And is there a correlation between their GPA and their teaching, you know, as opposed to k through six or k through five when you're looking at more
of the classroom structure, classroom management skills, and everything like that, which is not very content based, but it's about managing the classroom. So are there two different studies? Are there or or should we be looking at different studies when it comes to content, for higher grade levels as opposed to elementary or, you know, early middle school, from k through six. Okay. Mhmm. Yeah. I think, to your point, miss Andrews, that the idea that it's what a elementary teacher might need in EQ, a secondary teacher might need in content,
you know, they all need content. But, but trying to decide what those might look like research based, but secondary versus elementary. The other thing I was thinking about is this person will be in a classroom with someone else, Whereas our, alt cert, pre service alt cert, that person is moving into a classroom and, knowing how to support them in content. This person will have a teacher with them who will know that they need content help likely from just working with them. But I wonder about the preservice ulcer not to to get us off,
but being in there by themselves. But, yes, miss doctor Galvan. Thank you, Chair Street. The question regarding GPA, is that overall GPA or the last sixty hours, or is it overall? Good question. It's it's currently, the rules allow for either. So so your rules identify that a candidate must an applicant to an EPP must have a 2.5 o overall coursework completed or in the last sixty hours of coursework completed. And there's no like,
you don't have to commit to one thing and use it across all applicants. You can use it when you evaluate a an applicant's transcript. You can look at it both ways and see which way works out in favor of the applicant. So there's no restrictions on how to uniformly use that. Thank you. GPA is something that is always a very interesting topic, for programs and universities. You both brought up outstanding points regarding GPA, but we also have to go back to they've gotta pass a content exam.
And sometimes with GPA, they were young. They went through some challenges. They didn't make the best decisions, and they can't go back and and hide that GPA. So that's where the overall 60, maybe they were more mature than when they had a a lapse in time. But sometimes they complete with a 2.5, but it's been my experience that they study for that content exam, and they learn a lot during that. The content exams are very rigorous,
especially seven twelve. So do we say we don't wanna exclude, but the next hurdle if that GPA remains at two four point five is they've gotta pass the content. So that's probably a more current snapshot of where they are now than they were when they were 20 and 25. Right. It could be that they're working in, you know, business or, that a math centric job that pushed them along that continuum.
Oh, I'm sorry. Sorry. Last comment. Are we looking at an either or for GPA, or is it just basically, the GPA or the passing of a content? What I'm thinking is that we could possibly, think that a higher lower GPA, higher content score, on the exam or vice versa. So that's a good question. Right now in rule, there is an allowance for someone who has a GPA below a 2.5, allows the EPP to admit up to 10% of their annual cohort with a GPA below 2.5.
Passing a a subject specific content test is one of the three requirements that have to be met to admit somebody with a GPA below 2.5. So you're that's in the statute, so that's also in your in your rules. I think overall, what I'm hearing is, could you bring us back research based and let's compare against against those, yes, associate commissioner? I think the other thing I'm hearing, because we're talking about two different types of content tests. So we have what we call the pre admission content test. That's content only.
That's a test as Laurie named as in statute that someone may be required if they have a lower GPA or a program also can set local requirements to have someone pass that content only test as a condition for admission into the program. Separately, you all have your content pedagogy certification exams, and those are are administered while a candidate is already enrolled in the program, and is, you know, one of your benchmarks to achieve standard certification. So I think there's something interesting here to think about.
What is the standard or bar to allow someone to be admitted into a program, versus the standard or bar that we would hold for someone to be able to then, matriculate into their clinical experience in a residency or become a teacher of record. So there's sort of multiple checkpoints along a teacher candidate's journey, and I think it's probably helpful for us. I know we're talking about this specifically in the context of admissions requirements, but it's probably helpful for us to think about some of this as we go forward and we'll bring back some examples of kind of the entire journey of an
educator towards standard certification and what are those specific checkpoints kind of along that full way from admission all the way to certification. Yeah. And and not we we don't have to change them. So let's think that through too as far as streamlining things for our EPPs and not changing what we don't have to change. But, but it's a it's open and it's a good opportunity for us to consider those. So we appreciate it. Alright. We're considering, you know, is there anything we need to do to meet this? If we meet it, then we don't have to change. I think I think knowing what the competencies are that are most impactful.
Okay. Let's make that. Thank you. We can do that. Thank you. Okay. So, moving forward then, just to note, you will see some additional, tweaks to your formal and contingency admission rules also when we bring two two seven back for you. There's not any real potential decision points here as of now. These are mainly just to realign with the different changes in the routes that are coming along. And so we're we're gonna go ahead and refine those as well. And, if there are any changes that come up,
we'll be looking to stakeholders to get some feedback on those before we bring that back to you, for another discussion. Okay. So I don't think there's any public testimony. Thank you, miss Ayers. Any other final comments? They don't have to be final, but any other comments from the board? Yes. Doctor Rodriguez. Just, for my own understanding, Laurie, on on slide 81, I see clarification of formal admission for university based traditional programs. Please correct me if I'm wrong. I think right now, we only have one set of admissions requirements,
and then ACPs and university based apply those. Right? What what do we mean by clarification of formal admission specifically for university based traditional programs? Right. So, for example, for university based programs, the traditional route now will include your undergrad and your post bacs. The undergrads are pursuing a bachelor's degree. The post bacs are coming in, presumably, with one already. So the those routes are called out in different ways in these rules, and they need to be collapsed together and the rules adjusted so that they reflect
what makes sense for now folks coming in with no bachelor's and bachelor's potentially into a traditional program. Doctor. Ido, yes. Thank you so much for that. Laurie, that's one thing that I appreciate clarification on. Can you tell us more about this change of, post back and traditional given the the, I think it's it's due to h b two. Right? What is exactly that's changing? So the traditional route, that's resulting from h b two will be a degree seek a a teacher candidate
who's seeking a degree concurrent with teacher certification. So that could be a a bachelor's degree initially or it could be a master's degree. So currently, as we defined earlier in 02/28, you have a an undergraduate program, which is what we've been calling traditional, and then you have a postbac program. So right now, there are rules around folks being admitted into post bacs have to have a bachelor's degree conferred. And so but now for admission into a traditional program, we we have to figure out how to word that because you've got people coming into the traditional program now,
some without a bachelor's degree conferred and some with a bachelor's degree conferred, depending upon what degree they're pursuing, and it's all one route. So these really are just cosmetic shifts in how the rules are worded so that we don't write rules that exclude somebody by mistake that's supposed to be in that route just because of the degree they may or may not have. Thank you for that. I think that's a very important change for institutions of higher education. Okay. And I would like to know if there are any implications for these candidates regarding
eligibility for intern certificates. In my mind, a postbac program can be designed to allow a candidate at the end of of the preparation to be eligible for an intern certificate and become a teacher of record. That is not an option at the undergraduate level. Is there and and so how is this change going to impact that particular piece is is something that I'm becoming
curious about. That's a really good question. And so just for clarification, currently, because postbac candidates have a bachelor's degree when they're processing through their their master earning their master's degree in concurrent with teacher certification, there are postbac programs at the university, level that offer candidates the option of clinical teaching or an internship. Current undergrads pursuing a bachelor's degree can't complete an internship because it requires a bachelor's how do how do you tease out whether those candidates pursuing master's degrees within that route can
still complete an internship? That's a good question and one that we're gonna have to look at. So does that imply that we need to split that apart again, or can we not split that apart again? We can look at it. I think that's I think that's a valid question. There are multiple universities that allow internships for their post bacs. Thanks for bringing that up. Thank you for that. Anything additional? Alright. Thank you so much. Thank you, miss Sayers. Madam chair, members, I am the third will, the final in the conversation of h b two related things today,
so I'm delighted to be back at the podium. Melissa and Lori Ayers have done a phenomenal job of leading you through a lot of information related to h v two and how the three rule chapters will work together, to bring back really strong rulemaking moving forward. I can't thank them enough for everything that they did because I almost get to cheat and say ditto or I agree at certain times, with the things that they have discussed and put before you for considerations for future
rulemaking. With that said, I too have the anchor slide that I will quickly go through the animation to show the connectivity of these three chapters, two two eight, two two seven, and two thirty. And my major goal with the chapter two thirty item, this will be the place where you have the rule making that will build in the new certificates that will support, the preservice intern certificate, and anything else that we update in terms of certification issuance. Quickly on the next slide,
I've got two sets of some high level rules that will basically coordinate with anything that you update in two two seven and chapter two two eight in terms of general provisions and definitions. We've already said several times over the course of yesterday and today that where we update and make a change in one, the rest of the chapters will also include that information for consistency and clarity and make sure we have no confusion across your rule chapters. In subchapter b,
there's an opportunity that we will be proposing for the board and hope we can get your favorable support. This board, back in 2020, supported us in allowing your educational aid one certificate to be used for dual purposes. So that educational aid one certification also supports the issuance of industry based certification, to up and coming high school students who have the opportunity to gain, valuable work experience and certifications in various things,
before they graduate and can carry that learning on, into the world with their careers. Your rules for certification currently have a requirement that anyone who has issued an SBEC certification must be 18 years of age. What we would like to come back and offer for your consideration is a minor edit that would help. And up and coming, I would say, talented high school student. I'll use myself as an example from decades ago. So I come from a family of educators.
Everybody on one side of my family are all teachers or still in the education profession. But at the time when I graduated from high school, and it was my intent to also become a teacher, if I had gone through the education and training provision that was available right now, because I was 17 years of age, I would not Have been able to reap the benefit of that provision. So we see this as a golden opportunity and a good thing. I just wanted to pause for a second and make you aware of that and the rationale and just make sure I've got the question at the bottom.
For these two sections of proposed rule changes, any concerns, questions? I don't wanna squeeze you too hard for feedback because I assure you, we've got pages and pages of notes about things to do, but I just wanted to pause there for a second. Yes. Miss Glasscock? I love moving that 18 to I know from a school perspective, our kids that are in that education and training practicum, we're chasing them all. So the ones that have summer birthdays, we're chasing them through the summer to try to get them to go through the process Yes, sir. So that for our accountability with CCMR plus the benefits of the kids themselves,
and, it'll be nice to not have to spend the summer chasing kids down. Thank you. There's more with summer birthdays than you expect. Yeah. Yeah. Yes, miss Saffron. Thank you, chair. Are we looking at just 17 years old or younger than 17? Well, we we I think we need to go back. And to miss Glasscock's point, we were trying to go 17, and then we said someone's gonna come and go there's an up and coming 16 year old. So between now and before we come back, we will explore. And this basically, the request came from,
like, the example that, member Glasscock just gave. There were several districts that were starting to have to. There's 17. We want the credit for accountability purposes. We also want them to be able to be issued the credential that they've earned. But your point is well taken because the minute we put a number on there, there'll be some other up and coming rising star that might be eligible. So we will carefully look at that and consider that. No. Of course. And, I mean, because we're looking at at the emotional capability of being able to to be with children. These are all, you know, areas to look at as well.
