Everyone, it's 09:00. The meeting will be in order. I will conduct a roll call and ask that when I call your name, please respond that you are present. Jean Stribe, present. Kelby Oser, present. Alma Rodriguez? Present. Rex Gore? Present. Julia Dvorak? Present. Michael McFarland? Present. Courtney McDonald? Here. Bobby Weir? Present. Benna Glasscock? Present. Veronica Galvan? Present. Emma Gelsinger? Present. Bob Brescia? Tommy Coleman? Josue Torres. Would you join me in the pledge of allegiance, please? I pledge to the flag of The United States Of America and to the Republic
for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And if you'll join me in a moment of silence. Thank you. Here are a few meeting reminders to help the meeting run smoothly. This meeting is being live streamed. It works best if you raise your hand and wait to be recognized if you'd like to speak. And wait until the previous speaker finishes before completely speaking, just so that the audio picks up completely. To ensure that we maintain a quorum, I ask board members if you'll please remain in remain in the room during the meeting. We'll take several scheduled breaks,
so let me know if we need additional breaks throughout the day. I just would like to welcome everybody. It's so great to see everyone. It's interesting how the seasons change as we come together. And, I was thinking about, being at the high school level and the excitement of the kids graduating. I teach eleventh and twelfth graders, and we have eleventh graders trying so hard on their exams and their AP and their EOCs, and they're, they're worrying and studying so hard. And I see the excitement of our seniors and their next steps and their college shirts that they're wearing as they're leaving us
and and being excited for their next journey. And we're excited for them as well. And I know, when I taught middle school, it was the same way. You're just so excited for their next steps. So I wanna say thank you to everyone who's here to supporting our teachers so that we can support our students. And with that, we're gonna start with, comments from our associate commissioner, Jessica McLaughlin. Thank you. Good morning, board. A pleasure to be here with you all today. One additional kind of technical reminder to start. Your microphones are on. If you push the push button,
they will mute. So just be cognizant. I'm I'm been told that the closer you get to the microphone, the less ringing and other, annoying noises can be heard, on the live stream. So, just a technical reminder. But today, I'm excited to, share as part of my, opening comments, some information that the agency produces annually related to the state of the educator workforce, specifically related to teacher employment, attrition, and hiring. Commissioner Marath presented this to superintendents across the state yesterday. And knowing the work of the SBEC is,
so grounded in and centered in ensuring we have a strong, educator workforce across the state, but it very important to bring this information to, you all as a board as well. So first, wanted to, ground in the overall teacher population in Texas. We see that the total number of employee teachers decreased for the first time since 2011, while our student enrollment has remained flat. We do anticipate that this is in part due to the end of some of the COVID relief dollars that were infused into school systems over the course of the
past few years. On the same line, though, we do see that teacher attrition increased this year, but it is still lower than that post COVID peak that we saw, in 2223. When we look specifically at our new hires, so folks who did not work in a Texas school during the previous year, we can see the trend there, that new hires have continued to decline. So meaning that there is kind of overall demand for folks that are brand new to their profession has decreased even though there is an increase in attrition.
And when we think about these new hires into Texas, they're coming from multiple sources. So there are the standard certified teachers. Again, these are teachers that are under your purview, folks who come through a preparation program and earn a standard certification. There are intern certified individuals. So these are folks that are currently engaging in educator preparation, but have completed enough coursework, to begin serving as a teacher of record. There are folks that, go through your out of state or out of country certification process. So, again, individuals that are under the aspects purview but are coming and made the decision to
come, live and work in Texas. This fourth bucket are folks who are not certified, or do not hold one of your permits. Again, we talked a fair amount about, uncertified individuals during your last meeting in the context of educator misconduct, but I think it's important to ground in the fact that this is part of the pipeline coming into the state of Texas as teachers. And then lastly, we have folks that are reenters to the profession. So folks who taught in a Texas school and may have left the profession for any number of reasons. Maybe they, decided to attempt another career. Maybe they left to have a family and are now reentering the profession.
And so those folks might have, been part of that pool of attrition, but have now, made the the choice to come back and become a teacher again. So grounding in these are kind of the the components of our new hire pipeline. We can see some trends over the course of the past few years. Overall, we've seen a increase in uncertified teachers, over the course of, in particular, the past three years. And the hiring of uncertified individuals, it's that orange bar as part of the bar chart, has remained, relatively steady from the previous year.
And when we look at, in particular, the pool of teachers that are brand new to the profession, so we pull out folks that are, out of state or out of country or reenterers because those are folks who have presumably taught previously. We can see that over half of the educators across the state, that are, again, first time teachers are now uncertified. When we look at the the proportion of the remainder, we see about 24% of teachers are coming through alternative preparation. So, again, they are still being prepared while they are serving in that role.
18% are coming through traditional preparation. And then, we've updated this, to reflect that 3% of our new teacher population is coming through a residency preparation. I'll say that is from, TEA data that we collect in the process of administering grants. We have not yet issued, you all of us aboard have not yet issued one of your enhanced standard certificates for the residency route. But we would anticipate going forward that we would see that percentage be correlated with your enhanced standard certification and become a an increasing percentage of your overall new teacher
population. So when we look at, this percentage of uncertified teachers, we see that they also continue to grow as a portion of the educator workforce altogether, and are spread across all grade levels and subject areas. I think you can see here, if you look at the chart on the right, high school CTE, that's close to 23% of teachers are uncertified. But that's also the area where we've kind of historically thought about, the need for uncertified teachers was those folks with industry based experience that could come
in into classrooms and share their knowledge and skills, with students. What I would draw your attention to though is when we look at data from this past year, we see that at the elementary level, almost 11% of our teachers who are providing instruction in English language arts and reading were uncertified. And we know the critical nature. I know this board has invested a lot of time and attention on the science of reading and ensuring that our new teachers have the skills to ensure that our students are ready, to be lifelong readers. And so just calling our attention to the fact that we see this also as
a population that's growing. One interesting data point is we've dug deeper into this pool of uncertified teachers. One of our big questions has been, how are these individuals engaging with preparation programs across the state? And what we actually see is about two thirds of the individuals who are uncertified are actually enrolled in an educator preparation program, but they're not completing those programs. So we've got a a almost a a large number of our folks are in
prep, but they're not making their way through that preparation to the point where they can earn that certificate. And we see that the gap between those admitted to a preparation program and those obtaining certification is also widening. So that's the state of our workforce at the moment, but I think it's also important to just ground a little bit in the impact of teacher preparation on this workforce. So I think really grounding in and driving the work that you all, do day in and day out. I think this slide is not new to many of you,
but, when we think about the quality of teacher preparation, the data across the state shows us that the quality of prep that, the preparation route that a teacher candidate engages in does have an impact on their retention and student outcomes. So we see that there's a difference in, teacher retention, across your preparation pathways, with the highest retention coming from our traditional preparation programs at the five year mark and the lowest preparation the lowest retention rates coming from our uncertified teachers. Similarly, when we look at research, out of Texas Tech that was done on,
Texas classrooms, we see that, teachers who've engaged in preparation, particularly where there was preservice practice, had stronger impact on student outcomes, specifically related, specifically in relation to uncertified teachers. We've also done some analysis on campus level performance. And so when we look at campus level performance, we see that campuses with lower accountability scores also have higher higher rates of uncertified teachers. And it's actually interesting to see that campuses that have decreased in ratings since 2019
have also seen an increased rate of uncertified teachers. We've also run analysis on student discipline infractions, and we see the campuses where there are higher rates of discipline infractions have higher rates of uncertified teachers. You think about, we've just come out of, many months of discussing teacher pedagogy and discussing some of those foundational skills around, classroom management and behavior management that that you all name are really critical, tools for a teacher to have in their toolkit and recognizing that our uncertified teachers, in many, many cases are not coming into the classroom with those knowledge and skills.
And then when we look at, I think two very, telling indicators, so first being dyslexia identification in third grade, we know that's a a critical factor. We see that there's actually a significant difference in, uncertified teachers' ability to identify students for dyslexia services, relative to certified teachers. And we also saw that student attendance, for certified teachers was different than for uncertified teachers. So across a number of performance indicators, we see that there's differences in outcomes. And then lastly, we,
there was a really interesting external research that was done recently that actually correlated, teachers who were highly prepared and the impact on student long term earnings, once they entered the work field and saw a strong correlation between, teachers who are highly prepared and increased annual earnings. So I think we can look at this data, and, I think a big headline here is that preparation matters. Your work matters. And so just wanted to elevate for you some of the really strategic work you
all have engaged in over the course of the past few years to ensure that we're consistently ensuring a level of quality and consistency to educator preparation across the state. So you all took really clear action to codify a teacher residency preparation route, ensuring that more teachers have access to and are incentivized to engage in preparation that leads to stronger retention and student outcomes. You all, recently redesigned chapter two twenty eight, your educator preparation program rules,
to ensure that there are more supports for teacher candidates. And in my head, I'm thinking about that group of of educators who are currently uncertified but in preparation programs and expectations you all have put in place to ensure that teacher candidates are getting that early on the ground meaningful support, so we can ensure more of our teachers are matriculating on to certificates. You all also just, revamped your teacher pedagogy standards, which, I'm happy to inform, passed through the SDOE just a few weeks ago.
So we'll be effective here in just a few weeks' time. And I've really taken the the the time to codify what are the most critical knowledge and skills that our new teachers need to have in their toolkit so that they can be as prepared as possible for the realities of Texas. And then I'll also name, that you are in the active process of continuing to redesign your state certification exams to ensure that they are rigorous and relevant to the context of Texas classrooms, but also ensuring that there's flexibility, in those certification exams where we can and providing streamlined opportunities so we're not creating
undue barriers for candidates, to, ultimately earn a certificate and become a teacher of record. And then lastly, you're actively in the process of redesigning your continuing approval review. So we're giving programs across the state meaningful feedback on ways to continue to improve their practice, again, with this eye towards ensuring we're continuing to raise the quality and consistency of preparation across the state. So with that, I wanna kinda leave on that positive note. While we do, you know, recognize the current reality of our system,
also recognizing the really intentional work that this group has done, to ensure that, as candidates are engaging in preparation, it is preparation that is meaningful and is preparation that will lead to strong outcomes for students in Texas in alignment with your charge. And with that, I will turn it over. Super. Thank you for that update. I think it's important for us to all know, and have an opportunity to see the graphs that are out there in our schools and with our superintendents so that we're all coming from the same, information base plus the experience that we bring to this,
board. So thank you for that update, Jessica. Appreciate it. Do we have public comment? We do. Thank you. Hello. Thank you for your time. I'm representing school counselors across the state, who work diligently day in and day out, on counseling tasks and non counseling tasks alike. And as you know, the two year teaching requirement was removed from the certification requirements for school counselors. However, there has not been any additional teacher training added, to address the unique educational space or to fill that gap in education for our school counselors. To address mandates and statutes approved by legislative action,
school counselors require an extensive knowledge of MTSS and thorough understanding of tiered supports. We also work with educating families on FAFSA and other mandates that's put forward by the legislator. And I just wanted to add I'm going off script here to add to your comments, which is wonderful to see. And you're seeing the effectiveness of teacher preparation programs that are standards based and the negative effects of having or potential negative effects of having noncertified individuals in those positions, the same goes for school counselors. We still need to maintain that we have appropriately certified school counselors with the appropriate
teaching components. So, they are aware to address you saw the behavior scatter plot that was there. School counselors, part of our, part of our training is helping teachers with classroom management and having them come to you with addressing those issues. But if school counselors are not, being taught those basic classroom management strategies and the preparation programs, which that gap of the teacher training is now gone, we need to fill that gap somewhere. So, I'm hoping that we can address, some things there.
Contingent on the removal of the two year teaching certification requirement, school counselor certificate standards don't really adequately equip school counselors right now to the unique role that's mandated by the TAP code. Legislative actions have unintended consequences, and so it's our part to make sure that we fill that gap and address it. For example, some of these standards are correlated to the duties of the school. Some, standards in the teaching area are correlated to the duties of a school counselor, but they are no longer required, including instructional planning and delivery. So, we learned how to develop lesson plans,
and that's part of our guidance component in the Texas counseling model, effectively communicating goals, objectives. Additionally, in standard two, knowledge of student and student learning, teachers facilitate students' learning by employing evidence based practices and concepts related to learning and social development. That's in the teaching area, no longer in the counseling certification area. So I'm just hoping that we can readdress and examine those little bit of gaps that will help professors, help prepare our school counselors to be better equipped to help our teachers who are
potentially uncertified to make them even better as well. So these are just suggested areas of school specific standards that would be beneficial for school counseling candidates to help prepare for their work in K-twelve schools. Thank you. Thank you, Ms. Rogers. Is that all? Super. Thank you, Ms. Gonzales. Okay. We have the consent agenda item. Thank you, Ms. McCain. Good morning, board. Our consent agenda items four through seven. So we have our February minutes. Two adoption items. One is your standard adoption of the two chapter two twenty seven rule review and the adoption of the proposed amendment to chapter two fifty.
There were no public comments that came in during during the public comment period. And then a request to approve teacher residency programs. We do have two speakers for item seven. So we'd like to bring them up, let them speak, and then we can take the consent agenda as one motion. Our first speaker for item seven is Jennifer Porterfield from Texas State University. Good morning. My name is Jennifer Porterfield. I'm the associate dean for educator preparation at Texas State University. Today, we're immensely grateful that Texas State has been recommended to SBEC by TEA for the teacher Texas teacher approved residency pathway.
Endorsement by TEA and SBEC is a testament to the quality and dedication of our residency program. For the last five years, the Texas State residency program has had a profound impact on our Texas State University students. It provides them with invaluable hands on experience, bridging the gap between theoretical and practical application. Our students are better prepared to enter the teaching profession equipped with the skills and confidence needed to make a meaningful difference in the lives of future students. Thank you for recognizing the importance of this program and for supporting the growth and
development of our aspiring educators. Your approval not only enhances the reputation of Texas State University, but also contributes to the overall improvement of education in Texas. In the words of a former resident, I was a supervisor of a residency program, the residency prepared me to teach more than I thought possible. Being fully immersed in the school as an employee for the entirety of the school year with so much support made my first year of teaching feel like my second. It gave me the most realistic taste of what it would be like to teach full time and left me really confident in the teacher I knew I would be
once I was on my own. I don't think my true first year would have been so smooth if I hadn't had the hands on experience from the residency. Thank you on behalf of Texas State University and our future residents. And I did bring a a current resident here, to speak to you next. Thank you. Thank you, miss Porterfield. Raquel Pearson from Texas State University. Good morning. My name is Raquel Pearson, and I'm honored to share that I will be graduating on May 8 with a bachelor of science in education, specializing in special education from Texas State University. I am proud to have recently received the star resident award through the office of
educator preparation. Over the past year, I have had the privilege of participating in Texas State's residency program or as placed with a host teacher at Key Charter School in San Marcos. This immersive hands on experience has truly been transformative, offering insights and professional growth, opportunities that cannot be replicated in a traditional, classroom setting. As part of my degree requirements, I also completed a semester of field based experience through valuable, though valuable, I can confidently say that there was a profound difference between being a student teacher
and being a resident. As a student teacher, you observe and participate for a shorter period of time. And in case of a special education major, it's done in two week placements, two seven week placements. Sorry. But as a resident, you are embedded in a daily in the daily rhythm of teaching for a full year with the support and mentorship of of a senior educator. We are empowered, to take the lead in classrooms, manage instruction, and make real time decisions all while receiving guidance and constructive feedback. My prior experience as a substitute teacher helped me prepare for this journey,
but in it is the residency that has truly shaped my confidence and my competence, as an educator. Being with the same students daily has allowed me to build meaningful rapport, establish trust, and apply everything I've learned from coursework to teaching strategies in a real world context. Currently, many of my students do not realize, I'm still a student myself. That's because my host teacher and I operate in a unified team. She has gradually, and intentionally given me the space and design and lead lessons, implement new strategies, contribute to classroom decisions.
The lesson plans I developed are not hypothetical. They are created for real students in real time and real outcomes. The that experience has been invaluable. I could speak at length about the gratitude I feel towards my host teacher and participating school's community. From the very beginning, they have welcomed me and my fellow residents with open arms, offering unwavering support, encouragement, and collaboration. I am deeply grateful for Texas State for establishing the residency program and for affording me the meaningful opportunity to gain firsthand experience in the teaching profession. And then if you want any real true time,
real time exam experience, I can help with that too. I've, done four out of my five, passed, and I'm just waiting for my STR. So if you are curious about that, I can help with that. If I have a few seconds, I could say, off script. I don't think it's exactly the exams, the uncertified teachers struggle with. I would say it's the preparation of paying for the tutorials to prepare to take them. It is, through tutoring $2.40, it's $60 a month. And if you're a college student and if you're a new teacher, that's a lot.
I'm fortunate that, as you can see, I'm a nontraditional student, so I'm a little bit more rooted in life. But for my classmates who are younger and trying to start out, that's a lot of money per month. So I know I kinda went off script. Sorry. But, exams were good. I felt like they were kinda true to what we go through, but I think that's a huge struggle to the exams. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here, and thank you to Texas State for, coming here to help us understand. As a teacher, I see when someone comes in who has had really rigorous preparation,
they step right into the classroom next to me. And it's it's just an amazing change to see someone walk right in and be so confident. So thank you for sharing that. Okay. Before we get to the motion, board members, you have a new item seven handout on your desk. There was a small technical change to a certificate offered, in one of these approval programs. The motion will be as presented. So, it's just a small change we wanted you to know about. With that, there is a motion on the screen. Board, do I have a motion? Thank you, Doctor. McFarland. I make a motion to approve consent agenda items four through seven as presented.