Yes. You know, when you're 17, you know, you can say that they're closer to 18, but I would have a a I would be a little bit more hesitant as, you know, younger than 17. And then are they as an aide, are they alone with the children at any point? So this is the clarification, and we have it in the actual rules for educational aide. These individuals are just getting this for the credential. They're not gonna be in the classroom there, but there is a level. You have three levels of educational aid one. So if I literally was going to be,
an aid in a classroom, I could have a one, two, or three. So this in this instance, these high school students are not necessarily in a classroom with any other students. It is being issued to them to award as their certification. Once they come back and they have it, if that same district wanted to then employ them in that role for that purpose, they'd need to be 18 or older. Thank you. Yes, ma'am. Miss Devorek? Thank you for bringing this up. I graduated high school at 16, so it does happen. And we can be real successful after that.
So, I had a summer birthday, but I did high school in three years. So I was 16, moved to Downtown Austin, went to UT, would have loved to you know, if this would have been the opportunity to to do things like that. So thanks for considering it. It is important. Thank you. Mister Gore? In part of our expression and the time that, the commission for virtual ed, visiting some schools around the country, we found a couple examples of high school students. One, both of them, I think, as early as 16 that were working as paraprofessionals, not ever by themselves,
but working as paraprofessionals in a elementary school, earning money, doing dual credit. This one young lady was, already had as a 17 year old, had sixty four hours accepted at the University of Colorado Boulder, and was going going in as a junior as a 17 year old, and she'd earned $15,000 as a paraprofessional, and maintained a three nine GPA. So, you know, there are there are those exceptional students that have a vision for what they wanna do.
So she's I think, as of next year, the 19 year old will have, you know, have finished her education degree at the University of Colorado Boulder. So I, my encouragement would be with, you know, to to not be arbitrary on the age and to leave it up. My my assumption is any LEA is not going to, you know, ask someone to do that if they don't think they're emotionally, socially and intellectually mature enough to do this do the job and do it well. Miss Weir. I just wanna say thank you,
miss Glasscock, for bringing this up. And, in this particular situation, most of the time, it is a CTE student, and they're in the teaching internship program. And as a part of that requirement, whether they're in the level three or level four course, it is required for them to take an IBC certificate. And that also goes back to helping with the rating of the school to qualify for CCMR. And I have seen that we do have 17 and 18 year olds,
you know, because they are juniors and seniors, which the goal is, I believe, majority of them are at least 17. And I think if we can have some leeway on that, that will help all parties, the students at least to graduate with the certification. Maybe they don't meet the demand of the employer, where they may request them to be 18. But at least they have that certification and are ready to go, and I believe that's the goal. So making some of these these minor changes helps the CCMR readiness.
It helps the students who are graduating and are pursuing, something in the educational, pathway so that we can get them interested in becoming teachers. Thank you. Miss Weir, do you have a feel for, 15 year olds, 16 year olds? My experience has been in talking with some colleagues who actually teach this course. I do not see 15 year olds in taking that class. If so, I would say it's maybe 10%, whereas we're not capturing those that the other,
90% who are in that level three and level four course. Yeah. Okay. Because the way the pathway works is level one. There's, like, principles of education, then there's a level four CT course. And, miss Cook, could you tell us the difference between an educational aid one, two, and three such that they would be getting their one? So the the high school from the high school perspective side, we left it at one based on recommendations. From the I'm an aide,
the regular path, it varies because the district also can add the additional responsibilities going in reverse order, the three, which is the highest level of your educational aid is someone that the teacher would feel pretty confident with assisting with things in the classroom more so as opposed to if you go back to the one, might be the person who is in the classroom as support, helps get the kids transition from one class to another. And then I think for the special ed aids,
some of which I have in my family, they're usually twos or threes that are also more hands on with the student. So your rules in subchapter e, which we aren't talking about today, you give some examples of the varying levels, but the employing district also has the ability to sort of further streamline for their needs what they want aids at the various levels to do. But it but it sends the message that it's a one to the end. So I appreciate that. Super. Thank you. You're welcome. And I appreciate all the feedback.
That's super helpful for this part. My last part of changes on subchapter d go back. We talked a lot yesterday, in the conversation about the new intern with preservice alternative certification route. We're gonna be excited about the opportunity to build out more of those components and requirements in chapter two two eight. And then also in in thinking about the admission requirements that would align with that in two two seven. So the updates then in the two thirty item will mirror what needs to happen
to issue the certification. So as we're talking about what are the program offerings, what do you need to do, and how much do you need to have done at the point to be issued a certificate, that's what we'll be bringing back. So I don't have a lot of details here. On the slide, though, we know for sure legislation has required that that intern with preservice be one year, and then we'll be creating all of the rules that go with it. And, also, we have the opportunity now to explore further the current intern certificate and any additional
updates to that process. We'll get stakeholder engagement and come back and, I think, have a more robust conversation in December. The the tagline and the consistent story here is what we do in 02/28 will certainly influence the work in 02/27 and 02/30. We're gonna tell a consistent story. We're gonna be clear and make sure that we don't confuse anyone. So, again, I have at the bottom the do you have any other questions, concerns, guidance about this? I know you want us to do our due diligence with stakeholder engagement, make sure we're clear,
and bring you back more details in December. But I would pause and be quiet for a second if there's any additional feedback. If not, I wrote two things about y'all, and then I'm gonna go take my seat because you've got a lot to do before you. But usually, as I'm sitting here and listen to a lot of great conversation and and feedback, You all so I I was hungry when I was writing this too, so I will ask for forgiveness ahead of time. I said if if two two eight is the great gumbo and 227 is the
rich roux, Then two thirty is the special seasonings that keeps you wanting to come back for more. You culinary geniuses are leading the design of a solid recipe for something delicious that's going to explode in the world of education. So I just wanted to say thank you as always for all the feedback and the guidance. It is a privilege to work for this board and all the talented folks here. And so thank you for your time today and feedback. Thank you, miss Cook. We sure appreciate you. Board,
it's 11:13AM. We're going to take a ten minute break and come back at 11:25. And we have miss McCain. Hello, board. We have a late registering for public comment on item three. As a reminder from yesterday, these are items that are not posted on your agenda. And if board needs to go offline with any of the staff, we will take these things offline. We will follow-up with individuals. And if we need an item at a further agenda, the chair will instruct us to do so. You will have three minutes. Once you hear the alarm, that is a full stop on your time today.
Okay. Greetings to the board. My name is Christie Cummings. I'm here today from Dallas, Texas. I will be speaking on accountability system for EPP procedures. Oh, nervous. I'm going into my seventh year as a science teacher. I've taught biology, chemistry, physics, and middle school science. The last three years consecutively, I've improved my students' academic growth, and they perform well on standardized tests, which includes a star. I have attached my most recent data from my last school where I taught ninth grade biology along with my summative assessment and received several accomplished marks and one distinguished mark from my principal.
My biology EOC star scores were among the highest on my campus last year. My student showed significant growth from the boy, to the biology EOC. I have also com completed five different stem camps during summer breaks within the last three years. I was part of the biology star committee with TEA here in Austin this summer, which I really enjoyed. I believe that I have demonstrated that I am an effective teacher. I was in an EPP program at Houston in 2007 for comp science seven through 12. Attaches a copy of my search showing I completed all coursework. I did not pass the content exam nor did I receive the proper study material
from this particular EPP to pass. Under TEC 21.0443, it states that it requires EPPs to adequately prepare candidates for certification. At Houston did not properly prepare me. They are no longer an existing entity. During the COVID they are no longer an existing entity. During the COVID pandemic, I closed my business and went back to teaching. I had no idea TEA laws had changed. I was marked a non finisher by at Houston, but did not know this until 2023. I thought all I had to do was take my exam, pass, and then I would be certified. I was unaware of the five year period in which cert programs,
after this time, no longer maintain your course information. I didn't know I could have transferred my coursework within that time frame. I did not advocate for myself while in this program and let them know that the material given in study sessions they provided were not probably preparing me for me for my test. I'm now in my second EPP, two forty certification for science four three eight. Their material helped me to pass my science test last month. Yay. My issue is that clinical teaching is my only option to get certified. I can't afford to take the sixteen weeks needed, roughly three to four months, to complete this student teaching.
These two programs combined will have cost me almost $9,000 once I finish paying two forty. How does this benefit uncertified teachers like myself to get fully certified with such an astronomical amount to pay along with time? I have demonstrated that I'm highly qualified. I'm to the moon and back about teaching science. I absolutely love teaching. It is truly my passionate gift, but my certification process has has made becoming certified almost unsurmountable and want to leave the profession yet again. I'm asking the board if a clinical teaching waiver or fourth year probationary cert can
be given to help me in this process of becoming fully certified. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Now we have miss Wolfe, and we're going back to item 10. Yes. That's correct, madam chair. We are now, moving on to the disciplinary cases. We only have three today. The first one we have is a default, and we will put the motion on the screen. So we only have one default. This is where the respondent failed to answer to TEA, so it did not go through the contested case process. It did not go to SOA, And we will bring the motions up shortly,
but we only have one. So I'm not asking if you would like to pull any. But you can ex we'll put up a motion to accept staff's recommendation or to change the default section. Thank you. Do I have a motion? Oh, I'm sorry. Do you have a question? But I did have also a question. Can you is there a reason why we have only one? I've just never seen only one. So now I'm curious. It's because staff we mailed things up, but we were one day short under your rules for thirty days notice. So we did not move forward on those, and you will see them on the next agenda. Okay. Thank you. That helps. I can also do the motion. Thank you. Fine.
Okay. I call the order default case number one as listed on the agenda. I move that the board grant staffs request for the issuance of a default judgment and enter a final order consistent with staff's recommendations. Thank you. And do I have a second? Thank you, Doctor. McFarland. Further discussion from the board? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. The motion carries. Thank you, madam chair. This now brings us to the SOA default where the person answered, responded to TEA, and we set the matter at SOA, but they have failed to appear at the SOA hearing.