Do I have a second? Thank you, Ms. McDonald. Any further discussion? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. The motion carries. Thanks, guys. All right. Item eight. Good morning. Good morning. I have two items for your consideration today. Thank you so much for allowing me to present those. My name is Laurie Ayers, and I am part of the EPP management team at TEA. And the role of my team is to provide support and services, a variety of different kinds of services, to educator preparation programs across the state.
And I have with me one of my team members, Rebecca Bunting. And Rebecca is going to be co presenting with me today because one of our work streams is vetting and recommending for approval individuals and organizations who are seeking SBEC approval to offer an educator preparation program. And Becca is the person on my team who facilitates that work stream. So before I before we move forward and introduce the applicant for Item eight,
what I would like to do is provide you some context, about the approval process. So your rules, in Chapter two twenty eight are very specific about the process that the applicant and TEA staff must follow, for to vet the applicant and present them to you for approval. So just very quickly, the process starts with a workshop where TEA staff for a full day provide guidance, resources, information and materials that applicants, individuals, and organizations need
to prepare and present a successful application. So, the rules in 02/28 also require that the application must contain evidence of the applicant's ability to comply with all of the board's rules for educator preparation programs. And there are a lot of rules for educator preparation programs. And so detailed also in Chapter two twenty eight, those rules are what I consider to be operationalized into components or operational buckets that help provide direction on what information the applicant needs to provide.
So, you can see on the screen that our operational buckets are in areas such as governance, admission practices, curriculum, coursework and training that includes how the applicant proposes to facilitate the clinical experiences with their future candidates and so on and so forth. And so all the way through component 10, which is actually a statutory requirement that all EPPs must demonstrate compliance with for approval and for renewal of approval. And so we always vet applicants for meeting that requirement as well.
So you'll note on this graphic that there are old two twenty eight citations. And you'll note in your Board item, Item eight, you will see a similar chart that has new citations. So I wanted to reinforce that the components are the same under the new Chapter two twenty eight revisions as they were under the legacy Chapter two twenty eight. The two applicants that we have in front of you today started under the legacy two twenty eight but were delayed in finishing up because of the transition to revisions
that needed to be made under the Chapter two twenty eight that's currently in effect. So they have, met requirements for all of the board's requirements in the currently effective Chapter two twenty eight. So as part of the vetting process, not only do we conduct a workshop and review the applicant's application that contains their what they plan to do to comply with your rules, We're also required to conduct a preapproval site visit, where we travel to the applicant's site and we meet with the applicant.
We verify their ability to operationalize the elements of their application that they've detailed in writing. We get to know the applicants a little bit better and about their organization. They usually present some information to us about their organization. And then we also educator preparation program that they are applying to present. So once we do that, we make a decision about whether or not we want to recommend approval to the Board. And the organization that's applying creates an executive summary for your review,
and that is in your Board item. So for the first organization, Educate Heart's Teaching Core, you'll see their executive summary on Page four of your Item eight. Just to round out the process, if a program is approved by the SBEC as a new EPP, then that program, after a year of operating and once they have generated some candidate data, we'll get a post approval site visit from TEA to verify that the program implemented the components of their application as approved by this Board. So that's the process.
And as I said, TEA staff have reviewed the application materials. We conducted the preapproval site visit for Educate Heart's Teaching Corps, on 01/23/2025. We found that they met or exceeded all of these Board's requirements for all components. And as I said, the executive summary is in your Board item for your review. So Educate Heart's Teaching Core is organization that is located just outside of Downtown Houston. And so there's the context.
What I would like to do is turn it over to Becca, who actually knows a little bit more about the workings of their application and what they intend to offer as an EPP should they be approved. And then Becca will call the, applicant up to continue to answer any questions that you have. Does anyone have any questions about the process before I turn it over to Becca? Okay. Good morning, board. Thank you for the opportunity to present this item to you today. Educate hearts teaching core is requesting initial certificates in the areas of core subjects with the science of teaching reading EC through six,
as well as secondary certificates in English language arts and reading, math, science and social studies, all in the seven through 12 grade bands. They anticipate starting on September eight of twenty twenty five and anticipate 25 to 50 candidates in the first year at a cost of $6,500 per candidate. In addition to meeting this Board's requirements for educator preparation programs, I noted a couple of areas of interest in the proposed program structure. First, this EPP requires candidates to participate in the teacher candidate volunteer program,
providing candidates with hands on experience in an after school academic setting and enrichment setting. This gives candidates additional opportunities to work with students in their community before they begin clinical teaching or the internship. Second, we noted Educate Heart's teaching core is a fully face to face program where coursework and training will be offered in a fully face to face setting. I understand that as you read through the executive summary, you probably had questions about their program.
So Ms. Nikia Moffitt, assistant program director and coordinator for academics, is here today to present about their proposed program. She is accompanied by Ms. Jasmine Lynch, coordinator for community outreach, impact and school partnerships. Greetings, esteemed members of the SBEC. My name is Jasmine Lynch, and this is Nakia Moffett, and we represent Educate Hearts Teaching Corps in Houston, Texas, the historic Third Ward. Standing before you are two proud alternative teacher certification candidates from Texas,
even a teacher of the year two times in a row. Texas is facing a critical teacher shortage. In Houston ISD alone, more than 600 teachers left the classroom last year. This sharp increase in attrition, combined with the statewide doubling of uncertified teachers over the past decades, underscores an urgent need for sustainable solutions. Some say Houston, we have a problem. We'll say Texas, we have an opportunity. To help meet this need, Educate Heart's Teaching Corps proposes launching a new in person educator preparation program to certify
25 to 50 candidates annually in EC through six and high need secondary subjects. Our program is rigorous, affordable, and tailored to the need of Texas teachers and Houston's diverse educational communities. Our curriculum is deeply aligned with the Texas standards. 45% of our coursework is dedicated to building teacher knowledge and skills with a strong focus on deep conceptual understanding of the TEKS. This ensures that candidates are fully prepared to deliver instruction with confidence and precision,
resulting in greater academic engagement and improved outcomes for students. Equally important, we provide targeted training in classroom management, supported by strong partnerships with mentor teachers, field supervisors, and administrators. These relationships ensure feedback is consistent, calibrated, and growth oriented. Our program is unique in that we only place teachers in classrooms our program is unique in that we only place teachers in classrooms when they are fully prepared and certified to teach. We believe students deserve educators who are confident,
capable, and ready to lead learning from the very beginning, from day one. We bring an intergenerational depth and distinguished breadth of experience anchored by more than two hundred years in private, public, and higher education, nonprofit leadership, private enterprise, and military service. This strong foundation enables us to navigate complexity with clarity and focus our efforts on building an effective and sustainable educator preparation program that meets the needs of Texas students. Thank you for your consideration.
Thank you for being here today. Did you have something you wanted to add as well or just for questions and support? Super. Thank you. First of all, we're excited for you to, start on a new journey. Can you tell us a little bit more about your content focus and that you chose high school, core subjects? So in the high school so we we do have core subjects as well. But in the high school or secondary subjects, what we what we plan to do or what we're going to do is prepare teachers through rigorous study with certified current teachers or teachers that have that are retired,
that have taught in the state of Texas, versus them doing something online. But it's that in person touch where they get that conceptual as well as the practical learning of the standards. So will it be a nighttime program, and then you'll place the It will be a nighttime program Super. And weekends. Excuse me? And the weekends. And weekends. Yes. K. Super. Other questions from the board? Yes. Doctor. McFarland. So so first of all, I just would like to say, I definitely am, appreciative of the fact that you all are using your firsthand experience from being in the classroom, expertise to really help,
with this with this, challenge that we have. So thank you for that, for sure. The other the other question I have is so I see that you identified, ELAR, math seven through 12, science seven through 12. So that jumped out at me just because of the challenge we have at the middle level. So talk to me a little bit more about why you decided to go that route. Can you clarify your question? Yes. So how did you get to ELA seven, Math seven, Science seven? How did you what made you land on those areas as opposed to other areas? So we understand that that that has been a big turnaround.
That's been one of the highest areas where we, we wanna retain teachers. We know that the impact of keeping teachers and we also understand that it's hard to get teachers certified in those areas. Even, experts that are coming from fields, they're having a hard time passing the test. So they tend to, take the lower the four through eight or the EC through six. But we really need strong candidates in those specific areas of ELAR, math, science, social studies in that secondary level.
And so we wanna make sure that stew that our candidates are prepared, to take on the work, to be a teacher in the field, as well as passing their state exam. So they so we don't get as much, turnover. Yeah. Alright. Thank you very much. Because I I can just say from just practical experience, we have our biggest challenge with seventh grade math, seventh grade science, eighth grade science. It's often easier for us to find elementary certified teachers or even high school certified teachers. But to find middle school trained, middle school certified, content certified people is very difficult.
So I believe that that that target area is the right one. So thank you for that. Thank you. And I think that's where our, that's where we're getting the highly qualified instructors Yeah. To support those candidates in that seven through 12 content area. Alright. Alright. Also, tell me a little bit about a little bit more about the, volunteer program. Awesome. So what is really important is that if a teacher is going to go teach in Third Ward in Houston, Texas, is that they're very familiar with the whole student that comes out of Third Ward
in Houston, Texas. So our idea is that if we have them within the community volunteering to teach, they get an opportunity to really get a feel for that community, for those students, for those parents, and to start building those connections early on so that when they go right into the classroom, it's just like second nature. I mean, in our highest hopes of waving our magic wand, they would wanna move into that community and enrich that community and make that community better. But just that little bit of time volunteering and understanding their student makes all of the difference when they get into the classroom.
Even helps you to understand when we talk about conceptualism and how how does this student learn within this environment. Right? So when I'm having to, identify misconceptions the students may have, it might be important for me to understand what color banana this student sees in their community versus in a different one when I'm asking them about colors and shapes and numbers, really having that understanding. So our volunteer program means that the first thing you'll have to do is commit to the community. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Miss Weir?
I just wanted to really commend you both for your dedication and your professionalism and also making sure that our potential teachers are going to be rigorous in their curriculum. My question comes from recruitment. Since you did mention that these are some of the areas that are very much needed, where are the teachers being recruited from? Okay. So, we have several we have actually identified several different places in our communities, throughout Houston ISD and in the city of Houston altogether.
We are really wanting to press down because as y'all as you might know, in third ward, we are surrounded by Texas Southern University and the University of Houston. And what we know is that a lot of students, when they're 18 and 19, go in bright eyed and bushy tailed about what major they're going to take, and then they see it all the way through. And then they get out, and they think about, well, what am I going to do next? So a higher part of our target is targeting those students who are coming right out of college, and they're looking for an opportunity to enrich their community and also enrich their own learning. And so that is our biggest target right now.
As a follow-up question or suggestion, have you considered, some of those teachers maybe who or potential teachers, I should say, that have not passed the certification exam? Have you considered to develop relationships with those organizations, in trying to find those teacher potential teachers? Yes. Thank you for that question. We actually were having a conversation in the past couple of weeks regarding people who are already in other programs that haven't passed them and transfer students as well.
And we're gonna welcome those teachers with open arms. And what we want them to know and understand about our program is that when they come into our program, it is going to be an opportunity to be a lifetime learner. All we we have nothing but great things to say about other programs, but something that we noticed, even me coming through my alternative teacher certification programs, there was a high emphasis on how to go into a classroom and teach, but not necessarily what to teach. And so what we plan to reel them in on is this is a space where you could come and be successful and actually understand and internalize
the lessons, whether they are the old way of doing things or the new way of doing things, but really understanding what that looks like with these students. So we really invite them to come in and get a second chance at success. Thank you so much. I really Congratulations. Having gone through the process, it is very rigorous. But you are to be commended that that hard work, many hours of writing and researching had to go through a bigger challenge of changes in 02/28, and you didn't give up. And that is
my recommendation would be this, reach out to your specialist. TEA, Ms. Ayers, her team, they are they want EPPs to succeed and they are willing to answer questions and to support all our universities and alternatives. The mindset should be they understand code so they can help clarify code. It's best to ask and to and then have to fix things up. But once again,
congratulations, and you're to be commended for going through lots of changes. Good luck. Thank you. Gratitude. Super. And do I have a motion? Do I have other comments from the board? Questions? And do we have the motion? Yes. Oh, I'm so sorry. Thank you. And Thank you both. Are there any additional questions for us? One thing that I wanted to add, thinking about the rigorousness of the application process, is that we do require our applicants to be in ready to go state when we vet them. So that means rule of thumb is if they're approved today,
they should be able to open their doors completely ready to go by Monday. So that is the completeness of the application that we're reviewing. Alright. So, we are recommending approval because this organization meets or exceeds all of your requirements. And here's the motion. Super. Thank you, Mr. Gore. Motion. I move to enthusiastically approve Educate Heart's Teaching Corps as a new educator preparation program as presented. Super. And do I have a second? Second. Doctor. McFarland. Further discussion from the board? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed,
same sign. And the motion carries. Congratulations to you. And Board, I just want to let you know we'll take a break after the next one, so that if you'd like to congratulate them in person. Okay. Thank you. Okay. The second item we have for your consideration is an approval of a new EPP that's being Tarrant County, in the Fort Worth area. And again, the same process was used to vet this application. The preapproval site visit was conducted in February of twenty twenty four. Again, there was overlap between the legacy 02/28 and the current 02/28.
So we these applicants are filling in all of the gaps and preparing for to meet and meeting all the requirements for the new 02/28. And the executive summary that this this group prepared for you is on page four of your item nine. So I'm gonna turn this over to Becca so that she can talk to you a little bit more about what she knows about the program, and then we'll invite them up here as well. K? Alright. Hello again. Thank you again for the opportunity to present item nine to you today. Tarrant County College educator preparation program is requesting initial certificates in core subjects with the
science of teaching reading e c through six, English as a second language supplemental, and the special education supplemental. Because the special education certificate is in transition to a new certificate, the applicant is applying for the current certificate but is also working on curriculum updates in preparation to transition to the new special education board's requirements for educator preparation programs, I noted a couple of areas of interest in this proposed program structure as well. First, the Tarrant County College District is composed of multiple campuses across the Tarrant County area,
which makes their face to face instruction accessible to a large number of people who may be spread out across the county. The EPP office will be housed on one campus. Second, the preapproval site visit revealed that across those locations, the EPP has ample space and resources, such as multipurpose classrooms and state of the art computer labs that will support face to face instruction at those sites. Again, I understand that as you read through their executive summary, you might have had questions about this program.
So Doctor. Shelly Pearson, vice chancellor and provost for Tarrant County College, is here today to speak about their proposed program. She is accompanied by Doctor. Sharia Taylor Love, the divisional dean. Good morning, Madam Chair and members of the Board. I'm Shelly Pearson, Vice Chancellor, Provost for Tarrant County College District. This morning, our college seeks your approval to become an educator preparation program. With certification categories in EC6, with science of teaching and reading as well as supplemental categories in special education and
English as a second language. Across the county, our community partners and school districts are experiencing a significant shortage both in early learning and community based centers as well as public schools. For many years, these partners have approached us to help in addressing the demand for well prepared teachers a well prepared teacher workforce. In 2020, we convened our first pre advisory committee consisting of representatives from local school districts, universities, the regional service center and business and community partners. This committee helped to inform the direction of our curriculum of our program,
responding to the needs of schools in Tarrant County. We stand ready to collaborate with our partners to provide a high quality preparation program, strengthening pathways into the teaching profession in Tarrant County. I will ask our Dean of Social Science Behaviors, Doctor. Sharia Taylor Love to share more about our program. Good morning, madam chair, members of the board. As our provost has shared, we've developed a program that we believe addresses the needs of students, teachers, and the schools in our Tarrant County community. Our program consists of eight courses that are forty eight contact hours each designed for
in person delivery by instructors who are well prepared, including current and former administrators. We have two reading specialists and special education personnel. Our candidates will engage in authentic learning opportunities that include collaborative grouping, active learning, and case studies throughout the program. In our first course in the program, the candidates begin with essential knowledge and skills for teachers. Later, in the methods for teaching courses, they will create, develop, and apply the knowledge in their classrooms during their field based experiences. And they'll also learn proactive instructional planning and inclusive practices such as differentiated instruction,
RTI strategies, data driven instruction, and pedagogy in both the teaching exceptional learners in English as a second language courses. Our candidates are expected to observe and demonstrate those practices, during their field experiences and in their internship where their field supervisors will assess their instructional practices through both formal and informal observations. One of the unique things is that our pre advisory meetings, along with our partners, led to discussion on training for the field supervisors and mentor teachers. And as a result,
we've designed a collaborative training where the field supervisor and the mentor teacher will be trained together so they'll be able to plan, engage in mentoring and coaching training, and then collaborate on the observation tool together. At Tarrant County College, our vision is to be the leader for not only academic excellence, but student success and economic impact. So our educator preparation program requires that students pay tuition only for courses, including the internship semester. Candidates will not have any additional fees deducted from their pay or teaching contract.
We hope that we have illustrated that our preparation program at Tarrant County College is uniquely designed to address the needs of the workforce in Tarrant County. We will not only recruit and train teacher candidates, but we'll also provide ongoing support as they integrate in the communities they will serve. We thank you for your consideration today and appreciate your continued support for educators in Tarrant County and throughout the state of Texas. Thank you both for being here today and and telling us about that. I live in the Dallas area,
so I was, excited to see that new program coming through and, are excited for your success, as you go through the process. And, as Doctor. Galvan said, you know, TA is is here to help. And and we would love your feedback and glad to see you collaborating with the districts around you to to start over into a great program. What, what additional questions might the board have or, questions for our new program? I wanted to know a little bit more about how you chose e c six. Sure. So during our pre advisory meetings and conversations,
we we had a lot of, as as you know, school districts, and also universities on our board. So the first ask was for, like, 14 different areas. No. We can't do 14. But EC through six, is is where we landed. We have some unique partnerships, with, like, Child Care Associates, Tarrant County, early learning. And the goal was to be able to provide, a teacher who would be ready to teach, not only in those neighborhood and early learning centers if they were pre k or kindergarten, but also looking on the other end. We have two new child care centers coming to two of our campuses.
And what does that look like after hours to provide enrichment and programming for those school aged children that are a little older, third or fourth grade, maybe fifth grade, who aren't quite ready to be at home by themselves all the time, but still might need that. And so, our partners were especially, there are, like, four schools, within, like, two miles from from our home campus. And they, were very adamant, our our principals and partners, about being able to have a teacher, who was ready on the first day but could also span multiple grades, in in being prepared in those classrooms.
Interesting. Other questions? Doctor Gelsinger? Hello. Congratulations. I just was wondering if you could speak a little bit about how this program would or would not interface with your existing programs at the college or, you know, graduates? I think we heard a little about recent graduates from the area from previous programs. So she was curious. Absolutely. So currently, at Tarrant County College, we offer the associate of arts in teaching, which provides the first, two years of of education, and then our students, are transferring. More to come, soon, that we'll have a seamless pathway to year three and four.
But right now, our students primarily transfer to four universities, in our area. Of those four universities, two in Tarrant County, are not offering alternative certification pathways. And so this program provides an opportunity for our students to start with us and end with us. So we give them a nice soft handoff to one of our university partners, and then they're able to come back, there. Also, because, you know, in in the Tarrant County community, we also have some early colleges in PTECs, where students will start their AAT programs in high school,
and it gives us an opportunity to interact with those students again. They complete their degree, and then we work with them, with certification and going back into the schools, where they are. One of our our P TECHs right now, is at Polytechnic High School. Doctor Jeff Herr, whose program coordinator, is here with us today, and he teaches, the courses at that high school. They are able to literally go to the university across the street from the high school, and then we'll be able to partner with us for their certification. So, we're very intentional on on providing, those collaborative opportunities,
for whether it's high school, the AAT, the university, for the bachelor's degree and to come back to Tarrant County. Thank you. Doctor Galvan? Thank you, Chair Spooky. Congratulations. And particularly, because you have now transitioned into the new special ed supplemental, I wanna make sure you talked about your field supervisors and mentors will be joined during the training session. Is that correct? Yes. That's correct. That is an outstanding idea. Oftentimes, the training for mentor is separate and then the field supervisor.
But But training that joins both this is your support system for that intern. And to join them to collaborate and to better understand how to support a new teacher is commendable. So thank you for adding that part. We were also encouraged. I would also say, advised. Don't forget that you're an institution of higher education. And so for our mentor teachers, it provides us the opportunity to bring them together for the training,
but also to provide them with their continuing education and professional development hours, awarded because we are an institution of higher education. Thank you. Thank you. Doctor McFarland. So yeah. So first of all, to TCC, I definitely am excited to see you enter into this, into this area. TCC has been an awesome partner in the Tarrant County area for a long time in many different ways. And so as we talk about expanding access to pre k and expanding access for early childhood, to hear you all creating this program really, really is, really exciting. So definitely I'm supportive of that,
and thank you for for your vision on that. Thank you, Doug. I think it's important to note that your first meeting was in 2020. And when I was talking to, our other program, they they've been working for three years, four years, five years. So it takes a long time to set these up, and and we recognize that. So thank you, all of you, for your hard work. Yes. Miss Glasscock. I just wanted to also commend you on being intentional about price because that's that's huge. It really is for college kiddos. Thank you. I agree. Thank you.
Thank you both. Appreciate your time. Okay. So there isn't any public testimony on this item. And, so I did anybody have any additional questions for staff? Okay. Okay. So we, we have vetted this application, and we find that they meet or exceed all of your requirements for new EPPs. And so our team at TEA is recommending that you approve the Tarrant County College preparation program. So the motion is Thank you, miss Harris. Do I have a motion? Thank you, miss Weir. Sorry. I gotta put my glasses on. I approved Tarrant County College Educator Preparation Program as a new educator preparation program as
presented. And do I have a second? Thank you, miss McDonald. Any further questions or discussion from the board? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. And the motion carries. Thank you very much for your consideration. Thank you, miss Eric. Board, let's take a 10 break. And, I wait if you'd like to visit with our programs and correct congratulate them as well. Thank you. All right, board members. I believe that we're about ready to begin, and we're going to start with item number 10. Yes. Yes. Yes. It is ten twenty three, and we'll resume. We're starting with item 10.
And while they're getting set up, I was remiss in not thanking staff earlier today for all of their hard work and their preparation. Each one of these items in of itself is a mountain of work. And so to have everything ready for us and so that we can preview it beforehand and be ready for the conversation, I so appreciate it. So thank you very much. Thank you, chair Shruti. We enjoyed putting together these presentations. I bet. Good morning, board. Kelly and I are presenting item 10, which is, the proposal item for chapter two thirty five,
subchapter f, and a repeal of chapter two thirty five, excuse me, subchapter f and subchapter d. Just for some context, previously this item centered the draft bilingual special education, standards. And since that time, we have made some additional edits to standards with across subchapters f and g, to align with language that we have, presented in the bilingual special education standards. So just wanted to set that context before moving forward. Also, we have handed out, attachment one to the board.
There are some very small edits that were added to the bilingual Spanish standards that we'll walk through, but just wanted to point out that we do have an additional handout, for you to look at those edits and, and make a decision, based on board discussion. As I shared board, this item again previously centered the bilingual special education standards. And so in developing those standards and taking a look at the other standard groups across subchapters f and g, we realized that there were some opportunities, to ensure alignment,
across all sets of standards and and really provide some clarity for the field. So the proposed updates within this item fall into two categories. First, reorganization. They're we're proposing a repeal of subchapters f and g in favor of creating a new subchapter f, a supplemental and special education certificate standards. And I'll go, into more detail around that reorganization on the next slide. The second, bucket of updates is related to language updates. So really,
we've attempted to, make a broader alignment to language in the chapter two thirty five, given the kind of work that the board did around the chapter two thirty five teacher pedagogy standards. And again, looking at our bilingual special education standards, we thought that there was an opportunity for broader alignment across all of those standards, that are currently in chapter two thirty five. At the same time, those language updates that we've made in this item also reflect, recent state and federal federal orders and our attempt to streamline standard language for better
clarity and readability. So again, those language updates are centered in the work that we did with the bilingual special education standards but also recognizing that recent state and federal orders provide an additional opportunity to make sure that we have the appropriate language in your standards. With that, I would like to introduce the board to the proposed new subchapter f supplemental and special education certificate standards. So again, the vision with kind of repealing your current subchapter f and subchapter g, again, is centered in the bilingual special education standards,
which is a group of standards that has straddled the kind of standard boundary across subchapters f and g, given that it does serve, but we are anticipating that the bilingual special education certificate will serve as both a supplemental certificate and a special education certificate. And so given this kind of hybrid nature of the certificate, we thought that to create some clarity within your rules, we're proposing this new subchapter f that ultimately, combines all of the standards that were previously in subchapters f and subchapter g into
one new fancy subchapter f supplemental and special education certificate standard. So this is our attempt at really getting neat here. Just to provide some context, previously, your ESL certificate standards and the bilingual Spanish certificate standards, were housed, I forgot about my animation here, were housed or included in subchapter f, supplemental certificate standards. Your special education standards and your deaf blind standards, were previously included in subchapter g.
And then your bilingual, special education standards, were not previously they have not been adopted by the SBEC, and so again, these have been draft standards that the board has discussed. Before moving on, I do wanna note as I shared on the kind of summary of proposed update slide that we we made some language updates across standard groups. However, on this slide, you'll notice that I do have an asterisk next to the deaf blind standards and the bilingual special education standards, really to indicate that we have not made any significant shifts to those standards since
the last time the board has seen them. And we'll spend the most time we'll spend most of the time, in facilitating this item around the changes that we've made, in the ESL certificate standards, the bilingual Spanish stand Spanish certificate standards, and then I'll mute for a while. And then Kelly will, walk you through the changes we've made in the special education standards. To start, discussing the shifts that we've made. So we'll start with the ESL and bilingual Spanish standards. And if you're referencing your item, I do apologize that I did not,
this time around, put the page numbers on the slide, but I came prepared, before standing up here. So you'll find the ESL standards on page eleven and fifteen of the item, which translates to ninety seven and one hundred one for the PDF. And then the bilingual Spanish standards page, this is attachment one, excuse me, page pages 16 through 18 of the item, and PDF pages 101 through 104. So in the proposed, again, these standards were proposing that they shift over into the new subchapter f.
And again to kind of summarize the language shifts that we've made, we have revised, you'll notice that we've revised some of the standard group titles again to adhere to recent state and federal orders. We've streamlined knowledge and skills that align with the bilingual special education standards. So again, in drafting those standards, there were a few terms that we noticed, had been outdated in the ESL and bilingual Spanish standards. And so we took the opportunity, before bringing the item to presenting this item today to ensure that there's alignment across
ESL and bilingual Spanish standards because they work to inform the bilingual special education standards. And then lastly I would say that across both sets of standards, we revised language references related to emerging bilingual students. So in the bilingual special education standards, you'll notice that we reference, our our students as emerging bilingual students. That was not the case for our ESL and bilingual Spanish standards, just a different time and different terminology. And so again, because we had, the subchapter the chapter open,
we did take that opportunity to update that language there. Before moving on, I do want to point out some of the the kind of tweaks that we have made to the bilingual Spanish standards just so the board is aware. So if you're looking at attachment one, I'm trying to make sure I have my pages correct. I'm in the bilingual special I mean, excuse me, the bilingual Spanish standards which start on page 16 of the item, which if you're looking at the handout that I shared, that's one, two, if you flip two pages,
the page that you land on you should see highlights in front of you. If you don't see the highlights, you've gone too far. Okay. So there have been, three very small tweaks, in an attempt to add some additional clarity and I do, because we are at the proposal phase of this item, I do want to seek board feedback and direction as to whether these are changes we will move forward with before moving into the next slide. So if I'm looking at the bilingual Spanish standards, I'm looking at little b number four.
And so that reads speaking in the Spanish language, the bilingual teacher uses oral discourse. So the word oral has been added there for additional clarity that reflects correct grammatical and syntactical structures and Spanish conventions. Spanish conventions again has been added for clarity to communicate information and discuss topics relevant to the bilingual school context. I do wanna pause here, and see if there are any questions or if the board is, is fine with those changes. Thank you.
Okay. Looks like we're good. Okay. And then the next, small change here would be in the very next standard, standard five under little b, speaking in the Spanish language, the bilingual teacher demonstrates the ability to accurately, again for clarity here, use language in everyday communication. And I'll pause here to see if there are any questions around this change. Okay. And so with that I will just to to note here I will circle back to these changes before closing out the item just to make sure again,
we followed a similar process with our adoption item at the February meeting. But for now I will hand it over to Kelly. Good morning, board. Thank you, DeMarco. So as DeMarco shared earlier, as a final piece of this proposed reorganization into the new subchapter f, staff recognized an opportunity to do some work around your special education standards. Board, your current special education standards are grade banded. You have a set of e c six and six through 12 special education standards,
which as part of this proposed revision would be streamlined into a set of EC 12 standards. Ward, we've heard sort of first functionally in the field that this is how your special educators are prepared, with this EC 12 pathway given the, level of overlap between those two sets of grade banded standards. So your EC six and six twelve standards are almost identical, and so our educators are being prepared in an EC six pathway. In addition to that board, your new special education specialist EC 12 certificate and that aligned certification exam that launched
this year are EC 12 certificates and EC 12 exams. So this would reflect those as well. With that high level of overlap in those standards board, there were still some unique sets of knowledge and skills within the EC six and six twelve grade bands. So this, updated set of EC 12 standards does have specific callouts to those grade bands. So, 235131 I would be specific to your EC six special educators, And then J would be specific to your secondary special educators.
The different sets of standards in these groups really revolve around student standards that teachers at those different grade levels would need to be familiar with. So thinking about our Texas pre kindergarten guidelines for our EC six special educators and then our college and career readiness standards at the six through 12 grade band. Also at the secondary level, you would see knowledge and skills related to preparing students for transition, transition requirements within the IEP, as well as, knowledge of things like graduation options and requirements for students who receive special education services.
Also wanted to call out here that, this reorganization would have implications for programs who are applying to offer that new special education specialist certificate. And DeMarco will go into more detail around those implications in item 12, which is your test development item. I don't think we have any public testimony, so happy to answer any questions. Yes. Doctor. Gilman. So am I understanding correctly? Because it is wonderful you aligned the SPED the SPED standards to align with the bilingual SPED.
Is that correct? So the your current special education standards were the foundation for your bilingual special education standards. And so those pieces are aligned. This reorganization would just create that EC 12 set of standards. Yes. Okay. So it and it will be EC 12. Correct? Yes, ma'am. For that one. So thank you for aligning that and for changing to emergent bilingual because then it would be very difficult to change afterwards. So thank you. I was wondering if you might talk a little bit more about the difference of
what someone might be expected to know and where they would learn that for someone teaching third grade versus someone teaching high school. For the special education standards, Trust Repeat, so in your current grade banded standards, you had sort of identical sets of skills related to legal and ethical guidelines. You had legal and ethical guidelines for EC six and six twelve, and they were identical. You also had professional responsibilities, collaboration with related service providers, again, sort of identical sets of language at both of those grade bands.
Within those identical sets of standards, the skill that a third grade teacher would need related to developing the IEP is the same skill that a high school special educator would need in developing the IEP, so thinking about delivering or developing goals and objectives, delivering that specially designed instruction. So all of those skills are identical in now that EC 12 set of standards. And the asterisk at the bottom that said that they still have the grade banded in the one thirty one I and j. Can you tell us a little bit more about that?
Yes, ma'am. So there were, again, things like, using the Texas pre kindergarten guidelines to develop goals and objectives that were really only appropriate for our e c six educators. Our secondary educators aren't using those standards to develop IEP goals and objectives. So those are in a specific call out, same for those college and career readiness standards. And then, the secondary bucket, which would be the new, j, has those transition requirements. Those turn on at age 14, and so only our secondary special educators are gonna be putting those transition requirements into
the IE. Super. Thank you. Additional questions or clarifications from the board? Okay. Okay, board. So before moving to the motion, I do want to just do another confirmation of the changes that we are making to your bilingual Spanish standards. So again, if you if you left the page, if you flip two pages in the handout that was before you, you land on the bilingual Spanish standards. I'm looking at little b starting with, for speaking in the Spanish language.
The bilingual teacher uses oral discourse that reflects correct grammatical and syntactical structures and Spanish conventions to communicate information and discuss topics relevant to the bilingual school context. Okay. Everybody, see where that is and any comments about that? Super. K. And then the final change here would be right under that one, number five, speaking in the Spanish language. The bilingual teacher demonstrates the ability to accurately use language
in everyday communication. Super. Okay. Thank you. Alright. Do I have a motion from the board? Someone who's had coffee who can read a lot. Thank you, miss McDonald. So I move to approve the proposed I move to a oh, my gosh. I that we approve the proposed new 19 TAC chapter two thirty five, classroom teacher certification standards, subchapter f, supplemental and special education certificate standards, and proposed repeal of 19 TAC chapter two thirty five, classroom teacher certification standards,
subchapter f, Supplemental Certificate Standards and Subchapter G, Special Education Certificate Standards as presented to be published in the Texas Register. Do I have a second? Thank you, Ms. Glasscock. Further discussion from the board? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. And the motion carries. Thank you both. We're ready for our disciplinary cases. Hi, board. This now brings us to item 11, which are the disciplinary cases. We are going to start with the defaults. We have quite a few defaults today, and staff is actually pulling a quite quite a few defaults.
We had one come in last night, which I handwrote on your motion, but we actually had one person respond this morning, which is default number 50. So we're going to need to pull default number 50 as well. And I believe we're gonna try to live edit the questions for you to make this easier. But as a reminder, defaults where, the person did not respond and we bring it before you before we've heard anything from the respondent. Are there any other defaults that the board would like to pull? I'm sorry. Did you say the one that's written in should be 50 or 30? 30 is correct. We also need to add in 50.
We heard from fifty this morning. There's time here. And I I would like to pull, I'm just double checking that on on here. 31, 30 5, 40 8, and 49. Yes. 31, 30 5, 40 8, 40 9. And I was gonna pull 50. So I believe, motion number one as presented on the screen is is correct and includes the correct board. Do I have a motion for the remaining default? Thank you, miss Glasscock. A call to order default cases number one through 52 is listed on the agenda except one,
three, 12, 13, 20 four, 20 five, 30, 30 one, 30 five, 40 three, 40 eight, 40 nine, 50, and 50 two as listed on the agenda. I move that the board grant staff's request for the issuance of default judgments and enter final orders consistent with staff's recommendations. And do I have a second? Oh, thank you, Doctor. McFarland. 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. I believe that brings us to default number 31.
Okay. So I really have more of a question on 31 and that I couldn't tell from from the unless I missed it. I know that there were photos sent of someone, but I was trying to ascertain, and I couldn't tell from finding a fact, whether we knew if that was another teacher or not. Because if it had happened related to the classroom, I was trying to discern Yes. But, no. It's it is another teacher. It is not with the classroom. It is not another teacher. Not with the classroom.
No. Miss Galvan was dating an individual who was married to someone else, and the photos are of the married other person. Okay. So unrelated to the Unrelated to the relationship. But school of anything. Yes, ma'am. Related to their ability to teach. Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am. Thank you very much. Sure. K. And, if the board has an appetite to to change the sanction, the the motion that miss McCain has on the screen is you can call to order default case number 31 and then fill in the blank with the sanction.