However, since SOA has remanded the matter back to the agency, we have heard from the respondent. I passed out his or miss McCain was nice enough to pass out his response. It's in front of you. Anytime we hear a response back from a respondent after it's been to SOA as a default, we will treat that as a request for good cause. So that means the board will vote on two separate things. One, did the respondent have good cause for failure to appear at the SOA hearing? If the board decides that he did, the board would remand the matter back to the agency, and we would take it back to SOA.
If the board finds he did not have good cause for failure to appear at the SOA hearing, they can issue the SOA default order. So we kind of have two motions. One is motion for good cause first, and then the second motion based off of that motion for good cause. And I will now bring up, staff counsel to explain better line facts. Thanks, Rick. Thank you, miss Wolfe. Thank you, members of the board. First of all, dealing with the issue of good cause that's before you. It's staff's opinion and recommendation that mister Amanzo did not have good cause, as stated in his letter.
He actually acknowledges that. But, in his response letter well, first, let me back up on his date. Mister Amanzo participated. This case was set back in, set for trial back in August of, 08/07/2025. Mister Manzo, received acknowledgment the day couple days before he received acknowledgment about the hearing. He communicated with us and said basically, thank you for, for communicating. Send me documents. We sent him additional documents. Discovery, he didn't respond. We sent him the exhibits, the witness list. He did communicate with,
with us and and thanked me for that. And then basically said he's not gonna participate at the hearing. He's he's no longer he's no longer teaching. He doesn't wanna teach. You know, please, you know, just shut down the action. You know, I explained to him, you know, we we it's not gonna do that. This is process. We're not looking to revoke him. We're just going to suspend him for his conduct. And, he just basically said, you're wasting your time. I'm not gonna participate. We have, we had the hearing, the next day, actually, on the seventh. He did not show up. I informed the court exactly what had occurred, and provided, the exhibits,
to him, to the court. The judge, basically, granted the dismissal after, you know, hearing the the testimony I mean, hearing the, I mean, after the offering of the exhibits, he did hear that, granted the dismissal that was requested. In in addition, what he did was after he granted, of course, he provided notice to mister Manzo as well, that the case was dismissed and would be sent back down to, to the board for action for final action. I believe that mister Manzo Manzo misunderstood that to be whether that was a final action or not. Because what happened after that basically is we, provided him additional notice.
On August 25, we provided him additional notice of the board meeting, for this board meeting. Let's say it was gonna be September 19. And given an opportunity to respond, why he didn't have good cause? I think he interpreted saying good cause for maybe I can't I can't make this meeting because and he was talking about he was overseas and he you know, which we knew and he was working and, but he did not he did not have and he admits he did not have good cause for the August 7 meeting. And that's what was what is actually before us right now. And so in in his August 7,
I'm sorry. In his response, he specifically states that he received, the notice. He received the notice on for the August 7 hearing. You know, he thought that was the final action. He thought the case was over. You know, like, basically, why are we continuing on with this That's what his response was. So I'm here basically to inform you that we believe that his response, although to the his response that he submitted on September 17, was a response to basically saying, it wasn't it's not first of all, it's not good cause. So, therefore, I'm asking that you deny,
that request we're as we're interpreting as a request for, for good cause, that you deny that. And then secondarily, after that, then that you would then vote to, actually to, to accept, the board's recommendation and default an issue of default the default judgment, in response to the board's, on the second motion. But, first, I'll take any questions if anybody has any questions regarding this good cause. Questions from the board? Was the hearing avail available on video? Yes. It wasn't. Specifically, the in the judge's findings that he meant was that mister Menza was provided notice
to provide we were sent him the documentation. He received notice that video conferencing was available. I mean, you know, and and he failed to avail himself, in any of those any of those, Thank you for that clarification. Mister Voorhek? Well, it also says in his letter that he has no desire to return to teaching. And he was talking about us not wasting our time on this. So for that, I'll go ahead. If and unless anyone else has comments, I can make a motion. Go ahead. Oh, miss Weir? I just wanna make one comment and, I mean, I respect that that is his decision.
I just wanna make note. And reading some of his answers, I guess my heart comes out a little bit, in the sense of being over in Eastern Europe and supporting our US military personnel. And so that's where it just left me, you know, some other questions. But, again, he has stated that's not his direction. I just wanted to bring that to attention. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Mister Board? Thank you. I move that respondent, Alan Manzo, did not have good cause for failing to appear on 08/07/2025 at the state office
of administrative hearings. And do I have a second? Miss McDonald. Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those those opposed, same sign. The motion carries. Oh, in motion two. Thank you, miss Ford. Sure. Two a. Okay. In the matter of Alan Manzo, I move that the board grant staff's request for the issuance of SOA default judgment and enter a final order consistent with staff's recommendation. And do I have a second? Miss McDonald, thank you. Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. And the motion carries.
Thank you. Thank you very much. Appreciate your help. Thank you, board. That now brings us to the final case, which is, the matter of Maurice Walker. This is the one proposal for decision on the board's agenda. So just as a reminder, and I know we have some new board members, a proposal for decision is a matter that has gone through the full contested case process. They responded to staff. We set it for hearing at SOA. The ALJ weighs the evidence. They issue a proposal for decision that contains findings of fact, conclusions of law. If staff disagrees, staff will file exception saying, hey. This is the board's minimum sanction.
You're not correctly applying the minimum sanction, and then you'll see us carry that recommendation through into our recommendation to you all in terms of whether or not to modify a PFD. The board cannot reweigh the evidence and should not change findings of fact, but but does have the discretion to change conclusions of law if an ALJ does not properly apply or interpret the board's rules or precedent. So is mister Maurice Walker here today or anyone representing him? I don't see him. So in this matter, the ALJ recommended no sanction, but staff's recommendation as shown through the exceptions,
is to issue a sanction. So I'll let, mister Hensley come up and explain staff's position. Board members, by his own admission, Maurice Walker was a functioning alcoholic for most of the teaching career. Along with drinking, respondents testified during the hearing at the state office administrative hearings that he abused illegal substances during his teaching career as well. For Maurice Walker, a typical night of drinking would include 10 or more gin and tonics. Now on 11/05/2022, respondent's life choices caught up with him. After an hour of drinking in a bar in Throckmorton, along with at least one admitted hit off a marijuana vape pen,
respondent blacked out for a period of over three hours. Now while mister Walker was blacked out drunk, responded right behind the wheel of his pickup truck and let Throckmorton County Sheriff's Deputies in a high speed chase through town, where at times responded exceeded 90 miles per hour. Additionally, responded attempted to ram a deputy's vehicle multiple times during church. And when he's finally taken to custody, responded to fight with both the arresting deputy and the actual Throckmorton County sheriff. Even after being tasered multiple times, responded to continue to fight before being placed in handcuffs.
Now while handcuffed responded, continued to threaten to harm the arresting officers. Now, board members, I'm gonna tell you something. This came out during the hearing. Now Maurice Walker was arrested for assault felony assault of a police officer, and he was living right with God. Because if he had done that behavior after January 20 I'm sorry. July 20. June 20. He'd been in front of y'all for a temporary suspension, but it happened before then. Instead, he got him a good lawyer. On 01/09/2024 in the thirty ninth district court of Throckmorton County,
he responded to plead guilty to evading arrest, detention with the vehicle. Now that's a third degree felony. He was placed on a deferred adjudication order for five years. Now board members, under your rules, there is only one outcome to this case. Rule two forty nine point seventeen e four states, and this is a quote, an educator subject to sanction who is court ordered to complete a period deferred adjudication, community supervision, or pretrial diversion for felony level criminal defense offense under state or federal law may not,
I repeat, may not receive the sanction of less than suspension for a period equal to the term of deferred adjudication or community supervision that the criminal court initially ordered, but beginning from the date of the final board decision. If the case is resolved through a final board decision following a contested case hearing at the SOA or default under section 249.35 of this title. Now board members, by the plain and reading of this rule, petitioner must be suspended for a period that is equal to the terms of original deferred adjudication.
If this board had wanted any of the consideration factors that are contained on two forty nine seventeen c to act as a mean to mitigate any penalty down to nothing, this board could have done so. In fact, this board has shown that it knows how to do that. In fact, in 02/2017 d two, this board has done just such a thing for educators who abandoned the contract. However, by not including such mitigation language in the text of two forty nine point seventeen e four, This board has spoken to the mandatory nature of the penalty. Rule two forty nine seventeen e four requires the responder be suspended for a period
of five years, and board member staff ask you to do just that. Any questions, staff? Any questions for staff? Miss DeBroy. Thank you for presenting on this. And just to clarify, to this point, we have issued no sanction, nothing yet. Right? And this is a recommendation to do nothing. That's what is in front of us. Right? Well, this is a recommendation staff's recommendation is based on your rules. Yes. No. No. No. No. No. The ALJ's recommendation was to do nothing. Right? Correct. And we haven't this is our time to make the decision.
Right? Correct. Okay. Thank you. Also, maybe for this case was so interesting to read and the way it's outlined and the details in it was, well, disturbing. And I do agree that we made these rules for a reason. If deferred adjudication is parole. Right? Like, someone's on parole, is that deferred adjudication? There there are technicalities between the two. But again, he's on a period of deferred adjudication for a period of five years. He's under mandatory things that he has to do within that five year period.
And if that he messes up some of those things, there's the potential that he could be convicted of that crime and sentenced to jail. Okay. Thank you. That helps me. I'm not a lawyer. I miss mister Coleman all the time. But that's helpful to me. And I think in in a lot of our previous cases, we always match this. So I think for us today, it's a good way to go is to match what we've done in all these other cases. Curious. Other thoughts, support members, if anyone disagrees. Miss Fransley, I was wondering if you could help me understand, where the ALJ kept bringing up the Texas occupations code versus our rule.
Well, under the Texas occupation code, chapter 52 relates to criminal convictions or charges based on that. Chapter 52 is a overarching sort of mechanism by which we view these criminal cases, and I'm looking at miss Wolfe in case I need to phone a friend. But, again, board members, you have made explicit in your, rules and regulations that under a situation like this, based on the conviction and or deferred adjudication, you're not giving yourself any wiggle room. And, again, the rules and regulations are are something you submitted and something we follow.
So As it relates to chapter 53, so chapter 53 of the occupations code, the legislature has basically said, here's how licensing agencies should consider crimes and how it has to impact the profession. And so in your rules, when we go through the rule making process, we take chapter 53 into account, right, of trying to think of an example. But but right there's examples where you could say, oh, you did this crime, but it doesn't relate to this profession. Right? So the fact that you did this crime should not impact your ability to get or hold a license. Right? And so licensing agencies all have to consider the chapter 53 factors when enacting their
rules as it relates to sanctions. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Associate commissioner. So, Sarah, just to kind of round out that point. So because in the board's rules currently, the a felony matter requires matching the the the term Right. With that was already determined to be in compliance with With 53. Right. It would have been the board's process, right, in theory when adopting these rules should be saying we're only considering these things as a sanction if we determine they were late. So presumably, when the board went through rule making, they determined that the fact that you were a felon or convicted of a felony
equated to the fact that there should be some kind of disciplinary action. Thank you. Additional questions from the board? Yes, miss Saffron. So when we say deferred adjudication, if I remember correctly, I'm not, correct me if I'm wrong. It's he was arrested, and he's not exactly found guilty, but he just has to stay without any record of that particular crime again for the next five years. And if he does, that crime would stick or is it? Okay. I'm back. So I am not an expert in deferred adjudication, but I can look to mister Rodriguez to answer that question.
But the board's rules specifically call out deferred adjudication. Right? So the board's rules specifically say deferred adjudication, we match it. Okay. That's what I thought. Because on the case, it says he's a functioning alcoholic. Now exactly. Not a recovering, but functioning alcoholic. And, again, we're looking at the safety of the children. I mean, what yeah, that doesn't really tell me is he in a program? Is he doing something to help him? So I would, you know, you know, try to agree with the board regulations and everything on that to keep the safety
of the children. Thank you. Do you need additional comment on deferred adjudication? Super. Thank you. Additional comments from the board? Mister Borick? The motion that we have in front of us here? I'll read it. It's just different than what we normally have to do. So if y'all wanna explain kind of what is in here, and then I I can read through it. Yep. It's just going through to make the appropriate changes to the PFD to bring it into compliance with the board's rules. And to miss McCain's point, we also have a motion to accept the ALJ's PFD that we can put on
the screen as well. So whatever motion you like, we can we can work with you to make. But Well, I think because we have new board members, that I think also just having them recognize the reason that we spell this out. Mhmm. If you could explain that. Yes, madam chair. So under, Texas government code two thousand one zero five eight e, it sets out when a board can change or modify a proposal for decision from SOA. And it talks about if they if if the ALJ does not properly apply your rules, interpret your precedent, those kinds of things. But we have to be very clear when we're making the motion so that way
the public or if this goes up on a superficial review, the district court will know exactly why the board changed it versus a motion that just says, hey. We're changing the sanction. We have to be very clear and point to your prior precedent and just be as clear as we can be. Thank you. I know our board members go through the training, but it also helps when it comes up the first time Yeah. To discuss it. Thank you, Ms. Dvorak. Okay. Are you ready for it? Sure. Any other, comments from the board? Alright. I call to order docket number 701Dash25Dash11590DotECTA versus Maurice Walker.
I move that the board adopt the proposal for decision and the exceptions letter including findings of facts numbers one through 32 and conclusions of law numbers one through six, eight through seventeen, and nineteen through 22. I move that the board modify conclusions of law number seven, eighteen, and 23 as follows. Seven, respondent is not currently worthy to instruct the youth of this state. 19, Texas administration code two forty nine point one five b two.
18, respondent is currently not fit to be an educator. Texas occupational vote, 53.023. 23, respondents should be sanctioned with a five year suspension to match respondents' community supervision, 19, Texas admin code two forty nine point seventeen c and e four. This modification of sanction is permissible pursuant to Texas government code 2,001.08 five eight e and is necessary because the administrative law judge did not properly apply
board rules or policies. The ALJ's recommendation of no sanction of respondents educator certificate is not in line with board rules. In finding of fact number 12, the ALJ found that being an educator requires good judgment and character because educators are mentors and examples to students. Mister Walker's conduct was not an example of good moral character. Similarly, in conclusion of law number six, the ALJ found that teachers must be worthy to instruct the youth of the state and that a person is unworthy to instruct if they lack the moral,
mental, and psychological qualities required of an educator. Accordingly, mister Walker does not currently possess the necessary moral qualities, including good judgment and character, to be morally fit or worthy to instruct the youth of this state. In finding of fact number 26, the ALJ found that for evading arrest in his vehicle, a third degree felony, mister Walker was placed on deferred adjudication for five years until January 2029. On 01/09/2024, in case number 1375,
the thirty ninth District Court of Throckmorton County, Texas entered an order of deferred adjudication after respondent plead guilty to evading arrest detention with vehicle. Evading arrest slash attention with vehicle is a third degree felony. The respondent was placed on five years deferred adjudication. Similarly, conclusion of law number nine states that felony offenses driving while intoxicated are directly related to the duties and responsibilities of an educator. The SBEC rules set out a mandatory minimum sanction for felony level conduct.
Texas Administrative Code 249.17 e four states that an educator who is court ordered to complete a period of deferred adjudication or community supervision for a felony level criminal offense under state or federal law may not receive a sanction less than four, suspension for a period equal to the term of deferred adjudication or community supervision that the criminal court initially ordered, but beginning from the date of of the final board decision.
If the case is resolved through a final board decision following a contested case hearing at the SOA. Board rules dictate that respondents teaching certificates should be suspended for five years. Therefore, conclusion of law number 23 should be modified to suspend the respondents teaching certificate for five years. Conclusion of law number seven should be modified to state that respondent is not worthy to instruct the youth of the State. Conclusion of law number 18 should be modified to state that respondent is not fit to be an educator. And do I have a second?
Thank you, miss Weir. Further discussion from the board? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. And the motion carries. Thank you, madam chair. That concludes our case presentation. Thank you both. Mister Bork? I just wanted to add a comment. I do believe in redemption and that people that are suffering with alcoholism can get help. I hope that he does, and I hope he lives a wonderful life. This is a standard we have to keep for our educators, but I do believe that he can get there. So I just wanted to state that. Thank you for that.
Hold on just a sec. Okay. At this time, it's noon. We're going to break for lunch. I believe the next item is a little longer, so I think this would be a good time for us to break for lunch. It's almost five till noon. So why don't we come back at 12:35? I think that that would work. Thank you. Welcome back. We are on item 15. Good afternoon, madam chair, board. I'm back, but not for long. I actually will be co presenting this item with William C, who I'm going to introduce because I don't think, I've had the privilege of doing so yet. So William C is our director of,
educator preparation continuous improvement. He had to have a very long title. And William has been instrumental in leading the work for your redesigned continuing approval review. It feels like forever, but it's it's only been a few months, but we've made a ton of progress. And, William will be sharing about that progress today after I give just a brief, opening here. Uh-oh. Cameron is not working again. K. And, also, I'm not sure. I publicly noted that it it is 12:37. Great. Alrighty. So today, after a brief background on the redesign of your continuing approval review,
William will step in to discuss trends and lessons learned from the first pilot, of the redesign continuing approval review. And then we'll look ahead to the second continuing approval review. We have a two part pilot, which is wonderful, and then anticipated timelines for implementation, etcetera. Getting started here just grounding us in your long term priorities board. Your priorities really strike a balance of accountability and supports for for your programs. On your accountability side in orange,
you've set rigorous standards for educator preparation and developed rigorous aligned certification exams that really define what candidates must be able to know and do before they become teachers and set bars for minimum threshold for readiness. In your ASAP EPP accountability, you have multiple measures, that determine program accreditation. On the support side, the piece we're gonna look at today, the effective your effective preparation framework is laying has laid the foundation for the work we'll discuss regarding the continuing approval review.
This is a the thirty second, look back. For multiple years, or you engaged in development of your effective preparation framework to be research based, evidence based, vision for what great educator preparation programs do and demonstrate every single day to prepare their candidates. You worked alongside text Texas experts, programs, districts to develop that vision. And after many iterations and lots of feedback, you you, finalize that draft in 2023 of that vision.
It will inform it is informing, not will. It is informing your redesign continuing approval review, and we'll and William will provide more insight into that as well as we move on. So for the purpose of today, upon finalizing that, your continue sorry, your effective preparation framework in September 2023, for you directed staff to take a few actions to implement your effective preparation framework. The first thing is the thing we're gonna talk about today, and that's the redesign of the continuing approval review.
So I'm gonna just step back here for a second. You charge staff to redesign it to align to illuminate the most important practices out of your effective preparation framework, and to design a process by which your programs could walk side by side with a skilled reviewer and look under the hood of their program and really understand what are the strengths, what are the areas for growth, and that would be conducted in an on-site with an on-site review as part of that quality as part of a quality review,
where they would be able to observe coursework in action, classes in action, interview, faculty, staff, district partners, and, of course, review relevant and pertinent artifacts. In this process, your programs will be able to identify areas of strength and then areas where they're what they wanna continue to improve and develop a plan to move forward. So with that with that in mind, you've we have done we have worked to, engage with TPI US as the vendor to conduct, the redesign review,
and we'll be providing some updates today regarding that progress. The other actions that you directed staff to take involved, setting up a support system with technical assistance for programs that programs could engage with upon completion of that review. I have my plan. I have my review. So how do I how do I get some support to implement it? And then you also recommended that we consider how to better align that your the previous accommodations process into, the new, the the EPF and alongside your new review processes.
We'll be coming back on those other two items at a later date. Alrighty. So as I just noted, when I bring the animations all forward. Alright. Great. Since 2023, two years today to be exact, we've been working on this charge. Up until 2024, worked with that, developing that initial RFP with a to, contract a vendor, TPI US, to redesign this process, for for you and for our, programs in the state. Today's update will center on looking back a bit at what we learned from pilot
one in the 2425 school year. Then we're gonna talk about some of the impact of that first pilot and some of the changes, including some of the impact on, you know, your rubric, and and updates on, forthcoming reviewer training. And then, finally, we'll look ahead to pilot two point o and talk about next steps for implementation. And with that, I will pass the clicker to William, who will take us through the rest. Thank you, Melissa. Great to present before this board for the first time.