Or if you wanna go with staff's recommendation, you can use the language, enter final order consistent with staff's recommendation so so we can help. Okay. I'll do it since I pulled up, unless someone else would like to do it. K. I I called to order default case number 31 as listed on the agenda. I move that the board grant staff's request for the issuance of the default judgment. What was the end of in in agreement. In according to staff. Okay. Thank you. I move that the board grant staff's request for the issuance of default judgment and enter final order consistent with staff's recommendations.
And do I have a second? Thank you, miss McDonald. Further discussion? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. And the motion carries. That now brings us to default number 35. Thank you. On '35, I see that the the suspension, and it was drugs on campus, would end in just a few months, November first twenty twenty five. I was trying to understand why it wouldn't be a year, and it's because the certificate is only good through November.
Yes, madam chair. That's exactly right. It's a paraprofessional certificate, so we lose jurisdiction. So that's why we only we go to the end of when we lose jurisdiction over the certificate. Okay. So so if someone had drugs on campus just months before their certificate was due for renewal, would they be able to renew? I'm just trying to understand How that works. How that works. So with the renewal of the certificate, it would be a little different. This is specific to our paraprofessional certificate, so that's why but if it was a standard educator certificate,
it would not be an issue. Okay. Okay. And so will this person just be able to then apply for a new certificate, or how will that look? They they can always apply, but we would look at the application and apply your rules and determine if staff should contest, the application. Okay. Okay. Thank you for that. Okay. In that case, I called the default. I called the order default case number 35 as listed on the agenda. And I move that the Board grant staff's request for the issuance of default judgment and enter final order consistent with staff's recommendations.
Oh, I'm sorry. And do I have a second? Thank you, Ms. McDonald. Further discussion from the board? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. The motion carries. Thank you, Madam Chair. I believe that now brings us to default number 48. 40 8, right? Thank you. On number 48, this is the case where it was cruelty to nonlivestock animal, about slamming a dog to the floor repeatedly. The findings of facts start on Page four twelve of our board book. And I'd simply like to add anger management to that sanction.
If there's anything else anyone has to add as well, of course? So just the addition of anger management, of course, for me. Okay. So if we wanna use the the change sanction language, it would be default number 48, and we would say a a final order issuing a sanction of a two year suspension and anger management clause. Okay. That's the board. Any further discussion from the board? Oh, I'm sorry. Yes? Got it. Super. Further discussion from the board? A call to order, default case number 48 as listed on the agenda. I move that the board grant staff's request for the issuance of default judgment and
enter a final order issuing a sanction of a two year suspension plus proof of a successful completion of an anger management course. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Doctor. McFarland. Further discussion? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. And the motion carries. Thank you, madam chair. I believe that brings us to the last default, which is default number 49. Thank you. This is the, assault of a family member in the 2021 manslaughter charge. The finding of fact 14 says it caused death and that they pleaded guilty.
And so I just wanted to make sure I was understanding that correctly. I certainly, would be interested in, perhaps a higher number of years suspension, but I would like to add anger management for sure. And the board can always turn the sanction up based on factors such as seriousness. So you can do that. Any comments from the board? Did I understand that, finding a fact correctly, it was 14, and it was, page four twenty. It's numbered separately. Do I have, someone here that can speak to that?
Or Sorry. Alright. So your question was concerning whether she plead guilty? Yes. I was trying to understand. Did I did I understand correctly from the findings of fact, I'm on default 49, that it caused death and that the person pleaded guilty? Did I or did I not misunderstand or did I misunderstand that? She did. She plead guilty to assault of a family member, which was a class a misdemeanor, and she received deferred adjudication and community supervision for two years. Okay. And so deferred adjudication is why we matched the two years.
Right? Yes. Okay. And I I would like to propose to, the board that at least adding anger management to that. Yes, Doctor. Galvan? Thank you. Because I would agree, but there's also in the cause of death an acute cocaine toxicity. So should we also add drug? Because of well, that's the individual who passed away. I guess it would be that an inference that that was occurring, and that may not be possible now because the individual was not when they were arrested,
didn't go through testing like alcohol or drug? So we don't have You don't have that? Okay. So then we couldn't because it was only the deceased that had the toxicity? Yes. Okay. Thank you. Then I I will Okay. Go back on that one, but agree with the anger. Okay. Okay. Any further discussion? I'm gonna make a motion if that's alright. I call to order default case number 49 as listed on the agenda, and I move that the Board grants staff's request for issuance of a default judgment and enter a final order issuing a sanction of a two year suspension and proof
of successful completion of an anger management course. Do I have a second? Second. Thank you, Doctor. McFarlane. 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 now brings us to the SOA defaults where the respondent originally answered to the petition but failed to appear at their hearing at the state office of administrative hearings, and we only have one SOA default. And the motion should be on the second page of your motions packet. And do I have a motion from the board?
It's on the second page of the motions, and it's written. Thank you, doctor McFarlane. I call to order solar default number one as listed on the agenda. I move that the board grant SAS' request for the issuance of solar default judgment and enter a final order consistent with staff's recommendation. And do I have a second? Thank you, Ms. McDonald. 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 now brings us to the proposal for decisions. Just a reminder that it is the ALJ's job to weigh the evidence and decide
factually true and not true. SBIK can change conclusions of law and findings of fact only if the ALJ misapplied your laws, your rules, your precedent, and the board cannot consider evidence that is not found in the record. So that brings us to the first PFD, which is the matter of Elizabeth Lopez. In this matter, the ALJ recommended an inscribed reprimand to a probated suspension, until October 2032. Staff is recommending that the board issue a 10 suspension to match the length of the community supervision in the criminal matter.
This applies the board's rule in 02/2017 e. Is miss Lopez present or anyone representing miss Lopez present? And our attorney, miss Kumar, is here if the board, has any questions about this case. Questions from the board? And do I have a motion? Staff has prepared a motion to to change the sanction based on our recommendation. If a board member would like to make a separate motion, we can help you with that as well. So the motion before us is with staff's recommendation of a ten year suspension board. And do I have a motion? Thank you. Thank you, miss Glasscock.
I call to order docket number 701Dash24Dash24265DotEC, State Board For Educator Certification v. Elizabeth Lopez. I move that the Board adopt the proposal for decision and the exceptions letter, including findings of fact numbers one through 16 and conclusions of law numbers one through 12. I move that the Board modify conclusion of law number 13 as follows. 13, respondents should be sanctioned with a ten year suspension to match the respondents community supervision, 19 TAC249.17C.
This modification of sanction is permissible pursuant to Texas Government Code 2001.058 and is necessary because the administrative law judge did not properly apply Board rules or policies. The ALJ's recommendation of a probated sentence of respondents educator certificate until February when she is expected to be discharged from her community supervision is not in line with Board rules. In conclusions of law numbers two and five, the ALJ concluded that in October 2022, in cause number 19 CRS-fifty
six, the two hundred and twenty ninth District Court of Starr County, Texas entered an order of deferred adjudication after respondent plead guilty to Medicaid fraud of greater than or equal to $30,000 but less than $150,000 a third degree felony. The respondent was placed on ten years deferred adjudication. The SBEC rule set out a mandatory minimum sanction for felony level conduct. Texas Administrative Code 249.17(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 number 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 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 certificate should be suspended for ten years. Therefore,
conclusion of Law Number 13 should be modified to suspend the respondents' teaching certificate for ten years. And do I have a second? Ms. McDonnell, thank you. Further discussion from the Board? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. And the motion carries. Okay. Thank you, board. That now brings us to the second PFD, which is the matter of August Godsey. Is mister Godsey present or anyone representing him present? In this matter, the ALJ recommended that no action be taken against respondents' teaching certificates. However,
staff is recommending that the board issue a one year suspension. Our attorney, mister Ware, is here today if you have any questions. And once again, we have prepared a motion, which is the change motion that matches staff's recommendation, but we can work with any board member if they would like to make a different motion. So no one is here for mister Ghodsi. Thank you. Discussion from the board and or do we have a motion? Thank you, doctor McFarland. I call to order docket number 701Dash24Dash16482DotEC, State Board For Educated Certification versus August Ghodsi.
I move that the board adopts the proposal for decision and the exceptions letter, including findings of fact one through thirteen and fifteen through 21, as well as conclusions of law one through nine. I move that the board strike finding of fact 14. I move that the board modify conclusions of law ten, eleven, and 12 as follows. The Board strike finding of fact 14. I move that the Board modify conclusions of law ten, eleven, and 12 as follows. 10, staff failed to prove that respondent violated standards 1.7, one point one zero, or 3.8 of the educators code of ethics. 19, TX admin code 247.2,
one j excuse me, one g, one j, and three h. Staff also failed to prove that respondent is unworthy to instruct or supervise the youth of his of this state. 19, text, admin code 249.15 b two. Number 11, responded, violated standard 3.5 of the educator's code of ethics by physically mistreating student five and student six. Nineteen, text admin code 247.2 slash three e. 12, SBEC should suspend respondent's educator certification for certificate for one year.
Nineteen text admin code two four nine dot one five a three b three two four two four nine dot one seven c. This modification of the proposal for decision is permissible pursuant to Texas government code 2,001.058 and is necessary because the Administrative Law Judge did not properly apply Board rules or policies. While couched as a finding of fact, finding of fact number 14 is actually a conclusion of law and incorrect interpretation of
the board's rules. The board rules do not require more context than the actions themselves. Additionally, a paraprofessional who witnessed the actions was disturbed enough by respondents' actions with students five and six to speak up about them. The Administrative Law Judge found in Finding of Fact 13 that respondents shoved student six into a table with such force that the table then caused a hole in the wall it subsequently impacted. The Administrative Law Judge also found in finding of fact 13 that respondent picked up
Student five off a beanbag and dropped Student five when Student five did not help or put Student five's feet down. In finding that these actions were not physical mistreatment of student five and six, the Administrative Law Judge misapplied board rules. The board's definition of physical mistreatment states that if an educator engages in unreasonable or offensive touching that would be offensive to a reasonable person in a similar circumstance, then it is physical mistreatment. Respondents shoving of student six into a table with enough force that the table's impact
with the wall created a hold is unreasonable and offensive for an educator to take against against a student. Respondent picking up student six and dropping the student because the student did not put the student's feet down is unreasonable and offensive for an educator to do to a student. It is therefore necessary to change conclusions of law ten, eleven, and 12. Conclusions of law 10 would be modified to combine the original conclusion of law 11 in the p d in the PFD to the majority of the original conclusion of law 10 in the PFD.
After removing, that respondent did not violate 19 text admin code 247.23 e. Conclusion of law 11 would then be changed to reflect the correct interpretation of 19 text admin code 249.338 and hold that the respondent did physically mistreat Student five and Student six in violation of 19 Text Admin Code 247.23.
The Board has discretion to determine the penalty in educator discipline cases. To reflect the seriousness and intentional nature of this misconduct, potential danger the conduct poses to the health and welfare of students, and to deter the respondent and other educators, the sanction in conclusion of law number 12 should be modified to suspend respondent's certificate. I move that the Board issue a final order suspending Mr. Ghodes' educator certificate for one year. Thank you, doctor McFarland. Do I have a second? Thank you, miss Deborek. 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 now brings us to the third PFD, which is the matter of Raul Santillan. Is Mr. Santillan here or anyone representing him present? In this matter, the ALJ recommended that a two year suspension be issued against respondents teaching certificates, and staff is recommending that the board accept the ALJ's recommendation. Mister Ware was the attorney for the case, and he is here to answer any questions that the board may have. Thank you. I had one question. Class on professional boundaries, Can you, well, I haven't seen that one before, have I?
I am not sure. That's been presented to the board. Just a class on how to maintain professional boundaries in the in the class in the course. Excuse me. How to maintain professional boundaries in the classroom. So that's a course that someone can can find and take? Yes. Okay. Super. Thank you. That was my only clarifying question. There's a motion on the board or we're happy to entertain additional discussion as well. And do I have a motion? I'll make a motion. Thank you, doctor McFarland. I call to order, docket number 70One-twentyFour-sixteen479.
Ec, State Board for Educator Certification versus Raul Centillin. I move that the board accept the proposal for the decision and issue a final order consistent with the ALJ's recommendation that a two year suspension with classes on professional boundaries be imposed. And do I have a thank you. And do I have a second? Thank you, Ms. Glasscock. Further discussion? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. And the motion carries. Thank you, madam chair. That now brings us to the fourth PFD, which is the matter of Mr. Scott. Is Mr. Scott present or anyone representing and present?
In this matter, the ALJ also recommended a two year suspension be issued and staff is recommending that the board accept the ALJ's recommendation. Mister Ware is also the attorney on this case and is here to answer any questions the board may have. Thank you. Questions or clarifying information from the board? And do I have a motion? Thank you, miss McDonald. Alright. I called to order docket number 70One-twentyFour-nineteen821. Ec, State Board for Educators Certification versus Jeremy Scott. I move that the board accept the proposal for decision and issue a final order
consistent with the ALJ's recommendation that a two year suspension be imposed. Thank you, Ms. McDonald. Do I have a second? Thank you, Ms. DeBourich. Further discussion? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. And the motion carries. Thank you, madam chair. That brings us to the last PFD, which is the fifth one, the matter of Raikin Jones. Is mister Jones present or anyone representing him present today? Okay. It appears he has counsel present. In this matter, the ALJ recommended that no disciplinary action be taken against respondents' teaching certificate, and staff is recommending that, the board accept the ALJ's recommendation.
Our attorney, mister Ware, is present, and, mister Jones' attorney is present as well if the board has any questions or would like to hear argument. Thank you, miss Wolf. Further discussion from the board on this, the ALJ recommendation, is no motion? I'm a close I call to order docket number 701Dash24Dash19823DotEC, State Board For Educator Certification versus Rakan Jones. I move that the Board accept the proposal for decision and issue a final order consistent with the ALJ's recommendation that no sanctions should be imposed against Rakan Jones Educator
Certificates. Thank you, Ms. Glasscock. Do I have a second? Thank you, Ms. McDonald. Further discussion? Those in favor, please raise your right hand. Those opposed, same sign. And the motion carries. Thank you, madam chair. That concludes the disciplinary cases. Thank you, miss Wolf. Okay, board. We actually the item 12 is pretty long, isn't it? It is. Let's take a ten minute break, and then we'll come back. I don't think lunch is quite here or this would be a good time to break. It might be nice to get item 12 before lunch anyway. So just a quick ten minute break. And it is 11:13.
We'll come back at 11:25. Eleven twenty four AM, and we are on discussion item 12. Good morning again. I am back with item 12. This time, I have the third part of our test development trifecta, Kate Jernigan. This is her SBEC debut, if you will, and, we'll be co facilitating this item. So item 12, is a discussion of test development updates, where we plan to really outline, certification exam development through 2028 in addition to providing a very exciting update related to
performance assessments, it's been, a while since we've updated the board on our progress with the development of a Texas specific teacher performance assessment. And so we will take an opportunity toward the end of this item, to provide some updates to the board. To start, board, I would like to ground us in just a general overview of test development through 2028. So on this slide, we've outlined the anticipated exams, that we, plan to launch over the next three years. So if you look in that September column, you'll notice that we are planning the launch of your special education specialist in deaf
blind exams in September of twenty twenty six, your bilingual education Spanish exam. Excuse me. And then in 2027, the very exciting, core subjects redesign phase one. And then I also have a note here around, the potential launch of the Texas Test of Educator Proficiency, more to come. And then in 2028, we are anticipating the launch of, the your phase two, of course, subjects redesign in addition to, a new ESL supplemental and the bilingual special education which will,
be related or rooted in the bilingual special education standards that, the board approved in item 10. Just to note here that in February, adopted rule updates to implement the exams listed above with the exception of TTEF. And again, toward the end of this item, I will walk the board through some updates related to the development of this assessment. Excuse me. Excluding, not excluding, including, the name change that you see on the screen. But just wanted to call out that we will spend some time talking through,
that assessment as well. Before jumping into each of those exams, I want to set some additional context. So we've heard from board members that it's important for us to consider, the programmatic lift whenever there is an exam launch. And so for every new exam, there is, I'm thinking about Newton's laws here, but there's an equal, certification exam that comes along, with it. Right? And so, again, when there's an exam that is launched, there is also a certificate potentially that is launched. And in order for programs to offer those certificates,
for candidates, there is a process through which they need to apply to offer that certificate. Now there are some times, however, when an exam is launched for a current field, the certificate already exists. And so there there is a question in the field of whether or not a program needs to reapply, in a kind of amended fashion or submit a full application in order to offer that certificate. And, some additional context around when I say an application, really the agency is is looking for the program to provide evidence that they have
aligned their curriculum and coursework to either the updated standards, the updated test framework, again, in order to provide, the effective training to our teacher candidates. And so, again, before moving on, I wanted to set some context around, some of the sides because we will as we talk through exam development, we'll also talk through the aligned certification pathway and what the program, what we expect programs will have to do in order to offer the aligned certificates as these exams launch. And so on this slide, just to note here that several of our exams,
are aligned to current fields. And so there are we are expecting that programs will have to do, some work to continue offering the certificates aligned to some of our redesigned exams. And so this slide will help kind of, bring you into our thinking process in the agency. As a note at the bottom before I I walk you through my little, flowchart here, Any EPP that does not currently offer a certificate is required to complete and submit a full application for TEA review. So, really, the focus of our conversation will be around those EPPs that currently offer a certificate,
but Kaye and I will differentiate for each of those certification pathways and let you know whether or not an exam requires a full application or is this an opportunity for our programs that are currently offering what the kind of next steps will be for them. Okay. Now to the flowchart. So TEA uses a series of questions to help determine if programs will need to apply or reapply to offer an SBEC certificate. First, we start with the new certification exam. And then from there, we ask ourselves, is this exam,
part of a new certification field? Is it aligned to that are that's rooted in new standards? So an example of a new certification field and new standards would be, again, the your bilingual special education certification pathway. That's a new certification field. We don't currently, you don't currently have that in your rules, and then we have new standards there. We also ask ourselves, is this new certification exam aligned to a current certification field? So an example there would be the ELAR seven twelve certification field.