I'm not really a podium person, so this is a little kinda used to my style is a little more roaming around the room, sitting on tables, etcetera. It feels indecorous. So we'll not do that today. But forgive me if I need to go closer or further from the mic, please let me know. So, like Melissa said, I am going to share with you what we learned from that first pilot of this redesign continuing approval review and then look ahead to our next steps. So, woah. There we go. So first, I want to share who we did,
this pilot with. So our goal was to do this pilot with five programs for this first round. And we completed all of these on-site reviews, which include not only essentially an entire week of on-site review, but also, some pretty extensive preparation with the program and some follow-up with them. We did that with these five programs. So first of all, we're just so incredibly grateful to them because what they did is they really went on this very first test run with us, which as you'll see had a lot of, great outcomes,
but also a lot of challenges. And so in being this, guinea pig group, they really showed a lot of flexibility, a lot of trust, and really a commitment to the continuous improvement of their program. So we're really grateful to them. You'll also see that, of these five groups, we really worked to strike a balance when we were targeting programs to opt into this, redesigned review, strike a balance between type of program, so alternative certification versus four year colleges and universities, as well as program size. Additionally, I wanna name that all of these programs were up for their traditional five year
continuing approval review, in the year 2425. So, essentially, what they did was they, took this redesigned review as replacing their five year review, which was, honestly, as you can imagine, a lot of work. And we're again, we're so appreciate appreciative of them. The lessons learned that we're about to share would not be pilot, our key priorities, were for this first version and will continue to be the following. So, first and probably most obviously is the integration of quality components into the review.
This is part of the directives from this Board, and as you saw earlier, it's now a directive, from statute in house bill two to implement, quality indicators into the five year continuing approval review for EPP. So just a little bit about what that could look like compared to what our traditional continuing approval review is. So let's take for example, how we might review for minimum compliance in a traditional review, alignment to, the chapter two thirty five science of teaching reading standards. So for a compliance only review,
we may ask that a program fill out a standards alignment chart to show, yes, this is where each of these standards lives in our coursework and potentially ask for a syllabus or an assessment, of that just to show, yes, you are meeting the minimum compliance requirements that you are incorporating the science of teaching reading standards. For an on-site quality review, what we are doing is we would be reviewing, yes, those standard that standard's alignment, maybe some syllabi, but really taking a deeper look into how the course content and delivery actually impacts
candidate proficiency. So looking at, course artifacts, course materials, doing a deep dive into those as well as observing the actual instruction, speaking to candidates about the impact of that instruction, and their, district and community partners about what they see with their candidate preparation. So, obviously, our first and probably largest priority. Additionally, we wanted to make sure that our stakeholders are engaged in this process similar to how they were so engaged in the development of the effective preparation framework. So throughout this first pilot, what we continually work to do is frame for pilots that,
yes, you are receiving this quality review. Hopefully, you'll get that benefit from it, but also you are now extremely important stakeholders as we work to develop this process. And we also plan to, continue to hold additional stakeholder events both with our current pilots, previous pilots, and the, the broader field on what they would, see as being the most effective version of this review. And then finally, the recruitment and training of Texas reviewers. This is one really exciting thing about this redesign, which is that, we actually have, prioritized, with our in partnership with our vendor,
recruiting reviewers from Texas EPPs Texas EPPs and LEAs that have that Texas specific context to be trained and to go and be a part of these review teams and bring their, diverse experiences and background knowledge to the review. So those were our priorities. Take a little bit of time to look at some of the outcomes for that first pilot. So integration of quality, of course, extremely important, and one way that we measured that, was with our program's perception of, did this quality review actually provide you with priority improvement areas that were aligned,
to the effective press preparation framework? And what we found is that four out of our five programs either agreed or strongly agreed with that, and we believe that that is why they also agreed that they would recommend this review to other programs. Pulled out a specific quote, from one of our programs, on the slide there. When it comes to our program's engagement in the process, they also indicated they believed that they had meaningful ways to provide input, and feedback throughout the process. Specifically, and this speaks to additional challenges that we saw, specifically,
the folks that were felt most, that they were able to provide input were our EPP leadership. So deans, chairs, directors, and whoever happened to be the main contact for that review. Often part of EPP leadership, sometimes a different member of the faculty. And what we found is that they felt that they really were able to give input and feedback throughout the process. They also were involved in multiple touch points to provide feedback during the review, and after the review. We're not gonna go too much into Texas reviewers today,
but but it in really exciting news, we have at this point almost 40 approved reviewers that have been trained in partnership with our vendor, TPI US. And, we had two trainings, one in, December 2024 and another one just recently in August 2025. The re of the reviewers that were trained in December, about half of them have already gone out on a Texas review or a different review, either here or across, nationally. Now I really wanna get into what we, we wanna leverage the strengths and the positive outcomes,
but, what really keeps us up at night is ensuring that we are learning from that first pilot and the stakeholder feedback. So really what we found overall, from this first pilot is that although the majority of our programs found the review very beneficial, they were also very willing to, provide us feedback on some of the challenges that they felt we could take that feedback and input, and, think about carefully before our second pilot and before a statewide rollout of this redesigned review. So the first is that our programs really needed a bit more runway in order
to, fully prepare for the review and a bit more framing about what the review was really going to, feel like. We felt that our programs felt that this method of receiving feedback on their program, that we utilize, which involves, some pretty deep and detailed feedback and debriefs of all of that feedback at the end of each day was a little bit different, or in some cases quite a bit different than feedback they received both from the traditional review and feedback that really they were used to receiving in general.
So we learned that this quick runway, for developing our rubric and, preparing our programs likely needed to be extended a bit, so meeting with our programs earlier. And also providing additional framing, what is this review actually going to look like compared to what the review that you are used to, will feel like. In the vein of those differences, we also learned that programs needed, a more streamlined approach to confirming compliance. So currently, our review is focused on confirming minimum compliance, with your rules. And, preparation for that review,
if, as, anyone listening will know who has been through one, is pretty extensive. So if we're gonna layer a quality review on top of that, we have to then take the work to make streamline and make it clear what is being checked for minimum compliance, what are we reviewing for quality, and what do you have to do additionally, or what are we, streamlining to make that process easier for you. We needed to be really clear about that and that's what we're working to do in this next pilot. And then finally, what, we will take a slightly deeper dive in today is the rubric. We know we've gotta get this rubric for quality right in order for the review
to be as effective as possible. And what we heard loud and clear from our programs was that while, yes, the rubric did show alignment to the effective preparation framework, it was quite long and in some cases pretty cumbersome to to deal with, both for our reviewers, in reviewing and then overwhelming for the program to handle, this long rubric. So we learned that we needed to consolidate areas, to show what programs really needed to be prioritizing to have the greatest impact on their candidates. So I'll pause at this next slide and let you all read some of the
actions that we are taking or are, planning to take, in response to these growth opportunities that we learned, from the first pilot. We really believe that these actions are not going just going to lead to a really positive experience for our second pilot, but will also ensure that our second pilot, greater reflects what, we envision that this could look like when rolled out statewide. So as you can see, we're gonna take a deeper dive into the rubric in our next slides. But before that, any questions? Oh, yes. Thank you, miss Andrews.
I don't think I have any questions, but I just you know, before you went to the pilot program, I think that, you know, again, you guys are in a very challenging situation because it's legislation, and then you have to figure out how to kinda juggle that. But it's the words that I hear over and over again, and it was the ones that you pointed out. So thank you for listening. It's like, please streamline, consolidate, communicate, show us the difference between this one and this one. This is overwhelming. You know, you I think you use that word about being overwhelming. And I think that that's, you know, in in some ways, I think that that's,
sometimes the challenge of why, schools and students are unable to perform because we're so busy doing this kind of thing that no one is spending time with the stew you know, all of the energies into checking these boxes. So I appreciate that you highlighted it, you know, and I know that that's probably always your challenge. But as I sit in the seat, that's the thing that I will I would say without even going into this or being apart. Before you started, could've said, these will be the things that people will feel. So I think that you guys are you know, that that's always gonna be your challenge is how to, you know, do what the law intends, but then how to make it an easy lift.
So I just appreciate that you you are looking at that. So here's my question though, is, once because I see that you're gonna make revisions and and I love the 39 to twelve. Once you make the revisions, will you go back out and pilot it again? Yes. So we'll be using this, and I think I'll I'll talk through this, but we'll be using this, revised rubric with our upcoming pilot programs. As early as, I think mid ish October is our very first one. And we're also going to be actually, as soon as,
we're done here probably on Monday, sending the new rubric out to our previous pilot participants so they can see Mhmm. Where we have been able to, input some of that feedback. It's great. It's great. Any other questions? Thank you for that comment and that question. First of all, William, I just wanna say thank you and welcome. We're glad to have you, so appreciate that. Working with a good group of people, so thank you. Also, I wanna, be sure to thank our pilot programs. Also, I know you thanked them for participating because their participation helps, programs across the entire state,
and that, as you said, is a heavy lift, especially, here at the beginning. So thank you from them. And then just, to reiterate a little background is that trying to move from the compliance of check, check, check, check to, where can we continually improve. And so, I think you hit the nail on the head, miss Andrews, about that, trying to figure out the balance between those two. So thank you. Yes. Doctor Galvan. Thank you and welcome. Thank you. You did well. We're only halfway through? You're a gold star. Right? I remember that I believe it was that summer when they presented.
I have a suggestion because we I learned a lot from rather than reading about it, hearing directly from that. Even if you don't have them in there, but do a a, you know, a virtual When I read something and I'm enthusiastic and I want to do this and I'm this is it. We're doing it. It's different from hearing hindsight's twenty twenty. From hearing from them, what were their biggest challenges? And and, yes, you're gonna make modifications,
but for them to address the next group and say, look, here are some some things you need to keep in mind or factor in the following. Even if it's a brief, you know, few minutes from from each of the original pilot. Mhmm. Although there are gonna be less indicators, but just the overall the preparing, the implementing. Yes. No. That's great feedback. And there was a world, where potentially, they would have been, sitting before you here today, if, certain legislation had not passed that came to the forefront,
with with urgency. But we do hope to bring both of these pilots, before this board. But also what that calls to mind is just because we don't yet have the opportunity to bring them before the board as a panel doesn't mean that they cannot interact in, you know, communities of practice, for example, or learning with, the current pilots. I know that happens informally because our EPPs are very collegial, speak to each other, through informal ways, but I think what that speaks to is a way to formally, bring them together because, like you said, the rubric did change quite a bit.
So their experience maybe have some similarities, but or some differences. But where their experiences are really similar, we really wanna grab on to those because they're either strengths that we wanna maintain or things that, okay, if this is happening in both pilots, we really need to, pay greater attention to. But have them also in the summer session when they do the training as well, because that less hindsight is twenty twenty. And just to get that it's almost like they're mentoring or coaching,
giving big pros of wisdom Yeah. To the next group. And and hopefully, that will not just be insightful, but very helpful in the training for the next pilot. That's great feedback. It's making me wish that that summer training was just happened. It's making me wish that we'd had, added five more folks to that invite. But, but we'll have to think through ways where we can really bring those, folks together in a more formal way. Well and I think, that is a a consideration for next summer. By the time we get to each summer, we have five things to choose from.