So we previously launched, I do believe, we launched ELAR seven twelve in September of twenty twenty four. It's not that long ago, but long enough for me to have to think about it for a second. But that is an example of a new certification exam being launched for a current certification field. And then from there, there are some additional questions. So if if the new certification exam is aligned to a new cert certificate field and new standards, then a program is required to complete a full application in order to offer that
certificate. Again, and I I have the magnifying glass there just to indicate that the agency will want to take a close look at the program's curriculum just to ensure that they are aligning to the board's new standards, and to make sure that the program, is adequately setting up our candidates for success to be successful with the certificate area. Now if the certification exam is aligned to a current cert field, we ask ourselves another question. Is this current cert field, aligned to new standards, or does it have a new certificate name?
I think an example of that would be your special education specialist EC 12 exam. So the board adopted new special education standards in October 2020. And given sort of stakeholder feedback and the unique nature of those standards, there was a decision made to update the name of your special education EC 12 exam really to align with the notion that our special educators really are specialists. Not to overuse the word, but just to underscore their, unique knowledge and specific pedagogy.
And so, again, that would be an example of, a current cert field that was aligned to new standards and has a new certificate name. So if this is the case, then, and then there are other areas again where programs do not have to reapply if it's a current cert field. So, again, the example I used for ELAR seven twelve, we redesigned the exam. We did not change the certificate, in any form or fashion. And so programs did not have to reapply to offer, the ELAR seven twelve cert. If, in the example of special education specialist,
so if the current if the new certification field, that has new standards and a new certificate name, then programs are, expected to complete an amendment an amended application, which is known as an an amendment request. And so they will have to they are able to continue offering that certificate, but they will have to provide, TEA with, a standards alignment chart to demonstrate that they have updated their curriculum to align with the new standards, in addition to a framework alignment chart to make sure that they have they are
aligning their coursework to the new exam. There are other components in that amendment request, that I won't go into detail here, but I I know that Laurie is right by my side just in case there are some questions that come up that I cannot answer. And so again, I wanted to share this flowchart because as we talk through exam development and the aligned certificate pathways, we do want to name what that, implementation lift will be for our programs again as we think through exam development through 2028. And so as you see on the on the slide here,
we do have, some little icons that we have plugged into a key for the board, and that key will pop up in the type, top right hand corner of each slide. So again, this, the magnifying glass will indicate that a program for that certificate pathway will need to complete a full application. The caution symbol will indicate, that programs will have to complete an amendment request. And then the stop sign will indicate that programs are not expected to reapply. They can continue offering that certificate once the exam launches. And now to move on into exam development twenty twenty five now that we've set
some context. So exam 20 development twenty twenty five is dedicated to special education related, certification exams. First, we have our special education specialist EC 12 exam. That exam again is rooted in those, the your special education standards adopted in October of twenty twenty. The current certification pathway, for a special educator, that there are kind of two options here. So, for those candidates that are seeking an EC 12 certificate, they are required to attempt and pass a pedagogy assessment.
So that would be your PPRs or your edTPAs, and they also have to attempt and pass the special education e c 12 assessment. There's an another option for a supplemental exam and a certificate pathway. In that example, our candidates are expected to attempt and pass a pedagogy assessment, a content pedagogy assessment because this is a supplemental, and then the special education supplemental assessment to achieve that special education certification. As we think about launching in September 2025, you'll notice here that there is only one pathway for special educators.
There will be only one pathway for special educators after September 2025. So to achieve that special education specialist EC 12 certificate, candidates will have to attempt and pass the pedagogy assessment and then your new special education specialist EC 12 exam. And in that top right hand corner, you'll notice that in order for a program to implement, this assessment and the aligned certification, they will have to complete an amendment. Programs will have to complete an amendment request so that TA is able to ensure they are aligning, their curriculum to the new standards and the assessment.
I do want to note here that this process is already underway. We launched that application, that amendment request process, in the fall of twenty twenty four. And a tagline here just to kind of cement the the thinking around our special education specialist. This exam will ultimately replace your current special education e c 12 and special education supplemental exams and certification pathways aligning with your, special education standards and continuing to allow candidates to certify exam in this field.
And then in 2025 we also have our deaf blind supplemental exam coming down the pipeline. Just a reminder that the board did previously take action to implement, this exam and the certificate, by creating a new section for teachers of students who are deaf blind in chapter two thirty one. So the board adopted those rules in February of this year. And then the board adopted, program requirements for that supplemental, in February 2024. Reminders about the certification pathway context here. Candidates are not per the board's rules,
candidates are not allowed to certify exam of the deaf blind supplemental and they are required to hold either a deaf or hard of hearing certificate or teachers of students who are visually impaired certificate to ultimately achieve that deaf blind supplemental. And you'll notice that the pathway, includes that requirement. So again, candidates are required to attempt and pass pedagogy, content pedagogy, achieve a DHH or TSVI certificate and then they are allowed to, then they can take the deafblind supplemental exam.
I do wanna note here, that though this looks like a pretty strenuous pathway and it is given the unique nature, of these qualified individuals, typically this might happen after a teacher has already received their standard cert and and a content certificate. So we're really thinking about folks actually going back into two schools and programs in order to achieve this cert, but it's also an option for folks who are kind of thinking this is their pathway right at the start. Of course, the pathway would depend on programs that offer this certificate.
And then just to note here that programs are expected because this is a completely new field, programs are expected to, complete a full application to offer the certificate. This is another area where the application process is currently underway. And with Hey, Martha. I'm sorry. For interrupting. I just wanted to point out to the board, what you were saying about when I first saw there were so many, I was like, wow. You have to have so many. But what DeMarco explained to me is that they con if you look at them, content, content pedagogy, and their certification, those are typically done along the way.
And then, this would be in something as someone recognized, oh, this is the path I wanna take. These are the kids I wanna reach that they would add on. Am I clarifying that? That is correct. With the additional clarify that they would have to take the appropriate coursework and, and achieve the appropriate kind of, observation hours to achieve the certificate. Yeah. And I would also ask our EPPs in particular if you have things that help us understand these pathways better and how it affects you so that, that would be helpful to us. DeMarco, just confirming, on the previous slide where we were talking about the special education specialist,
exam. I know we just, in a previous item, talked about the integrated SPED EC 12 standards. Can you talk about there's any implications for the assessment? Yes. That's a that's a great question. And Kelly pointed it out, and I glossed over it. I apologize. So, yes, given the kind of the the edits that we've made to the standards there, we don't foresee implications to the assessment. I did note that we are currently engaged in a process where programs are essentially reapplying to offer the cert. And so pending board action,
in the future, we would have to update the materials that programs utilize, to submit to the agency to continue offering that certificate. But at this time, there aren't any immediate kind of impacts to programs and the assessment. Mark, is it fair to say that that the updates to the standards probably make them better aligned with Yes. The exam content since the exam assesses across Yes. The c t as well? I think that's a that's a, that's a great point. I think as Kelly shared, the standards now are e c 12, with some specific grade banded callouts and the assessment now,
the assessment is also e c 12. And then as we Kaye will talk about your core subjects with SPED. That's an example of us being able to use the gray banded call outs, to craft a kind of streamlined version for our EC six candidates. Super. Thank you. Yes. Doctor Gilman. Thank you. So I wanna make sure so we can help all EPPs. So the changes that are coming up are ERR, which they have to have. Physical education has a deadline. But because there it does not meet that criteria that you explained so well,
programs don't have to reapply. But they do need to reapply for the SPED. Correct. Correct? Now that's my first question. And the second one has to do with the special ed because we had to look at content. And this is something we've discussed before. For the new SPED certificate, where is the with the discussion we had that we came up with the competency plan that was similar to House, Where is the content in the SPED specialist e c 12?
That's a great question. So what's unique about our special education specialist certificate, which is also in line with your current special education certificate is that that certificate can actually stand alone. So candidates aren't for the e c 12 version, let me clarify. The candidates aren't required to have a content certification in order to essentially be special education certified. Not if now if currently, if they were pursuing that supplemental certificate, then, yes, they would need to achieve a content, certification that will go along with their supplemental.
And correct me if I'm wrong. We don't have anything specifically in code that says a program has to have them pass the content because the the district can now use the plan that we approved in the last. So that is set up a decision that's to be made by school district because some school districts will say, we need them. We need them now. We have a shortage. Get them certified, and we will then do the professional development or the point system that we approved
last time. So can the program make a decision as to, yes, we're gonna require content? That that's a great question, doctor Galvan. Yes. The program can make ultimately make that decision. I think, Kelly and I have found in stakeholder engagement that even with, you know, the additional flexibilities that the worksheet provide, there were programs that still would require the content certification for their candidates. That was something they were doing previously and they were gonna continue to do that. In addition to actually having their candidates complete the worksheet,
while they were in the program just so when they are in those districts, they kind of have an array of options to meet the district's needs. So then the I wanna make sure I understood correctly. So then only the district can complete that chart. Correct? The one we approve the the program. The program can complete the the chart with the candidate. However, the district administrator would have to attest and sign the document. So the the district is the the kind of last line of sight, which makes the the document effective. Because TEA does a beautiful job of that newsletter,
Is this something that merits more than once, not just the next newsletter coming up, but perhaps the next? Like, I love the FAQs. So does my program need to reapply for the new SPED? Yes. And this is why you need to do it. Because my concern would be their single SPED is SPED. Why would I have to reapply? That I would recommend that not more than one time it'd be two or three in a row. Because then if you're not approved as a program or university,
if you don't meet that criteria, we can't offer. Correct? Correct. Yeah. Okay. Got it. Thank you. And I think one other thing I would just name with the transition to this bed specialist e c 12 as a stand alone, that was really informed by stakeholder feedback. And, stakeholders said that they they actually preferred, to prepare candidates jointly in a in a subject in a content area and the standalone special education, rather than prepare them in the content and the supplemental. They felt like the supplemental didn't carry the same weight or same depth of special
education training. And so that's where, you know, based upon stakeholder feedback, the board moved forward with the the stand alone only, not because you all didn't wanna also prioritize content, but recognizing that that the majority of folks in your current pathway already pursue that stand alone for maximum flexibility and recognizing that the the majority of programs choose in their preparation of candidates to have them dually certified in both the content area and special education. But now with your your newly,
adopted chapter two thirty one rules, it provides even more flexibility. Thank you, Doctor. Galvan. It helps us understand when we under the pieces. What about someone who is just applying to a program and typically you have to do your content test, you do your observations and your content test. Will they not have a content test to begin if they're pursuing the special ed? But I think, I believe special education would be their content test. So they would that would be their content test they take within the first k.
Thank you. Mhmm. Bless you. Thank you. K. Okay. And I'll hand it over to Kaye. Good morning, board. My name is Kaye Jernigan. I'm a test development specialist on the educator, standards and testing team. And I am leading the development on the new core EC six, bilingual education and English as a second language exams. As Demarco mentioned, over the next few, years, we will undergo development. Many of the changes are in response to stakeholder feedback and the need to update exams in accordance with legislation and your rules.
Exam development in two I'm sorry. In 2026 is geared towards streamlining certification for bilingual education Spanish teachers. In 02/1926, we are anticipating the launch of your new bilingual education Spanish supplemental exam, which is aligned with your bilingual education Spanish certificate. Currently, candidates seeking bilingual Spanish certification would take pedagogy, content pedagogy, and bilingual Spanish supplemental and the VTLPT. And the new certification pathway, the new bilingual education Spanish supplemental exam will replace the BTLPT. The new exam assesses candidates' Spanish,
sorry, excuse me, Spanish proficiency and bilingual education pedagogy. This will eliminate the need for candidates to take an extra exam. This exam is aligned to the current certification field, and EPPs that currently offer this certification will not need to reapply. So in short, the revised bilingual education Spanish supplemental is aligned to the SBEC's bilingual Spanish standards and will replace the BTLPT, resulting in a reduction of exam for candidates. Exam development in 02/1927 is geared toward offering more flexibility for core subjects e c
six candidates. In the last few years, the SBEC has engaged in identifying opportunities to streamline exam content for candidates and maximize the flexibility of their certificates. And one large part of that work has been a complete redesign of your core subjects exam. Currently, core subjects EC six candidates must pass pedagogy, science of teaching reading, and the core subjects exam that includes a fifth subtests of fine arts, health, physical education to earn certification. Scheduled to launch in 02/1927 is a new e c I'm sorry,
new core e c six exam. This exam was updated to offer candidates more options to earn certificates in high need areas. Candidates have two options. They can elect to take a four subtest exam including ELAR, MAV, science, and social studies, or they can take a five subtest exam that includes the four core subjects I'm sorry, subtest I just named plus one of the following specialty subtest. Fine arts, health, and PE, special education, bilingual Spanish proficiency, or English as a second language.
Passing the subtest of either would lead to a new EC six certification. The new core EC six exams will launch in two phases. And over the next three slides, I'll go through and outline the certification pathways and options for candidates. Currently, core subjects e c six candidates must pass pedagogy, the science of teaching reading, and the core subjects exam that includes a fifth subtest of fine arts, health, and physical educate education to earn certification. As a reminder, the new EC six exam offers candidates the option of taking a four, excuse me, a four subtask exam.
The certificate pathway aligned with that exam requires a combination of passing scores on the core EC six, the STR, pedagogy exams, and then this will lead to a core EC six with STR certificate. Candidates also have an option of taking a five subtest exam that includes a subtest that covers fine arts, health, physical, and physical education content. The certificate pathway aligned with that exam requires a combination of passing scores on the core EC six, the STR, and pedagogy exams, which would lead to a core fine arts health PE with STR EC six certificate.
The other option includes taking a five subtest exam that includes a subtest that covers special education content. The certificate pathway aligned with that exam requires a combination of passing scores on the core EC six, STR, and pedagogy exams, which would lead to a core special education with STR, EC six certificate. These exams do not represent a new certification field. However, the aligned certificate name has changed. We anticipate, similarly to your new special education certificate, the EPPs that currently offer your core subject certificates and align e c 12 certificates
will have to complete an amendment request to offer your new slate of four e c six certificates. Okay. Doctor. Galvan. Wow. I know that was a mouthful. Yes. Yes. Can you go back to the original slide where you had content? Because I didn't see STR, and then I wanna go back to that one. No. It is a requirement there. I just named it in the, in the pathways. So let's start with this one. Mhmm. The original core as we know it now, e c six Yes. Has all these subtests. Yes. And people think the fine arts health and PE section is easy.
It isn't, and it shouldn't be easy. So I can understand when it gets changed over. So that will remain an option. So I can't get certified for subjects with STR, correct? Yes. Okay. Then under the new one, here's my question. If that it because it will keep the subtest, right, like nine zero one, nine two, nine three, nine four, and it shows it there. When you have the subtest for SPED or ESL, is that also a subtest? It's not just my content.
It's my optional, those because you do have subtest there. So that is a separate so it's possible that I earned, on my first attempt, a passing score on English language arts, reading, math, science, social studies, but only lack that optional subtest. I'm hearing two things. So I haven't discussed it yet, but, yes, your anticipation is correct. You can pass just the ELAR math, science, and social studies to earn a base certificate, which was on the next slide. And then the candidates also have the option to choose a fifth subtest Mhmm.
That will certify them in one of the areas listed. And fine arts and health is the one I be a separate subtests. So it is possible that I do one or the other. Can you say that one more time, please? So it say I choose the new certificate, and here's my first attempt. I'm recommended by my program to register. I go in. First attempt, I pass English language arts and reading, math, science, and social studies, but I opted the subtask for bilingual. Mhmm. I don't earn a passing score on that section.
Is that the only subtest I would then have to reattempt on attempt two? Yes. And but that will count as two attempts. Correct? Because like this, the the first exam, it is counted every time I go into test as an attempt. And so then what happens if that individual says, you know what? I don't wanna do the new one. I think I'll go back to the old one. Does that thing count as a temp three or, oh, that's a temp one because it's a different coding on my exam?
Yes. But that will be a very special circumstance because the new core e c six, will replace the old core subjects exam. So after the lap year for candidates to kind of catch up and recommend candidates for the old core subjects exam, then every candidate starting 02/1927 would have to take this pathway. And additional clarity, doctor Gervont. So Kaye did a great job at naming that, you know, you will have these options. However and Kaye will get to this in a, later slide.
But programs will have to admit. We're considering that programs will have to admit candidates under one of those areas. So, yes, if the candidate switches to fine arts, PE, and health and they were initially admitted under the bilingual area, then, yes, that would be another We're considering that would be another attempt there. Transparently, there are some logistics that we need to work out, but I think the kind of foundation of that system is that programs would admit the candidate under one initial area. And then if there is a kind of switch later than there,
there could potentially be implications for the program. And that means currently now that we have to have a written, documentation where the individual is requesting that change. Correct? And then so does that mean when we reapply as programs that we would have to apply for the foundational and fine arts, foundational SPED, foundational for each one of those? Yes. So if I hear you correctly, if a program, it already offers a current Mhmm.
Core subject certification, then if they wanted to add the additional fields, they would submit an amendment request, and they would have to demonstrate that they already have that content covered. Because assuming they are approved for the e c 12 exam that's aligned to that area, then they would just submit an amendment request to add those areas. But if they've already been approved and they don't want to add any other areas, then they would just have to submit a amendment saying that they already currently, are approved for to offer the certificate, and they're just sticking with either the LR fine arts, for instance,
if that's all they wanted to offer. So if the program is approved for core subjects and ESL, then if I enroll an individual who is selecting the foundational with ESL, we it's only you're you're not doing an entire matrix again? You're just? No. Help me help us understand the amended plan. So that is doctor Galvan, it's almost like you're reading our mind. So that on a on a later slide, we are exploring what that process would look like for programs because we recognize, as Kate shared,
there are programs that offer core subjects. There are programs and they offer special education, and they offer bieners, PE, and health. We've already redesigned our health and PE exams. We're redesigning our bilingual exam. We've redesigned our SPED exam. Given all of this work, we want to make sure that that there's a a streamlined process for programs to reapply. We recognize it's important for the agency to kind of provide feedback to programs and ensure that they've aligned curriculum to these new exams and high needs fields, but we wanna make that process as seamless as as possible.
So I don't wanna speak too in advance of Laurie. I don't want her to give me the eyes here. But we are exploring a process where, to your question, if you offer ESL, you currently offer core subjects, then your amendment request essentially would allow for you to continue offering core subjects separately and offer core subjects ESL. We'll need more coffee than that. And so will you. Thank you. Mhmm. Miss McLaughlin, did you have something you wanted to add? Okay. Doctor. Rodriguez. Thank you, Chair Strepi.
I would appreciate further clarification on the candidate side. So an EPP admitted a candidate, reported it as admitted as a core subject bilingual, for example. The candidate, is given approval to test core subjects with bilingual. The candidate passes all of the first, four areas but fails the bilingual portion. Does the candidate have the option to request, you know what? I have a job offer. I passed everything else. Can you please recommend me for certification with a base certificate so that I can
secure that job as a certified teacher? And and then I can figure out, come back and and and take the bilingual if if there's a path for that. So Yes. What's the answer there? Yes. The board is apparently very, savvy because you're making me go over sides that are coming. But, yes, to answer your question, that will be an option. So if a candidate does fill that fifth specialty subtest, but they pass the core four exams, then they can go back and apply for a base exam. And they also will have the option to attempt that exam at a later date.
Okay. I'll cover that later. But yes. Doctor Galvan? I'm sorry. Okay. Now I'm gonna take what doctor Rodriguez was saying. So there's no misunderstanding to any programs that are listening to this. But if I, as a candidate let's go back to her wonderful, scenario. But if I took the new exam, ELAR math, science, social studies, and bilingual, but I don't earn a passing score on that subtest, I cannot get certified with core saying, well, I'm only missing bilingual. That means I don't earn a passing score on this side,
earn a passing score on all the subtest like we do for core. So no. It's not designed to be the same way because we hope that you approve. And the option for candidates to go back, if they don't pass the fifth specialty test for them to their programs to then recommend them for just the base if they pass all four of the four core subtests. So we can recommend them even if they failed that Potentially, yes. But doesn't that contradict what we have on the current core? Well,
that is why, future updates will need to be made. But, yes, we're trying to maximize flexibility. So we know that the old core subjects exam was very rigid. You had to pass all five of the subtests. We're trying to circumvent that now by making it an option for candidates to have the ability to or and programs to recommend candidates for the base core exam without having to pass the fifth, specialty subtest. That would help with the teacher shortage. That would help with district of innovation because it's the foundational skills that we're looking at from k to five that are
so essential. Thank you for those slides that talked about the reading and the math scores and the uncertified. So, if that were to be voted on and approved by all stakeholders, then that would address that foundational skill that is needed for district of innovations. And then, it would be an added fuss if they could pass those other subtests. But, I think that merits a lot of consideration. Thank you. Yes. We agree. Miss McLaughlin? And Doctor. Gavan, you know, I think as the team's naming,
we're talking here about the exam design process. We would anticipate, needing to come back at a future date to to really talk through what updates would need to be made to your chapter two thirty, certification exam chart Okay. To allow for that level of flexibility. So these are all, you know and I think the team's kind of hedging their language because we're saying we're if if you also choose at a future date to, consider that, but that is something that staff would be recommending and we'll dive deeper into what that would look like at a future time. But as we're kind of getting into the meat and potatoes of developing the assessment
or developing it, so it would have that functionality, if the board chose to go in that direction. Thank you. And how long would they have to come back to let's say they got in a school, then they had their core, but they decided they need their, fine arts, health, and PE. How long would they have to for someone to say, hey. We'd really like you to get this because we we need this one as well. I think it would depend. So, not to kind of complicate things further, but given the kind of world of flexibility here, folks who achieved that base core subject certificate,
essentially would be able to assert by exam the specialty areas. So it would function similarly again, this is, you know, in the world of potential, It would function similarly to if, you know, a person had already achieved their ELAR certificate and and, needed to go back and achieve their special education supplemental. Thank you. Mhmm. Doctor. Rodriguez. Follow-up question to what Chair Strypi just asked. Cert by exam, is that dependent on whether the candidate had been initially reported as admitted under one
of these or independently of that once they achieve a base certificate having passed the four core areas? That that's a very good question. So that would be independent. I think to echo Jessica's, point around, you know, if the the board, so chose to, then we would have to indicate in chapter two thirty that essentially, an achievement or a pass on that, core base exam plus whatever the exam number is for the specialty subtest would equal that certificate. So even if a candidate initially had been admitted under fine arts PE and health,
they only sought to achieve the base core because they have the base core as their foundation, then that opens the doorway for them to return to fine arts PE or, again, to kind of serve by exam. I'm using it in quotes because it isn't the traditional kind of serve by exam, but but this is kind of us trying to be innovative with your exams, but our thinking is that it would function similarly where a candidate could only these these candidates would be able to, attempt those assessments those subtests.
Excuse me. Me. Well, thank you for for thinking, in this flexible and innovative way. I think this has a lot of potential to, reduce the number of uncertified individuals who who end up in our classrooms. And if all of this is thought through very carefully, keeping in mind that we want as many of our candidates to earn those certifications as possible, this is sounding like moving in that direction very nicely. So thank you for thinking about working with these candidates to get them certified and
with the EPPs, of course. Well, and I think the rich discussion we can have now will help inform back and forth for those very things. So, thank you for engaging. Yes, Ms. Glasscock. Just out of curiosity, I kind of understand full and SPED and bilingual and those. Are there a lot that don't end up being certified because of fine arts health? And why the thought of pulling that out? I mean, I understand flexibility, but it's interesting to me that we pull that out. That's a good question. So I so a couple things come to mind. I don't have the data in front of me to suggest that there are a
lot of folks who are kind of held up, in the certification process because of the fine arts PE and health exam. But one, that additional subtest really serves our rural districts where they might need the core subjects teacher in addition to providing, students with access to fine arts, PE, and health. And so, that fifth subtest, you know, kind of, innately provided flexibility for the candidate. But we have heard from the field that typically folks who are going to serve in elementary, placements, like, they if they are going to do that,
they're going to achieve those EC 12, certifications. And so then it kind of opened the door to, well, if that is a field practice, then, you know, what do we do as we are redesigning this exam? Do we need to make the fine arts PE and health subtest a requirement for everyone? And I think that line of questioning then brought us to, well, if we're gonna make that an option, are there other places that we can have optional given that, again, we are redesigning SPED, we're redesigning ESL, bilingual, we, you know, we redesign PE and health.
And so I think that's kind of our line of thinking that led to, this menu of core subjects options. Thanks. So a lot of the fine arts health are specialists anyway. They're they're health teachers, and so they don't need to be core. Correct. But if, you know, if you would like that, then we would have that option for you. Alrighty. Exam development in 02/1928 is geared toward offering additional certification areas for core e c six candidates and updating exams related to ESL and bilingual certification fields.
Scheduled to launch in September 28 is the second phase of the new core e c six exams. This new core subjects e c six exam will include two additional subtests, which will lead towards certification in English as a second language and in bilingual education Spanish proficiency. Your new core EC six exam will allow candidates the option of taking a five subtest exam that includes a subtest that covers English as a second language. The certificate pathway aligned with that exam requires a combination of passing scores on the core e c six.
STR and pedagogy exams, and then this will lead to a core ESL with STR EC six certificate. Your new core additionally, I'm sorry. Your new core e c six exam will allow candidates the option of taking a five subtest exam that includes subtest covering bilingual education pedagogy and Spanish proficiency content. The certificate pathway aligned with that exam requires a combination of passing scores on the e I'm sorry, core EC six, STR, and pedagogy exams, which will lead to a core bilingual education Spanish with STR EC through six certificate.
These exams do not represent a new certification field. However, the aligned certificate name has changed. We anticipate that programs I'm sorry. Like the special education certificate, the programs that currently offer your core subjects and the aligned e c 12 certificates will have to complete an amendment request to offer your new slate of core e c six certificates. Alrighty. So moving on. So given my discussion about the projected core e c six certification development, there are some considerations that we are factoring into the revision and development process.
These considerations revolve around candidates' testing experience, time, cost, and the and emphasize the best goal of providing flexibility wherever possible. So I know this slide is a little out of order, but we're gonna cover core subjects testing first. So as we think about the operation of the core e c six exam, we are considering establishing a base core that includes the four subtests of ELAR, math, science, and social studies. At the time of registration, candidates will select the base core exam and their specialty subtest if approved. Programs will receive score reports at the base exam and subtest level.
As we think about registration, we're considering additional flexibility where candidates will be able to register for individual subtests and take them on different days. For example, candidates could take math and LR on the same day or science and SPED on a different day or register to take one subtests per per testing session on multiple days. Moving along to core certificates. So going back to the idea of providing more flexibility where possible, We are considering a process where if a candidate passes the subtest of the base exam that includes subtest ELAR math,
sciences, social studies and fail their fifth approved specialty subtest, they can be recommended for the general core with STR EC six certification. Additionally, candidates who are issued the general core with STR e c e c six certification or any of the other core e c six certificates will have the option to cert by exam any of the optional sub specialty subtest areas. For example, a candidate who has earned a core special education e c six cert certificate can attempt the ESL specialty subtest for the credential. Alrighty.
Moving on to updates to the to consider. Considering the flexibility and certificate options we would like to provide candidates, it will be necessary to make updates to your rules and to ensure that the base core e c six exam can be used for multiple certificates. And lastly, the application process considerations. To create a seamless program, amendment request process, we are considering a process that will allow programs that currently offer EC 12 certificates that align to core e c six specialty subtest to submit one request for all
applicable specialty areas. For example, an ECP that currently offers core subjects e c six and bilingual education Spanish could submit an amendment request for approval to offer the new core with STR, e c six, and the new core, e c six bilingual, Spanish proficiency certificates. So moving forward, also in September 2028, we're anticipating the launch of your new English as a second language supplemental exam, which is aligned with your ESL certificate. Updates in 02/2024 to the English language proficiency standards,
also known as ELPS, necessitated updates to this EXL exam. So currently, candidates seeking ESL certification would take pedagogy, content pedagogy, and the ESL supplemental exam. In the new certification pathway, ESL candidates will take pedagogy, content pedagogy, and the new updated ESL supplemental exam. The exam is aligned to the current certification field and EPPs that currently offer this certification will not need to reapply. And just as a reminder, the revised ESL supplemental EC through 12 will be aligned to the updated ELPS and
will replace the current EC I'm sorry. ESL supplemental EC 12. That was a lot of ease in there. I apologize. Alright. And so with that, that is the close of the updates, and I'm gonna hand it back over to DeMarco. Thank you, Kaye. Okay. Continuing the party in 2028. We discussed this certificate pathway, in February in context of the bilingual special education standards. But just a reminder to the board, that there are some additional aspect related actions needed to fully implement the certificate and
insert pathway in the field. And those actions are related to updates that would, updates to the list of allowable aspect issued, certificates for bilingual and ESL assignments to your chapter two thirty one rules, and then of course, updates to chapter two thirty five which would serve as the house for the bilingual special education standards. In terms of context related to the CERT pathway, as a reminder, candidates per the, legislation HB 2,256 are not allowed to cert by exam, the bilingual special education, assessment and aligned pathway. The bilingual special educator as we think about the applicability of the certificate should be
able to serve as a bilingual educator or special educator respectively. And then lastly, as you see to the right of this slide that the your current rules reflect bilingual the bilingual Spanish certificate pathway and that's just a note, because the standards themselves are language agnostic, but the current pathway is in line with your, your bilingual Spanish cert pathway. And then because this is similar to deaf blind, this is a completely new cert field. Programs are expected to complete a full application in order to offer this certificate.
And this slide I I am we're seeking some feedback from the board. I think typically with every exam that we launch we try to think carefully around resources that we provide to programs that will make an exam launch as seamless as possible and ensure that everyone who needs to be informed, they have the information they needed in terms of, you know, what's going to be different about this exam, how does it compare to the old one, what are some kind of highlights that we need to be aware of when training candidates or supporting candidates through this assessment.
So in terms of some, recent exam supports and resources, we do provide email communication to programs and candidates when an exam is retiring, given that the board's rules allow for a score on a a retiring exam to kind of, last four years. So if I passed an exam that is now retired, I do have a year to certify with that score, before I might have to actually go and take the new exam. So we but we provide email communication to programs and candidates at that, where that retirement transition might impact them.
We also provide for our programs, exam one pagers. Two specific examples. We previously provided the special education specialist in deaf blind, one pagers where we outline, some of the updates to the exam and when more resources will be available to program. So we try to keep it updated as we learn new things. And recently, I say the the team has provided framework crosswalks for our redesigned exams. So for our PE health, ELAR seven twelve, special education, bilingual education, Spanish exams,
Kelly and Kaye have actually gone through the frameworks for each of those exams and crosswalked, the frameworks for the old exams with the new exams, being really intentional about pointing out where those new exams differ from the old exams in hopes of, providing some support to programs that are planning to update their curriculum. And then lastly, in terms of what we currently offer, we do offer program capacity building in the form of a framework and constructive response item deep dive. In the fall, we offered a certification application webinar in conjunction with Lori's team,
where we discussed the special education specialist framework and the requirements for a program to continue offering that certificate. And then recently this spring, Kelly offered a preparation manual walk through for the SPED specialist certification exam, just to orient programs to the preparation manual for, that new exam. Now on the other side of the slide, there are some upcoming supports, and resources that we are planning to launch in the very near future. On a screen near you, you can expect the core subjects redesign one pager in addition to the bilingual education
Spanish one pager. We are planning to provide a webinar that does a complete walk through of all of the upcoming, exams through 2028 similar to the kind of walk through that we've provided this morning, afternoon now. And then we are, I would say, in the next two weeks, providing a CRI deep dive for the special education specialist exam, a deep dive work session for programs. And then in the summer, we are planning a core subjects redesign framework webinar given that those frameworks will be final in the summer. So in the world of this is what TEA is currently providing,
again, I am looking for board feedback around additional resources or capacity building opportunities you think might be helpful for our educator preparation programs or our school districts because we've heard that, you know, with the changing of exams, often our LEAs feel kind of left out of the conversation, and we wanna make sure that, all of the the necessary parties are are kept abreast on everything that's going on with test development. Doctor. Rodriguez? Thank you, Demarco, for the opportunity to provide, you know,
some some ideas. I think that's something that would be helpful, would be some kind of one pager flowchart that, without naming excuse me, without naming particular tests, just outlines for an EPP. If you're currently approved, you know, this is what you need to do. If you're not approved, this is what you need to do. I'm thinking particularly of also providing, some further reminders. This is not new. But what does the amendment look like and require versus
the the full application so that we can start thinking, will those amendments be a memo with what kind of attachments, if any? You know, that just just those kinds of visuals that can start that ETPs can start organizing their thoughts around we're going to have to submit these many amendments versus one application as well or, you know, depending on what EPPs are approved for.
I wonder on the district side, you might seek, input from more on the human resource side. But if, new candidates are coming without health and PE and fine arts, they'll need to know that, that they may need to help them choose a specialization that fits with their campus. But you may end up with, for example, a rural camp campus that's counting on that core subject, EC6 to come across with fine arts. Thank you. Doctor. Galvan? Thank you. I appreciate Doctor. Rodriguez bringing that up because one of the things,
and particularly think of today, the new programs have already been right approved under the new certificates that we're offering. But since we've had programs along the past few years that are not, it's making it clear what is the difference between that full application and that amendment And then making of this, this this this is what amended is. These are the certificates. Here is your timeline because you all are gonna be extremely busy.
So set a deadline for that application because you're gonna be bombarded with applications for so many different things in addition to new programs that they're going to be, well, we can't offer that certificate because TEA hasn't resubmitted it, but it has not been approved. So to be proactive to think, okay, here's your deadline and here's your timeline of when it should be and what occurs along that process. And the other one is those one pagers are outstanding.
And what is very helpful with those one pagers that are so kudos to whoever develops those. They're colorful. They're organized. They're well explained, because then the district and the program, it's not about me. It's if you read this information, this is a requirement. This is not unchanging at the last minute. And it avoids grievances towards programs and universities. I'm getting pressured. So for even programs and universities, just setting those deadlines and policies that are going to then avoid losing what we're
already going to lose. For example, PE. How many coaches have passed that PPR when there's a deadline for health and PE coming up? And that one page was very helpful to districts and programs to say, look, you've got to pass that PPR because you will have to then keep I tell them, you keep your score forever. You die with your score, like your Social Security. You just can't use it for certification. But those continue those one pagers, and your deep dives are always outstanding, and you record those and post those,
correct? We do. So keeping that posting so we can go back and review that information because it is quite a lot of information to deal with and there's a lot going on for everybody. But it seems like you all have done an what is amended. What are the certificates that are going to be and the dates, 2025, '20 '20 '6, '20 '20 '7? Look ahead. 2028 is coming. But even to include that in the FAQ, like, what's the difference between, like Doctor. Rodriguez brought up,
the amended and the full application? Thank you. You've done an outstanding job. It's just keeping up with what's going to take the priority, which is the first exam that we either, in fact, the SPED, I know CHIS is already approved. But hey, yes, it sounds the same, but you've got to, what, amend or reapply? Which one is it And why? Thank you. Thank you. Doctor. Rodriguez? I have another scenario question. So if a candidate was, reported and admitted as specialist
takes the pedagogy exam and the specialist passes that goes on and, you know, is this the teacher. But eventually wants to become an elementary teacher. Will there be an option for that candidate to attempt one of these, go go towards the base EC six certificate? Would that be a cert by exam scenario? That's a great question. Yes. So that candidate, had achieved their SPED cert and they want to come back,
they would have to cert by exam the core subjects, exam. But given that they were already certified in special education, they wouldn't need that special education fit subtest. But again, that base core opens up the door for them to then take the ESL subtest or the fine arts PE help or the bilingual subtest pending their, you know, preparation or their, their content knowledge. So, yes. But that base core, we are you know, our thinking is that that will be essentially be the key, in this redevelopment of core subjects.