But I do think that that's a consideration because they will have been through two pilot programs. Doctor Rodriguez? Thank you, dear Streepy. My question is about Texas reviewers. Can you say a bit more about who who are, who's being trained as reviewers and, how do reviewers qualify to be reviewers, etcetera? Yeah. So for currently in pilot phase, we have put a call out for, interested reviewers. And since those reviewers actually through our vendor, work as, contracted,
reviewers for TPI US, TPI US, uses their own screening process and training in collaboration with us. So they share all that with us. We collaborate to make sure it's the, the best possible process and are continuing to do that because, like I said, we're not going deep into it today, but there we have learned some lessons that we hope to share with you around this specific part of the initiative. But the long story, long story short, we put a call out for interested reviewers. They then submit a form to our vendor,
TPI US, our screen, and then go through a, training process. Do EPP staff, qualify to be reviewers? Yes. So we're specifically targeting, employees of Texas EPPs and LEAs. Okay. Is it in the EPP newsletter, the call? Yes. So the last, I wasn't around during the first call. I assume it was, but I don't wanna I was not in this role, but our second call was. Yes. Alright. So now we're just gonna dive a little bit deeper into the rubric. As this rubric is aligned to your effective preparation framework,
we wanted to make you aware of, some of the challenges we saw with the first one, and some of the changes that we have made. Like I said, we know that getting the rubric right is obviously going to be instrumental in ensuring that the redesign of this process accomplishes its goals. So, you all did receive the full rubric as part of your board materials, if you wanted to take the opportunity to review the content and the structure, and so the rubric you received, like I said earlier, is what we will use for the quality review for our 10 pilot programs this fall and spring. It's, of course, gonna receive updates based on what we learned from this pilot,
but our hope is that this version is a better reflection of what we envision is gonna be really effective, for the statewide rollout. So just some context for how we got here. So what you see here on the left, are the five levers from your effective preparation framework. So our first version of the rubric really worked to mirror that structure. So five levers was five review areas, and then within the, within those review areas, we took the essential actions and key practices from the EPF.
That had some positives to it, but as an aspirational framework with about 20 essential actions, about 75, key practices, it ended up being quite challenging for both our reviewers and for our programs that we really tried to incorporate almost all of the practices from the effective preparation framework. And it was really challenging during those reviews to actually lift up in a really, really meaningful and effective way the highest leverage areas for review and recommendation. So,
feedback made it evident we did need to consolidate. And so this new version of the rubric integrates, the first two levers, into, new prioritized review areas that you'll see alignment for, in the last three levers. So curriculum, p 12 partnership, and instruction and support. You can see some of the direct alignment between our three new review areas, the quality of training, the quality of practice, and the quality of candidate support. So that's gonna include coaching. And then our first two levers of the effective prep preparation framework are integrated throughout.
So for example, for leadership and planning, the last indicator on the quality of training is how the program utilizes data on the effectiveness of their training and coursework to inform improvements and changes. Here's another visual of our rubric that includes it's clicker really. All of our indicators as well as the essential question for each, review area. Give you a chance to look over that. And then I'll just provide a quick note on stakeholder feedback, and I can always go back to this slide if you have questions,
specific to the rubric. But, we took this structure before a variety of stakeholders and also took the, a entire draft of the rubric, towards a working group. So, again, super grateful to that working group. All of our pilot programs were invited to that working group, and, we had a great participation in that. And so that helped, inform some of the improvements that we made to the final draft. So that included some of the, items that you see there. But not only did those participants and other stakeholders let us know,
you know, really some of this wording can be improved. They also just let us know, hey, you know, this rubric, as you move forward with it, we're not saying that that this we suggest changes here, but just know that you're gonna see these challenges. And so, thinking through these challenges and this, rubric, we also wanted to name that, in addition to these changes we made and these, changes we anticipate potentially needing to make after our second pilot, We know as, Melissa and, Lori have shared with you, that we will also want to potentially make some shifts to this rubric once the
new content is developed, before we get to a final version of it. But we believe that the structure that we have in place is one that is going to allow for some of those smaller changes rather than having to, blow up the structure again. William, do you think that this will have will need to be changed again to what extent with the new house bill two and, other issues, or, separation changes? Yeah. That's a great question. I think that probably some of my team members can speak to it too. I think that when it comes to our quality review,
we're already trying as much as possible to align to that quality bar that we are looking to meet with our EPP content requirements, and that might be pushed with the prep routes. And so some of those requirements in h b two because it because minimum compliance will still be, reviewed in some areas in this five year review, we believe that just we'll be able to capture those not necessarily have to capture them in the quality rubric, but they can also be captured in our compliance check. And when it comes to the quality of those components,
we have looked to integrate, I think a lot of those because this team is, very synergistic and working along a lot of the same things. Do you wanna add to that, Marcela? I think, like, one thing we'll be, like, really careful to do though as we're thinking about review of program oh, good. Oh, good. Sorry. One thing we'll be really conscientious of and careful to do as we're thinking about program review, especially with, like, those new prep requirements. And if we're layering that review into this review, making sure the language is still is, like, reflective of being able to review for those pieces.
So we'll be doing some cross checking and got in all of our i's and crossing all of our t's to make sure it works in that manner. Sure. I just wonder because, how those two would Yeah. Differ between a prep allotment and non prep allotment. At the same time, we're looking for quality. It's a really good question. Yeah. Thank you. Yes. Associate commissioner. I think, William, if you can go back one slide, I think, just to give a concrete example. Sorry. Choice of animation. For, like, content so if you look under review area one, quality of candidate training, content pedagogy in reading,
or content pedagogy in math, I could see kind of an additional in the an additional look for, let's say, under either one of those areas that might that might review for quality of implementation of the reading academies under content pedagogy and reading or quality of implementation of math academies in content pedagogy and math. So I could see, nesting under the current rubric, those, like, key areas for content implementation that are kind of the the cornerstone of the prep the requirements. That's what I had in mind too. I was just curious.
Deputy commissioner? Thank you, chair Stroupy. The, I had a similar kind of question in the content pedagogy areas. So we we've pulled out reading and math here, and I do wonder if, like, do we consider having a broader content pedagogy check here so that it could look for reading and math, but also more broadly content pedagogy across other content areas and grade levels? Or, and thinking about the fact that we had classroom management discipline as one of our kind of core areas of requirement and content for prep funded routes?
And is that something we would wanna look at and look for implementation of in, our quality rubric? And it's definitely a question that has thanks for sharing sharing that. Because it's definitely a question that has come up and to hear, it come up again with this board is, further emphasizes it and something that we will need to think through. Just to speak really quickly to the learning environment, it was we work to integrate it. There was some back and forth on indicator versus, like a sub criteria and we did work to, include it. And so programs will be we will be observing courses on classroom environment,
classroom management, and providing feedback on that. But I think there is, a question as the new content is developed and that is emphasized, is there a need to further emphasize it in the rubric? I would also have a similar question around code of ethics and how, how that's handled during the review process in making sure that our candidates are aware of their responsibilities. No. That's Yeah. That's great. And it's definitely something that we'll obviously continue to have to check for minimum compliance,
but is there a need to see how they have actually integrated that with quality, to to have an impact on candidate proficiency just like just like reading and math. Thank you. Alright. So as, you can see, we're gonna look ahead to our second continuing approval review pilot. And here are the programs that are participating in our second continuing approval review pilot. Equally as grateful to them because the work has already begun. They've already put in, especially our fall reviews, multiple hours of work to prepare for this on-site quality review.
So you can see that, like I said, for our first pilot, we looked at programs that were up for review in '24, '25, and we targeted to make sure we had a balance of size and type. So for these 10 programs, we're increasing that balance to not just be of size, program size, and program type, but also geographic region and, current accreditation status. So with that priority, what we realized we had to do is, you know, every year, there's only a handful, 20 to 30 of programs that are up for review. We realized we had to expand and potentially target some programs to go a little
bit early. So some of these programs are actually going early for their continuing approval review, doing the on-site redesign pilot. So, that is exciting for them, to get it done, but also shows their commitment, to be a part of this process of continuous improvement. So really grateful to this group. So the last thing I wanted to share, Melissa actually gave a preview of this, so this, shouldn't be, too much of a surprise. But we anticipate that we're gonna be able to provide you with more updates, once these reviews begin occurring. But throughout the past few months we've been really considering some of the planning for
the statewide rollout, for this pilot and the accompanying policy making and rule making that this Board will need to do, in order to fully integrate that quality review into the continuing approval review for programs that are up for five year review, or potentially even in the need, for interventions. So as we consider this, and the significant work that is underway to implement the prep allotments, content training, we know that a few things. First of all, significant rulemaking on the same chapters that this
redesign would need to require rulemaking in is currently underway and we are making sure that we have plenty of stakeholder feedback for that and we want the same for this process. So given that our our updates to those chapters, are focused on, HB two and the prep allotment routes, CAR rulemaking would kind of need to follow that, and we wouldn't be able to do our rulemaking for this redesign until later in 2026. But, additionally, we would wanna consider EPP's capacity.
So during this 2627 school year, our EPPs are gonna be, or many of them are gonna be very engaged and potentially working towards these new prep routes, and to align, with new rules and and with their partner districts, for that prep allotment. It's also gonna include their, content training and integration of the new EPP content. And then, I mean, as you can see, we made a lot of changes from our first to second pilot. And so we need to have some time to learn from those changes, and from this, second round. And so because of that,
our recommendation is that the statewide rollout of the redesigned continuing approval review, so the, quality integrated, review occurs in, the year 2728. So the timeline here, I'll show you, in those three aspects, that, Melissa shared at the very beginning, of this update. The redesigns, continuing approval review, and then the planning for supports and updating the commendation commendation process. So we are underway with the following actions right now. So our second car pilot,
and then we're currently assessing what is the landscape of services that actually provides these aligned services to programs and really undergoing further study of that. So that's what we're engaged in right now. Twenty six twenty seven would be a targeted implementation based on what we learned from the first pilot, but a lot of 26, 27 both for EPPs, and, for our team would be around the new prep approvals and doing that new rule making for the continuing approval review,
giving us plenty of lead time, a lot more lead time than we'd have, if this was rolled out statewide in 2627 to do those FAQs, have those webinars, and really help our programs understand, that this process is not just one more new thing, but is integrated with all of, that has been happening before that. And so the statewide rollout would occur 2728. And then here's just some outlining of some of the accompanying actions that we would envision taking based on, those three directives from this board.