Thank you. So, at this point, we're going to go ahead and break for lunch. It's 12:30. I understand there's a problem with lunch being delivered, so we're gonna need to go downstairs to the cafeteria. So let's take a forty five minute break, until 01:15. It's 12:30 now. And, did you have directions for us or anything else? And do we have a room? Don't we are we do have a room. Right? So we do we do have a room. The there is a cafeteria at the bottom of the stairs and through the door that's directly across from the stairs.
And, Jessica, I'll refer to you for additional directions. Super. It's 12:30, and we'll be back at 01:15. And we are going to continue. Great. We are still working through this item, and we're picking up on page 66 of the slide deck. Okay. Welcome back. This is the second half of item 12. As we shared at the beginning of this item, we reserved the latter half of the item to, provide the board with an update on the development of the Texas Test of Educator
Proficiency, more commonly known as TTEP these days. So just some context there. Since the last time, the board discussed the development of a Texas specific teacher performance assessment, we have updated the name of that assessment, which now more closely aligns to TTEC. And so we just wanna, at at least at the name basis, establish, establish some commonality between those evaluative tools. To ground us in, this the context around the development of this assessment, we've provided a brief little timeline of SBEC discussion really over the last year or
so. So this time last year, the SBEC examined, options for a t a tPA and timelines that would, essentially lead to the development of a Texas specific teacher performance assessment. During the April meeting, the SBEC directed TEA staff to pursue, TPA development options with Texas EPPs really leading the charge, recognizing that Texas EPPs have, the knowledge and the expertise needed to ensure that an assessment of this nature is Texas specific and really meets the needs of Texas teacher candidates and Texas classrooms.
September 2024 meeting, was the last update staff provided to the board. And during that meeting, we provided an update and also discussed, excuse me, a plan to launch, a grant application. And so I'm excited to share that at this meeting, we'll provide an update on that app that grant application process, and also discuss some options for stakeholder engagement that we are considering throughout the assessment's development process. The Texas test of educator proficiency, TTEP, EPP Development Team Selection,
Onboarding, and Training Grant launched in January of this year. This grant serves as an opportunity to identify six to eight educator preparation programs, And you notice that note there, these are, non profit EPPs that will each select one faculty or staff member to serve on a development team. These folks would ultimately be responsible for developing all assessment materials and the aligned implementation resources. The grant provides funding for that identified faculty staff member, to complete virtual and in person onboarding and training requirements.
So essentially, this is the sort of foundation to get the development of this, the foundational grant to get the development of this assessment started. The grants also outline stipulations for continued funding for these selected folks through years 2025, '20 '6, and 2627 recognizing that similar to your other, the development of your content pedagogy assessments, this assessment will also be a multi year process and we want to ensure that those folks are paid for their services. In terms of the grant timeline,
as you can see there are lots of gray areas, because we have been working to ensure that this is a seamless process. We actually just wrapped up the interview phase of the grant application process and we are looking forward to announcing the awards, in just about two weeks. So in two weeks, we will be able to publicly share these selected individuals who will serve on your on a TTEP's EPP development team. As I shared the TTEP will follow,
a similar process to your current, to your content pedagogy assessments. This exam will align to that multi year process for development, really thinking about including educators the opportunity or including educators in that process and granting them the opportunity to provide feedback at critical milestones throughout the process. Again, this is similar to what we are already doing. And so we have the structures in place in order to ensure that TTAB does the same thing. Right at the start of any, exam development,
there is an establishing of the vision and design parameters for the assessment. And then from there, we start to build the project plan. We approve that project plan. And then we start moving into the middle of the timeline that you see here with the red arrows where we, begin to facilitate those development meetings, and specific to the TTIP development process, that is where we will facilitate, development meetings with your EPP, content development team. From there, the EPP content development team will work on deliverables around the assessment.
They'll provide those deliverables to the agency for some additional review. And then from there, those deliverables similar to our current test development process will then go out into the field for additional stakeholder review. And then from there, once we kind of get out of this iterative cycle of developing, review, developing, review, we move into the latter part of exam development, which involves field testing, standard setting, and rule making, which are additional areas for stakeholders to provide input.
But just wanna point out here that that happens toward the end of a process, with the exam launch being the kind of last stage for test development. So again, I've I've said it a few times, but just wanna drive the point here that we are thinking about TTF as being a, you know, standard, a standard development process similar to what we have been doing for, all of your newly launched certification exams. And again, as part of that process, our stakeholders. And so we are, really thinking about stakeholders and their involvement in this process,
really thinking about lessons learned from the edTPA pilot and really considering how to involve stakeholders as early as possible, and at those critical milestones. And so with that, I thought it might be helpful to provide a visual of how we imagine stakeholder input in the development of this assessment. So we do have this kind of layered circle, if you will, where at the center, we have our TTEP EPP content development team. And as I shared, they are ultimately responsible for designing all components and implementation materials.
Right? So they are the core of the development of this assessment. And then from there, we will look for subject matter experts who will provide that needed subject matter expertise. They'll provide that feedback on the assessment which then your EPP content development team will take that feedback and make the adjustments necessary. From there, there are opportunities for other contributors including additional EPPs and LEA stakeholders. We have received questions around, you know, outside of the EPP content development team, how else can EPPs,
LEA folks get involved in the development of this assessment? Again, we have processes currently that we utilize to ensure that EPPs provide feedback, that, folks in districts are able to provide critical milestones and decision points, which could potentially include a stakeholder content advisory group similar to, what we call an item review committee. So for every one of your content pedagogy exams, we facilitate a content review committee where they look at all of your exam items
and provide feedback just to make sure that there's relevance with the items and what's actually happening in the field. And so we do imagine something similar happening with TTIP. On that same train, there is a very near term opportunity for stakeholder engagement as we really ramp up, and begin to develop this assessment. We are looking to organize a TTIP stakeholder advisory group. Again their purpose will be to provide feedback at critical decision points and milestones. We are looking for this group to be comprised of EPP faculty staff and balanced
with LEA and district teachers and leaders, to ensure that we have all of the needed perspectives around the table as it relates to developing this assessment. We anticipate, launching the application for this advisory group no earlier than August of twenty twenty five. We're in the process of confirming timelines, as it relates to milestones and whatnot for the T TEP, but we do again plan to launch an application for this group specifically no earlier than August 2025. And I think this is the end of this item.
I think we have public. So, I had a few. Other comments from the board? I had a couple of things I was just curious about, one of which is how are districts and teachers involved specifically? And I know you said, the individuals be will be known on May 5. Is that individuals, or is that the programs themselves? Both. So the the programs support the application process. But as part of that grant application, they had to identify, a person who would serve on the team. So, we'll be able to announce,
kind of both parties May 5. Super. And what about district and teacher involvement? That's that's a good question. So I would say the first instant instance, excuse me, of district and teacher involvement we'll have is that T TEP advisory stakeholder group. But throughout the development process, we will have to go into the field and and seek feedback, from districts, even teacher candidates, former teacher candidates, especially around the field testing portion of the assessment. As part of the development process, which again is a part of our current process, we do focus group testing where we are inviting district teachers,
and teacher candidates to the table and asking about their perspectives for an assessment. So again, I think the first clearly planned instance would be that advisory group. Okay. Yep. Yes. Associate commissioner. And I think just one other thing to name that that DeMarco shared was that, we envision this content development team also developing training and resources that would be shared with the field. So the benefit would be we can customize Texas specific training content, handbooks, materials that could be used with that could be have an LEA focused audience.
So, customized materials that we could then share with campuses and district level leaders so that they had a better understanding of what this assessment looks and sounds like and also pulling folks in to give input on those materials too. Super. I I think that's a to echo Jessica, I think that's a a kind of highlight of putting together that stakeholder group so early. We did we did hear from that TPA pilot, you know, it'd be nice to have materials that are specific to the Texas context at the start of something of a transition that big. And so putting together this advisory group at the start of developing this assessment,
to Jessica's point, allows us to bring those deliverables very early on, getting those, valuable perspectives before we're, you know, at the end of the development process. I think that'll be a game changer for people, so I appreciate that. I'm I'm sorry. Did I interrupt you? One of the things I was also wondering about is what we've talked about here in different situations have been things like the teacher responses to the surveys that they do about their EPPs and what that might tell us about what would be important
for us to include. And then, any kind of alignment to T TAS when you are able to tell us about that, and its redevelopment would would be helpful. And then, also, I was thinking about with the residencies, anything we can learn from the gates that, you know, as they go through developing their gates, that all of these things are all aligned such that we know that our candidates are moving toward consistency, and quality as we've said all along. Yes. Miss Glasscock? I'm not sure how much you can share about the grant process,
but was the response good? I mean, just talking about stakeholder the feel in the field for developing in this new thing, is it is there some excitement? I I can say that there is some excitement. That's about all I can say right now. But, yes, there is there's some excitement. We did receive applications. Yes. Yes. Doctor. Yebaughn, thank you. Would you be so kind go back to your slide? Which one? This one? That one. That one. And the next one. Oh, next one. So the different content experts and the different diversity in stakeholder advisory group,
is that to help like think of Pearson when we go and serve on committees for content construct validity, the equity panel. Is there going to be an equity to make sure there's no bias? Maybe thinking of putting that in. That is the last step for Pearson. And the next slide, please. And that content advisory to make sure that it's not just nonprofit, but to include because for profit is going to have to implement this tool. But having that diversity and the question we would have to ask ourselves
is, does that stakeholder content advisory group meet prior to getting very specific content experts and having that multistep layer where when this is all rolled out and implemented, there is this robust explanation of validity and reliability that they're going to say, well, this was developed by this was not developed by XYZ company,
Pearson or ETS or and that way, there is still that rigor of that validity and reliability and perhaps in the implementation looking at how we could maybe obtain some data both quantitative and qualitative that would address in the rollout here in the pilot, these were the changes, this was the validity and reliability that was gathered. I realize that is a lot of work. But if this is something that we this makes or breaks my certification at the very end.
And we talked about it for years how it is so beneficial. But in the end, we want buy in from teacher candidates as well as university alternative certification for profit, you know, nonprofit, and all the new programs that have joined us as well. To echo your comment, yes, it is a lot of work. But, again, we have structures in place to ensure, you know, to to review for fairness within an exam, to think about, whether or not the content is relevant to the field.
And so we do plan to kind of employ our current structures, with an intentional eye around to your point around the kind of gravity of designing an exam like this and what it will mean to the state. We have heard given the nature of the grant that it is important to consider the for profit perspective and so that went into our decision to really craft this advisory group to ensure that we again have the necessary eyes on the assessment assessment, excuse me, and the perspectives at the table.
Thank you. Thank you. Miss Weier? DeMarco, I do appreciate your hard work, and we're all making, you know, suggestions and requests. I'm just gonna add one little more maybe. Okay. And when we're talking about having the stakeholders and getting feedback and and especially along the lines of subject specific, I'm gonna ask for special consideration to be given to CTE because on the current T test, the way it is written, it is not as familiar. The words do not flow for the way CTE teachers look at it.
And, and part of that is I believe it's because our our goal is for the young people to be workforce development ready, and the terms aren't like that in the, t test. So I just either want for us to have sensitivity of the wording to be included, you know, where we can wordsmith it because you guys are great at wordsmithing, definitely better than I, but to also to include maybe executive CTE directors or CTE teachers as part of the stakeholders to get their buy in and to realize that we are all in
this together. I think we've seen CTE and, we've seen several other pathways music maybe perhaps that have come up that I suspect are on your list. So, thank you. Doctor. Rodriguez? Thank you, Chair Strypi. DeMarco, I apologize if you mentioned this earlier. I may have missed it. With all of this development process, where are we in the timeline to have the assessment ready for implementation, which would go hand in hand with PPR no longer being an option as a
pedagogy exam and moving solely to a performance assessment is what we have discussed previously? That's a good question. So previously, we shared and I think on my the very first side of this of the item that we anticipate this assessment launching in September of twenty twenty seven. So that would, pending board action mean that the PPR would sunset, in August of twenty twenty seven to make way for the, TTEP to be, the kind of royalty of the assessment world there. So that is the that's the timeline that we have shared with the board,
and that is the timeline that we've been, operating on. One thing that, with the districts and the teachers that I wanted to bring up was the changes within schools and the, increased sensitivity to privacy. And some of those items that will come up, I think, will warrant us taking a good look at how that's implemented within the schools. And then I think that's also where your support materials for the districts will come out as well. So, I appreciate it. Other questions from the board? Thank you for bringing that to us. Appreciate the update.
Thank you. Hello. Hi. Alright. We're ready for item 13. Thank you, miss Landau. Good afternoon to the chair and to the board. We are excited to present item 13 today, which is a discussion item, a rather lengthy one about, the proposed updates to chapter two twenty nine. Just to ensure that everyone is on the same page as we move into the discussion, I want to start with some shared terms and acronyms that will be used throughout this presentation. As a reminder, Chapter two twenty nine contains the performance standards and procedures for the educator preparation program
accountability. This includes the accountability system for educator preparation programs or ASAP as I'll refer to throughout this presentation. Accreditation statuses, refer to annual ratings or EPPs based on ASAP. Chapter two twenty nine is the code chapter that contains the rules. This includes the ASAP manual. Finally, we will talk throughout this presentation about indicators. These are the metrics or measurements that are the components that make up ASAP. As a reminder for the board,
the indicator there are, these are these are the indicators that are contained in ASAP. They include certification testing, both pedagogy and content pedagogy, principal survey, student growth, observations, field super, a survey of field supervision, and finally the teacher survey. All of the related calculations for these indicators are found in the ASAP manual and we use these indicators and procedures that are in the manual to complete the annual ASAP cycle of activities, which concludes with the February meeting where you approve the accreditation statuses for the previous
year. Looking at recent actions, you may remember in September, you adopted the annual updates for chapter two twenty nine. In November, the SVOE approved the rules and we notified educator prep programs of our recommended statuses for the academic year. At your last meeting in February, you approved all your EPPs statuses based on the calculations with the twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four data. And finally, in late February, we met with our the data working group to discuss several items for feedback,
two of which we bring for discussion today. As is our typical annual cadence, we bring a discussion item in April in the April meeting with any identified updates for the system, which is what we're doing right now. Based on your feedback today, we plan to bring an item for proposal at the July meeting. Our goal for today's item is to discuss updates and to identify recommended changes so that we can include them in the July proposal. Last kind of contextual information before we jump into the meat of the presentation,
what are the things that prompt these updates annually? There are a bunch of them. They include, working to respond to Board guidance, responding to stakeholder input, responding to updates to other chapters that require us to align, another year of learning from doing the ASAP calculations, and finally, a thorough review of the rules that exist. Today, we're going to talk about six different things throughout the presentation. We're going to start today with talking about the small group process adjustments. Our timeline for developing an approach for discussion today has included last spring's conversation with
the Board with where the Board shared direction to continue monitoring this issue. This prompted us in the winter twenty twenty five to review data from the twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four cycle to develop some different approaches and model those approaches with our available data, to share potential options with the data working group and with the educator prep preparation certification and enforcement leadership for feedback and finally synthesizing that feedback to select a preferred
approach, which is what we're sharing today. The small group aggregation procedure is a very technical procedure. So I'm going to walk you through the procedure to start with. As a reminder, this is a visualization that is in the ACEP manual representing the small group aggregation procedure. The procedure is as follows beginning at the far left of your visual. Start by determining if the current reporting year has more than 10 individuals in an indicator. If it if there is, you evaluate. If there is not, we then look to the previous reporting year.
So we start with the current year, then we look backwards a year. And we add more data from that previous year. We again look for are there more than 10 candidates that we can evaluate? If the answer is yes, we evaluate. If the answer is no, we look backwards again another year for more data. If we get a third year of data, we evaluate period regardless of how many people are in that pool. A note here that the twenty twenty three, twenty twenty four year was the first year where three years of data were available
since restarting ASAP after the pause that was caused by the pandemic. Some additional context here is in addition, the Board already acted on small group aggregation procedures in the twenty twenty two-twenty twenty three cycle, specifically as it relates to needing to be perfect on ASAP indicators when there are three years of data used. Since this rule has been operationalized, it has improved EPP's index scores. For example, last year 23 EPPs had a higher index score once this rule was implemented.
Still, the Board and stakeholders continue to share feedback about the small group aggregation procedures. We summarize this feedback to principally be focused on what happens when the small group aggregation procedure results in not meeting a standard even though the current year indicates that there may be some improvement in performance. Notably, we now have additional evidence that speaks to stakeholder feedback. Specifically, the twenty twenty three-twenty twenty four ASAP results suggest that when we use multiple years
of data for evaluation, this associates with a higher probability of not meeting a standard. In the figure displayed on this page, you can see that four percent of the evaluations are not meeting a standard when we use one year of data for the evaluation. This grows to 9% when using two years of data for the evaluation and, oh, and 19% when using three years of data for the evaluation. Importantly, this finding this empirical finding aligns tightly with feedback from the field in discussions about
one poor performance year two or three years ago causing problems even though the program has taken steps to improve. Today, we propose an adjustment to the small group aggregation process that adds a secondary evaluation using the current year of data to further substantiate our results. The proposed small group adjustment we share today is as follows. After completing the evaluation as approved by the Board, we propose adding a secondary evaluation step. The secondary evaluation would be of the current year data when two conditions are met.