Melissa had already showed, had given that away by showing 2728 in a previous slide, so ruined my big moment. No. I'm just kidding. Any questions? Doctor Rodriguez? Thank you. I very much appreciate the timeline, the visual. It gives, EPPs and and the field time to, prepare and start thinking seriously about this. I couldn't help but wonder, how does this align with the development of the performance assessment, the Texas
based performance assessment, where where do things fall here, the the going away of of PPR, plus everything discussed today and yesterday. It's all a big ecosystem of changes, all happening, it feels like, at the same time. And so the more we put all of these elements in a single timeline for us to see everything that we're working towards is going to be very important. But just, the straightforward question is about, can you remind me please where the PPR and
and the performance assessment falls here. And just that's my my specific question. But I also want to mention that we have all the other exam regicides also happening. So, it is a lot to say the least. Associate commissioner. So currently, the board has discussed and staff is tracking towards a September 2027 launch of the TTIP. I'm looking at that. She's giving me a head nod. You would think I would have all of these tips just, like, locked in my brain, but I'm starting to question myself. All the years blend together.
So the plan would be to launch in September 2027. Granted, this board still needs to engage in rulemaking to actually, you know, adopt that assessment into your roles, but that's what we've been tracking towards. So that would mean, you know, that new assessment would launch in the 2728 academic year, and the continuing approval review redesign would launch that same year too. We have, talked about how many slides we have that look like this with timelines for, different implementation. And I do think that there is some work to be done to somehow layer
all of those things into, a 20,000 foot view, for both this board and for, other stakeholders. Agreed. Thank you. The header is wrong here. Associate Commissioner. I just wanted to also just acknowledge you, doctor Ward, and doctor Taggart are both in, our audience. And, doctor Ward's program participated in the first pilot. Doctor Taggett's program is gonna be participating up next. So just also acknowledging programs that, you know, have been deep in the work kind of shoulder to shoulder with us throughout this. So I just wanna express our appreciation for for folks who are willing to take the risk risk and and,
help give us some really meaningful feedback on how to improve this process. Thank you, Joel. So you saw me looking over to the audience now. I never presented before. Not sure if we could acknowledge that they're here. That was that. Thank you all so much. Any other questions? Additional questions? Thank you. Appreciate all your work on this. Good afternoon, board. I'm good on sound. Alright. Here I stand between you and your weekend. This is the last item. It is a discussion of the SBEC review of national board certifications.
This is, implementation of house bill two article one. So we'll do a couple of things to keep us on track here. I'm gonna provide for those of you not as familiar with it a really quick overview of the teacher incentive allotment and of national board certification. I will then outline the requirements of House Bill two as it relates to this task and then outline our review process and timeline which is going to be the review process is two parts. It involves recruitment of specialized contracted individuals who will review materials from National Board and
then an SBEC subcommittee that is going to review the results of that review. I said review a lot. Hopefully it all makes sense. And then this board will have an opportunity to provide feedback on the selection criteria that we are recommending for selecting the individuals who will contract with the review. So the teacher incentive allotment. I think most of us are familiar with us with this. It's been in rule for a long time. This is a program that serves to recruit, recognize, excellent teaching. And so it really focuses in on hard to staff positions,
hard to fill schools and districts, and it awards teachers or it awards designated teachers a certain amount of money toward their district and some of that can go to their salary. Teachers earn designations. Currently, up until house bill two, there are three designations, recognized, exemplary, and masters. And those are selected by a district's local designation system. Again, up through this legislative session, national board certified teachers automatically qualified as that recognized designation. And so districts could choose to support national board cohorts and this was just another
way to recognize, excellent teaching. National board certification is a voluntary credential that teachers can earn. Teachers need to first show that they have completed three successful years in the classroom to be able to qualify for this certification, then they have to go through a rigorous process. It involves a portfolio assessment. It involves a content assessment, so paper and pencil content assessment in addition to the portfolio. So that includes videos, reflections, a lot of those pieces that we talk about with performance assessment. All of this is measured against the national board standards and this is another way
to recognize and incentivize excellent teaching. Currently, we have about 1,400 teachers in Texas who have achieved national board certification. So knowing that, I'm gonna go over just a little bit of what house bill two did and the results of this. So first of all, it set a new designation for national board certified teachers. So this year, teachers who are recognized because of their national board certification will be redesignated, to be the tier of nationally board certified.
Then the second part of this bill is an SBEC review. So this tasks SBEC with reviewing national board certifications. What this really does is it's reviewing the materials by which teachers are certified for a national board. So the standards, the training materials, any of the support materials that they have and it's a review conducted to ensure that these materials comply with state law. This review will be conducted in two parts like I mentioned before. We will set out recruitment for specialized individuals who will be contracted to review all
of these materials. I will show you a list of all these materials shortly. And then that report will be reviewed by an SBECS subcommittee. Again, once the subcommittee reviews this, they will have the opportunity to either reauthorize or revoke authorization for the teacher's TIA designation. If the board revokes the authorization, they can at any time conduct a review to determine whether to reauthorize it. However, if the board doesn't reauthorize by 12/31/2026, the authorization for this TIA designation is automatically revoked.
That was a lot. But I'll I'll continue, and I have a lot of time for questions too. Yes, sir. I'm sorry. Can you go back and state the last part that you just said? You said the board, that that part? So if the board doesn't reauthorize, like, the authorization for designation by 12/3126, it's automatically revoked. So, in short, the board needs to act before 12/3126 to either revoke or reauthorize, or authorize, the teacher's TI designation. Oh, oh, yes.
That's not my problem. So and when you say the board, you mean we Yes. Yes. This board. Sorry. What the reviewers will be looking for, primarily, this is to ensure that all of the materials that teachers in Texas see when they are going for their national board certification, that all of those materials comply with state law. Specifically looking for section 28 dot zero zero two two. If you remember the conversation from yesterday in regards to chapter two two eight, this is that that same language. Furthermore, they're also looking to make sure that certification doesn't interfere the with the teacher's ability
to provide instruction three queuing. And the reviewers will also ensure that the materials align with the criteria adopted for the IMRA rubrics, the instructional material review. Beth, can I stop you right there? Did Yes. Doctor Rodriguez, did you have a question? I'm sorry. I didn't see your hand. It it no problem. I had a follow-up question, regarding what this board will be charged with. And and my question is, just a clarification, is this board going to be revoking the ability of a school district
using national board certification as one of the qualifiers for a teacher to become TIA, or is this board going to actually be reviewing individual teachers' designations and saying yes and no? I think there is a distinction between those two actions. Yeah. That's that's a good question as I understand it. And please stop me if it's because the language gets pretty technical in this bill. As I understand it, it revokes the authorization to designate national board teachers as that nationally board certified tier
for TIA. So you're not reviewing individual certificates and taking away their TIA qualifications. You're not reviewing it to take away their national board certification. Associate commissioner? I think to to to reinforce Beth's point, essentially, this would remove national board as an option that, school districts have to include within Miss Andrews? How you said it before in our last meeting is you said that really what our job was is just to say if it's breaking Texas law. So it's not necessary.
I know that if we say it's breaking Texas law, then that would be the fallout, but we're not necessarily revoking it. We're we just have the job to look at it and say, yes. Actually, it breaks it or no. It's in alignment. I think that's a a very good point, miss Andrews. I think as Beth named, the the law is very binary. It it basically gives the board a very clear directive and says, these are the terms under which you have the decision to either authorize or not authorize a national board to continue.
And it's this clearly doesn't align with state law and align with the suitability rubrics as, adopted by the State Board of Education. So it's not a broader question around if the board feels like national board is a good or bad thing, etcetera. It's very narrow. Does it meet this set of criteria that was outlined in statute? Does it comply with state law? Doctor McFarland, did you have a question? So so I do I do have a question, but I was just trying to think about the response that she just gave. So let me continue on this.
Super. Okay. These are the materials that the contracted individuals will review. Most of the materials for national board are public. There are official publications. These are publications that are actively used in the certification process. The supplemental materials are additional materials. They are not required, but they are also tied to national board and then the test item banks that go along with that content knowledge assessment, those are also required as part of the certification process. Okay. Going into the timeline in order to meet that 12/31/2026 deadline.
First, this board today will review the criteria that we are recommending to select, the contracted individuals. Those individuals, we intend them to start reviewing the materials in November. In the meantime, during the December meeting, this board, the SBEC will select a subcommittee to review the results, from the individuals. They'll submit their report to the subcommittee by April and then the SBEC will need to make that determination, by December 2026. Okay.
So at this point, this is on page two of your board item, the selection criteria that we have included. I would love to get feedback on it in case there is anything else this board feels that we should be looking for, for these individuals who will review the materials. And I don't know if you're using the electronic. Mine's on page three zero five of three forty. Thank you, chair street. So page three zero five? Three zero five. Mhmm. So I have a question. In a I'm reading right at the top just under the first set of bullet
points. It says, in addition, selected experts will review materials to determine if national board components and assessments align with the criteria adopted by the State Board of Education for the approval of instructional materials, the IMRA suitability rubrics. So are we looking at national board against the IMRA rubrics even though it's for teachers and not for students? Yes. Primarily just looking for any any conflicts in the language with with the state law or with what's set out by SBOE for materials.
Okay. So looking for conflicts. Mhmm. Okay. That makes some sense to me. So this does have the reviewer eligibility and qualifications. If somebody hasn't been able to get to that, please let us know so we can help you get to it. Yes, doctor Rodriguez. The thank you. The first bullet says five or more years of experience working in a Texas public school. Do we need to add anything about in what capacity? Associate commissioner. I think that's a a good question, doctor Rodriguez. We're, I think just recognizing that there's sort of a a number of roles within a
school district that then may have the ability to engage in this type of review. We wanted to to leave it somewhat flexible, but if there's any additional guidance that you would have, that would be helpful. I don't know. Something broad in an educator capacity or something like that? Yeah. We can do that. Perhaps. I I don't know what what do others think. Well, I agree with you in that the different what is the difference between the first two bullets? Okay. We can change that, to reflect educator in a school district. Is there a difference between the first two bullets, the five or more experience,
years of experience in a Texas second was second was was looking more at district leadership and administrative roles. Okay. Good. So we can we can clarify that. And do we want want those two things in particular or not want one of those things in particular? I'd agree with that. Okay. Happy to hear any other feedback on those qualifications. Are there people that have done this type of review before that have worked with TEA? Yes. I think TEA has a a pool of people who've participated in the IMRA reviews,
in reviewing other materials for the agency and other contracts. So there are people that we know who have experience reviewing these kinds of materials and doing similar work. And I'm sure we probably said, but how many reviewers would there be? We're thinking about three to five. Good. Yes. Miss Weir. I was just curious because we do say four five or more years of experience in Texas public schools, and we're talking about there is a pool of reviewers. Do we think it's important to have anybody who is national board experience to be
able to help crosswalk the differences? That's a good question. So someone who would be familiar with that rubric, open to to the board's preference here. Doctor McFarland? I I definitely definitely think that would be a good good addition to this requirement for sure. Okay. That way, they would have had the experience of the training and and be able to at least share with the group if they hadn't had it. So, otherwise, we're reading it and interpreting it from my own experience. Right. And, do we want to prioritize one of those things? So if there's a this one says, must meet the minimum qualifications at least one of the following.
So is is there a prioritization there? I guess, I would just say that I'm sorry. No. Yeah. Oh, yes. Sorry, doctor McFarland. So I I would just, say that at least one of the members of the review team should have experience with national board certification or should be sort of should be a national board certified. I would agree with that as well. Deputy commissioner? Yeah. That was gonna be my clarification as well, which all of this is, like, a little bit generic. So it could be, like, as long as everybody has or,
like, all of the reviewers meet one of these things versus have anything about the kind of, like, overall makeup of the review team where, you know, potentially, we wanna get a little bit more specific to make sure we've got some balance across the team. So, you know, thinking about, do we need at least one reviewer that has experience with the national board certification process, at least one who has, like, actually been an educator versus just to have worked as an administrator or so. You know? So I think, like, thinking about the balance of the review team versus just minimum qualifications where we could
end up with, like, all of one type of experience and none of another type. I I agree with that, especially I see that work here, of course, on our own board, having the different perspectives. Doctor Rodriguez, did you have something you wanted to add to that? I was just going to agree with that, and and so I would think that's also important in bringing in the experience working in in Texas public schools and have someone from, from accredited institution of higher education in Texas so so that they're not all from
institutions of higher ed or all from Yes. From public schools. Super. Doctor Galvan? Thank you. I would I would ask us to reflect to also consider adding a person who understands, for example, that in code, we just address avoiding the three queuing for phonics. And so having someone who perhaps understands the why, that this is not that Texas is saying we are not supportive of a teacher
earning national board certification. It's not aligned to the three queuing and phonics. Sure. And so having someone that understands, why we got to it, where we are, and how, the changes have then resulted in perhaps, maybe not, a misalignment. That's why having someone there that you all have suggested from national board would also help. Okay. Miss Weir, did I I thought you had your hand up. Yeah. Thank you. So the other question I had is when we were talking earlier about house bill
two in one of our earlier agenda items, we talked About HQIM, high quality instructional materials. And, my thinking was in order to evaluate national board certification that I don't know what the details are, or what are the standards of the high quality instructional materials to see if there's a crosswalk on that as well. And then, because when we were talking earlier, the the handout that we received on chapter two twenty eight point three nine,
intensive preservice, where it has, through there, the standards and alignment, you know, 1.1, 1.2, data and assessment, 2.1, achieving expectations all the way through there. The only thing that kept coming to mind for me is where some of those, dimensions are equivalent to some of the items that national board teacher certifications in their standards and in their core propositions. So I think there is some good synergy over there, between each other,
but I think that would help if someone has experience of HQIM and has experience here, with what we discussed earlier of those measurements and then again with national board. Now that's more than probably what we need. But, again, in fairness to each of what we're trying to accomplish and to ensure that we're not doing anything against, Texas state and, laws and values, in my opinion, that would help, achieve a better assessment.
And someone, familiar with the IMROE process would be skilled in HQIM. Is that a true statement? Yes. Okay. Yes. So Exactly what I was going to say. There are folks that, actually conduct suitability reviews of high quality instructional materials. So that's a cohort of of individuals who it sounds like have experiences that we could draw from. So is that anything that we need to add to what we're looking for in these reviewers? Mhmm. Beth, I know you said there are 1,400 teachers that are national board certified across the state.
Just under 14. Just under. Do you know how many were national board certified before national board was placed into, the TIA to begin with? I do not know that, but I'm writing it down, so I'll find out for you. I was just curious as to what how many had come to the table because of TIA, not that it could change the suitability. Also, are we seeking any kind of stakeholder input on this since it's more of a pet and dry as opposed to a an opinion of?
So I think, given that it is pretty cut and dry in the legislation and we have the December 31, 2026 timeline, the stakeholder feedback will come during the discussions at the SBEC meetings where they'll have an opportunity to hear the results of the review, the conversations around this reauthorization or replication. Okay. And also the opportunity to testify Correct. If you'd like. Okay. Miss Weir? You're that was a great question to ask about SIP statistics of how many are
now a national board certified after TIA was implemented. Along with that question, I think would be a great benefit is, to see with, in particular, I guess, TIA is geared towards more core teachers Mhmm. And not CTE teachers and fine arts teachers. And, I can't think of what other categories. But it would affect those individuals not being able to receive TIA, because I believe if I understand the ruling correctly, if a district is TIA approved,
that where these particular teachers, CTE teachers and fine arts teachers, they're able to get through tier one if they're national board certified Correct. Which gives them extra incentive from a money standpoint Mhmm. Which means if this is changed or revoked, they no longer have that opportunity. And, I just want to see what if possible, to see what those numbers how many people does it affect? So how many national board certified teachers in non core subjects? Non core subjects.
Okay. Deputy commissioner. Thank you, Chair Streepy. So I know we did this analysis, so we would need to get the exact numbers. But I think there was only, like, 200 ish national board certified teachers that didn't also have TIA through a local system. So it was a very small number. It's, you know, still a meaningful number of teachers that are getting TIA because of national board only. But the rest of the teachers have TIA,
like, beyond just the initial level because they also earned it through their local system, meaning that they also have systems that are able to designate in those subject areas. And then we have more and more districts that are designating across CTE and fine arts and all of their categories. So just recognizing that that is a is a a number that's helpful for us to look at because, it's a it's a small percentage of the teachers who are only getting Nash like, who are only receiving TIA because of national board.
Miss Weir. Thank you for that comment because I do agree with what you're saying. It is a small percentage. And what I've heard from other colleagues that may be part of the reason that there is a small percentage on those particular teachers is a lack of communication and understanding where they could have obtained national board certification and where they could have had that opportunity of incentive to have additional,
funds earned. And so, I I had an idea that it was gonna be a small percentage, but, I again, this is just coming through feedback from different, colleagues have mentioned that they didn't have any idea that they had that opportunity and where it could've helped them financially and also to help them, improve, their teaching and for their curriculum to be more rigorous. Oh, yes. Of course. Deputy commissioner. On the qualifications of the reviewers, I also, am wondering if we need expertise in,
like, understanding, reading, interpreting statute given the kind of That's a good point. Impetus of this really is alignment of the curriculum to statutory language. And I just wanna make sure that we have that expertise in our reviewers. Great. Will there be some type of rubric created and against which they will complete the review? So I think for the individuals contracting, I I'd imagine we'd want to have something that they could evaluate it against. I I think I would just name that the the INRO rubrics themselves,
the when it comes to suitability, that those rubrics would be applied. And then I would name that the other, components is pretty binary. It's either it's in compliance with state law or it's not in compliance with state law. And so I think those would be really more of like a binary check. Super. And so, so in this item, for example, if we have, our list of, reviewers must meet the following minimum qualifications, then are we going to add a list of with looking for representation in across the committee or how are we gonna handle that?
Correct. So we will update these qualifications based on the feedback we heard today, and then we will set out for the recruitment, in the coming weeks and, have these individuals contracted to begin the work in November. Okay. Did you create a list already right there while you're listing them? It's very messy, but yes. I just wanna make sure we capture them all. It will make sense to no one but me until Monday when I type it. Okay. Super. Do you have something else? Yes, miss Weir. Just one other item, and I do apologize. I was trying to locate,
national board's different types of certifications because they are based on subjects. Yes. And I just don't know how we wanna handle that, especially in the reading and math areas, in the elementary level when we were talking about earlier about the reading academies and math academies to make sure that we can get the, latest revisions of what we are expecting and seeing. So that's that's what came to my mind because, you know, what's expected in secondary level as we discussed earlier,
you know, even from the EPE, discussions is different for elementary and secondary. So I just didn't know if that's anything of importance. Associate commissioner? I I think those are those are all things that, you know, as someone who might pursue national board certification, they should keep in mind. I think, again, the the benefit of the statute is it's very narrow. It's really does it comply with state law? So I think the component as it relates to reading that we would probably we wanna make sure we have reviewers who would be able to look at the materials and say that this is,
this includes practices the practice of three queuing. Right. So that level of specificity, that's currently, outlawed in state law. But I think just generally, do we think that, you know, these early literacy practices are, like, beneficial and aligned with reading academies wouldn't be in the purview of these reviewers. And best to doctor Galvan's original point of making sure we have the subject matter experts that do know the TEKS Mhmm. Well enough and also the content in general, the instructional practices. Agree with that.
Okay. Thank you all so much for that feedback. That's exactly what we were looking for today. So I have my very messy list. We will update the criteria based on your recommendations today. We will work to contract with the reviewers beginning and to begin their review in November. And at the next meeting in December, this board will appoint a subcommittee to review the report from the reviewers. Happy to take any further questions, except I don't have my SBEC member questions slide, but I still am happy to take those questions.
Okay. Good. Oh, yes. Of course. Miss McDonald? Oh, no. I was just gonna say, I was just kind of looking to see if I could find any reports about numbers and it's like it looks like, you know, maybe fifteen to twenty years ago, there would be, like, anywhere from, like, 40 like, 25 to 80 teachers. And now it's like it there's kind of a lull. There's a a year that was just seven, and then it's been, like, a 188 and up since the inclusion of it in TIA. Just Interesting. Thank you. It's just my cursory little Google search on my phone. So I appreciate it.
That saves me a bit of work. I was curious. Okay. Board, I know it's been a long two days, full of lots of questions, but surely you feel good about the conversation we've had here today and the reason that we all signed up to be here. So, I couldn't be, happier with the, information we get back to to TEA to help move this process along. So thank you for all your hard work. This does complete our businesses posted. Is there any further business or announcements? Hearing none, this meeting is adjourned at 01:55PM.