First, the small group aggregation procedure was applied, meaning that we had to go back and get a second year of data or a third year of data to perform the evaluation. And the sorry. And so that's part one. And the result of the evaluation was the program did not meet the standard. So I'll say that to be more succinct. The small group aggregation procedure gets applied and the result of the evaluation is did not meet the standard. When the secondary evaluation of the current year of data indicates that the program actually
meets the standard in the current year, the consecutive year counter that we use on an indicator or a certification class and category would be paused in this scenario. When the secondary evaluation of the current year of data did not meet the standard, the consecutive year counter would move forward. So that would mean, like, in the future survey, if we have a year one miss last year and now we go to a a second year and we do the secondary evaluation and they did not meet the standard,
the counter would move forward to a second year miss. This will impact both the ASAP index by affecting whether a program reaches a third consecutive year of missing a standard and thus has a negative weight outcome, it will also affect EPPs in the certification class or category evaluation by affecting whether the EPP reaches a third consecutive year. In practice, this may mean programs have extra time to reach a standard when the evidence in the current year suggests improvement may have happened.
Let's review an example and some model data from the twenty twenty three, twenty four data to show more about how this would work. I wanna begin by orient orienting you to this table since it's a little bit comp complex and there's a lot of information in it. Each row is meant to represent an accountability year and the data available that is counted in the evaluation in that accountability year. When you look at the 2022 accountability row, you can see the example shows that there are only results for the twenty twenty
two year used in the evaluation. In other years, as we go down this list, you will see two or three years of data used in that calculation. Each column with a year is the results for a particular reporting year. The total results is to help compare the outcome measured to a theoretical standard for this of 70%. The current year results share shares the secondary evaluation results and is populated when a secondary evaluation is necessary. The evaluation result is the evaluation outcome based only on the total results column.
The secondary evaluation result, the very last column, is the evaluation outcome adjusted for the current year results. Now to dig into the example. So we start with the 2022 year. The program had zero out of two candidates meet the standard in that year. That's a 0%. However, there this is not enough data for us to evaluate, so no evaluation is conducted. We then go to the 2023 year. Now we have two years of data. We start with 2023. We count that data. We see that we don't have enough,
data to do an evaluation. We look backwards the second year. Now we have two out of five meeting the standard. Again, we don't have enough data to do an evaluation. The third year now we add a third year and we can now count backwards two additional years. So now we actually have enough data to perform an evaluation. The EPP in this case had two out of eight meet the standard, which doesn't reach 70%. The current year results also are zero out of three. So even with a secondary evaluation, both in both pieces of information indicate that the program has not met the standard
and now we have a year one miss. In the fourth year, and this is where it starts this is where the impact would be seen in our theoretical example. So now we start with the 2025 year, we count that year. We then look backwards two years to get enough data to do an evaluation. Overall, the program still has six out of 10 in this example, so they have not met the standard for the year. We then perform the secondary evaluation. So we look just at the 2025 data.
We see that they were four out of four overall. So the first result says this is a year two fail. However, because the current year is indicative of improvement based on the data, that would pause the counter for a year. So it'd keep the counter at a year one miss in that circumstance. Moving to the, like, theoretical 2026 year, the program now has one out of three in that current year. We go backwards again to get two years of data. Overall, the program is five out of 10.
The current year result, when we look at that, that also doesn't make the standard. So now the counter advances forward a year. So you can see the, this would be year three in the current system. It would be year two in a proposed new system. Finally, now we have the 2027 year. Again, they went four out of four. We put all the data together because we go backwards two years to get enough data to do an evaluation. And because two out of the last three years have they've been perfect in this
example, now they are meeting the standard overall of 70% and they pass and the counter no longer is at play in this conversation. Alright. Now we're gonna look at some real data from last year to help kinda further contextualize this. So I went backwards and I looked at the teacher survey data first from last year, which is one of the indicators in the system. Overall, on that 53% of the evaluations that we performed, you used the small group aggregation procedure, meaning we had to go backwards two or three years to get enough data to
evaluate. 20% of those small group ex small group evaluations did not meet the standard. So one out of every five. And 47% or just about half of those secondary evaluations, if we did if there was a secondary evaluation in place, in the current year met the board's standard. So that means, in those cases, that would pause 28 different in 28 different places, we would pause the counter from moving forward on the teacher survey.
Overall, this approach would have led to higher index scores for several programs that were showing improvement in the current year on the teacher survey. We also went and looked at the certification class and category data. In this, 65% of the evaluations use the small group aggregation and you can see this is a very large number, nearly a thousand this is nearly a thousand instances of evaluation where we needed small group aggregation data to perform an evaluation.
13% of the the small group evaluations that were performed did not meet the standard and 66% of the secondary evaluations of the current year did meet the standard. So in summary, this approach would have led several programs that showed improvement in the pass rate to not advance further towards the revocation of a certification class or category. These updates that are presented today are included in the rule text, on Page 13 of the item
and in Chapter two of the manual, which is found on pages twenty and twenty one. These updates maintain information rich evaluations, which is something the Board has indicated they want lots of data in the system. It recognizes that EPPs might have improvements within a current year even if the evaluation is gathering more data to perform the evaluation. It's responsive to stakeholder feedback and it provides flexibility in the timeline for EPPs. There's a lot here.
I'm going to pause at this point and see if there's any questions or comments. Doctor. Rodriguez? Thank you, Chair Strepid. Doctor. Lambda, thank you so much for this very thorough presentation. And more than anything, thank you for being responsive to stakeholder feedback and to the needs of the field. We all know that we are hurting with the number of certified teachers. We need EPPs to continue to be in good standing and operate so that we can certify more teachers. Also, I think this approach is
great because it recognizes improvements that the EPPs are making. And I don't see this as a simple we're going to give you a break, but it is based on concrete improvements made. And I think it is excellent that it is not solely based on what an EPP no longer has control of, which is student let's talk about the certification, not the surveys, but in the certification. Those students already tested and already failed,
and there's nothing to do about it. That happened. But now you are recognizing the efforts that an EPP is making moving forward and taking that into account, which in my opinion is very important and much appreciated. Would I have a question about the hypothetical example that you provided. If you would please go back to that slide Yeah. Because you presented one example, but many things could be happening every year, right? So I am curious to to know what what would be the scenario if in 2026,
I believe it is, where it was only one out of three, so it was a fail in the current year, right, what if that would have been a three out of three? What would have happened? Does the EPC keep that failure one? Or at that point, does the EPP get cleared and start all over? Yes. Thank you for the question and feedback. If 2026 were three out of three there, then if you look at the total results, we would have to add two there,
right? So it would be 70% that would meet the board standard. And so that would be a met standard. And so the program would be good to go. Thank you. Thank you. And I have another question. Can you explain again the 2027 scenario as you presented it? I remember you mentioned something like everything is clear or something like that. Can you go over that one again? Yeah. So by clear in that case, what I mean is they've now met the standard. And so like if they were to then in the next year have a result
that didn't meet the standard, they'd be at year one in account. I'd like to echo that excuse me. I'd like to echo that in that this is a direct result from our conversations about how to support our programs that are showing progress. Remember, we had that we had such a discussion about that. So, again, appreciate that you bring this to us. Doctor. Galvan? Thank you. Because we had had a very robust conversation about this, and the support is very important. So the way I make sense of it in my mind is
we're shifting from a gotcha system to an improvement because of the feedback that, well, it already happened. What can I do? So when you when you look at at 2025 that you paused it, right, You paused it, but that doesn't negate the fail in year one. Correct? It's still it's still adding the previous three years. So when you paused it because it went up when they passed,
you don't lose that fail year one. So in 2026 for that fail, you still go back three years. So you're still going to go back, 2026, '20 '20 '5, '20 '20 '4 because it's three. Yeah. And you stop at 2024. But when you go back, I think doctor Rodriguez discussed this. Help me understand very specifically 2027, you passed. But in 2028, do I start at 2028?
Or are you going to go back two more years? Yeah. So that's a good question. Thank you for the clarification. The small group counting will always happen. We will always, if there isn't, so like I started the conversation by pointing to the first procedure that we do, which is going and looking for, are there more than 10 candidates to evaluate. So in your 2028 scenario, these are all pretty small groups, right? So like in less in the next year, they said this program grows all of a sudden and has like 11 candidates.
If it's less than 10, we start moving backwards and still looking for that other data to be able to perform the first part of the evaluation. What we're proposing here is this is a secondary evaluation to then say, after we've done that primary evaluation, now let's and if it didn't meet the board standard, let's verify the current year's data also is pointing in the same direction. If it if it's not, that's what's helping us try to differentiate between programs that are having demonstrated improvement in
a given year versus programs that are continuing to have results that don't meet the board standard. So then if I passed in 2027, but I still have small group, you're still gonna go back two years? We will go back two years. However, the counter like, if if you were into 2028 and you have met the standard in 2027, the counter will now be at year one no matter what. Right. But, yes, we will look backwards no matter what if there isn't more than 10 candidates.
But what if I have a larger end on 2028? Do you then quantitatively you don't look back at '26, '20 '7? Because that statistically that calculation is not applicable to say an end of 'twenty. Yes, that's right. The way that the board has set up their system is that the system itself craves data. So, we if the current year meets fulfills that we as much data as the board thought they needed, which was basically we need more than 10,
then that's what we use to perform the evaluation. So, only those 20 test takers and you would not quantitatively then aggregate 27, 20 six. So then I'll go further. I pass twenty twenty eight. I have 20. I do well. What's going to happen in 2029? Does that start a year one? You're not gonna go back to 2027, '20 '20 '6. It all depends on what's happening within the current year. So if in 2029,
you had fewer than 11 candidates to evaluate, we would then have to look backwards. If you had 20 in the previous year, that's where we would end up stopping. And so, like, a lot of this is that the whole system is set up to roll data, right, to grab data then go backwards. What we are like what the current approach and part of the reason is stakeholder feedback has indicated, but we have done something in the last year or so. We have seen an issue and we're trying to resolve that issue.
And the current year data is showing signs that we've gotten better. And so we're trying to get the system to recognize that current year specifically. But to your point, like, it all depends on whether we have enough data in the current year to perform the evaluation that's been approved by the Board. Thank you. Thank you. Alright. Moving on to the next one when I get there here. Alright. Second here, we'll look at a proposed shift of commendations to a different rule chapter. Last year, the SBEC paused commendations for the year as the continuing approval review process was revised.
This work has continued throughout the year and the teams involved including our team have continued discussions about moving commendations from Chapter two twenty nine to Chapter two twenty eight. As a result of these conversations, we've removed 229.1D on page seven of the item and updated chapter eight to remove commendations procedures from the manual. I'll also note here that we anticipate that Melissa's team will bring a discussion of commendations in the July Aspect meeting.
This one is pretty short and straightforward, but wanna pause again to see if anyone has any questions or comments. Alright. Third, we'll look at the proposed implementation of the student growth indicator. Let's start by setting some context for this indicator. So we begin with some background. The student growth indicator is mandated in statute. It was developed between 2018 and 2020 with a variety of stakeholders who work through methodologic, but sorry, let me say that again with multiple levels of stakeholders who provided guidance throughout this
process. In 2020, the indicator rules were adopted and the Board approved two additional report only years of data. This was extended in the 2023, '20 '20 '4 year due to what we were seeing as instability in the measurement tool. We now at this point have a pilot year and three report only years and this data are publicly posted and found in the insight to impact dashboards. Notably, when we discussed this with EPPs at the stakeholder meeting in February,
they indicated they have only begun exploring these new data in some cases. In other cases, they have yet to use the data. And some additional context for the ACEF student growth data, which is a complex complex measure that we're gonna describe right now. We begin by leveraging the star annual growth points, which are produced out of the annual testing of students in grades three through eight and the end of courses that are taken in high school. Students are awarded one point in that system for accelerated or expected growth,
half a point for maintaining proficiency but not meeting expected growth, and no points for failing for not failing, falling to a lower level, thereby not meeting. Using that data connected to a teacher, we create an average student growth calculation. A beginning teacher must average 50% of the points possible across all students in a subject area and this corresponds with maintaining proficiency on the star annual growth point chart
on the left. Finally, we calculate the percentage of teachers who were prepared by an EPP who met the standard to determine the EPP performance. The current standard sits at 70% of teachers from an EPP have earned at least 50% of the available points based on their students' performances. This information is critical to keep in mind as we reassess and propose a roll in of the standard. Before getting to the proposed rules, I want to share a little bit more about the timeline like I did with
the small group aggregation. Last spring, we had a conversation with the Board where the Board shared a request to reassess the standard in 2025, which is what's happening right now. In in the winter of this past of this year, we reviewed data from 2324. We shared data with the data working group and the leadership on the educator prep certification and enforcement teams for feedback. We modeled several possible standards. And again, we synthesized these models to select a preferred approach,
which we're sharing today. I'm going to point now to the data that we're using to drive this conversation, which is very similar to what we shared last year with the Board. When we review the twenty one-twenty two and twenty two-twenty three data at the individual level, we can see that eighty eight percent of the candidates met the standard in twenty twenty one-twenty two while seventy two percent met the standard in twenty twenty two-twenty three. This is the data we shared with you last year. As a reminder,
we left that conversation from last year saying, if '24 looks like '22, we would leave the indicator standard as is. If the result of 2024 looks like 2023, we would reassess the standard. And if we show you the 2024 results, we can see pretty clearly that it looks a lot like 2023. It's nearly identical. One extra percentage point is meeting this standard at the individual level in this year's data.
And so we use this to inform our approach to rulemaking to reassess the standard. One additional piece of context because like I showed you in that slide on all the methods, we roll the data up. So the individual level is the first stage, but then we roll this up to the EPP level. What you can see in this specific one is that even with this very small granular change in individual results, the EPP results are still moving around a little bit.
In this case, it the number of, our evaluations that did not meet the standard dropped from the previous year by about 14%, to 20% of the evaluations. Importantly, as part of the reassessment of the standard at the program level, this suggests that these small changes in performance are connected to EPP performance overall. And so that's part of what we're considering as we move to propose a rule here. Last thing I want to share from the data as we drive towards the proposed
approach is to help you contextualize how are all the other indicators performing in the system. So these are all the rest of the indicators that were live in 'twenty three, 'twenty four and used to help determine the accreditation status. Looking at the twenty three-twenty four data in the figure, we can see that no indicator had more than twelve percent of their evaluations result in an outcome of did not meet standard. At the high end is the principal and teacher survey, which have approximately 1112% of their total evaluations not meeting a standard.
At the low end is the exit survey, which has several percent, a very small sliver there. These are important benchmarks that we use to help consider the models that we've proposed today. All right. So we modeled different standards to learn about how shifts in the standard might impact the EPP level evaluations. So looking at the slide, we'll start at the top, which is the outcomes in the 02/2024 data if we held the Board's current standard
of 70%. As you can see, if this were the standard for this year, 20.2% of the evaluations would not meet the standard. This would be the highest amount of evaluations not meeting a standard for all indicators within the system. Next, when we modeled this standard at 65% instead of 70% in the lower left, We can see that 11.9% of the evaluations would not meet the standard. This would remain near the highest amongst all indicators right in line with the principal and future survey results.
Last, we modeled the standard at 60%, which is about 7% of the evaluations not meeting the standard. This would fall in the middle of all of the indicators for the number of evaluations not meeting the standard. So our approach today, we propose a rolling of the standard of, to implement this indicator. This would mean that in the 2425 cycle, which is the current year, and the twenty twenty five-twenty twenty six reporting years, the standard would sit at 60%. The standard would increase to 65% in twenty twenty six-twenty twenty seven and then to
70% in twenty seven-twenty eight and onward, which would match the current Board standard. So the proposed updates themselves for the roll in are found on page 11 of the item. In addition, we also updated the manual chapter five to be more precise on our calculations, which is based on an additional year of driving this reporting. Altogether, this work would incorporate student outcomes in ASAP for the first time, would increase the urgency for EPPs to begin using this data and the role in
itself allows EPPs and TEA to learn and respond to the new data as it goes live. And I'll pause again for questions and comments. Doctor. Rodriguez. Thank you. Doctor. Landau, I do have a question for for my own information. How does the performance of these teachers that are being evaluated to in turn evaluate the EPP that prepared them compared to the way teachers are evaluated and what is expected of them on the part
of the school district. Is my question making sense? Could could you say a little bit more? My understanding is that teachers are evaluated by their school districts. They receive perhaps some kind of rating on their performance. And my understanding is that the performance of their students is used in some way to determine their effectiveness or whether that's what I'm referring to. That use of their student performance in their own evaluation as teachers, how does that compare to the level of performance that is required of them to
evaluate the EPP that prepares them? I mean, you're Yes. Associate commissioner. Doctor. Rodriguez, so the the requirements, at the state level are that a teacher evaluation system consider a teacher impact on student outcomes as a part of the evaluation system. I can't speak to the the exact percentage, but it is a factor. I think, we would think about this structure as analogous to school accountability, right, where, teacher performance across classrooms then informs accountability at the campus level.
This would be a similar structure where candidate performance then leads to preparation program accountability. Thank you. Thank you so much for that clarification. Do we have do we are we looking at that? Are we comparing the way EPPs are held accountable to how the campuses are being held accountable based on student performance? Jeremy, if I'm and I can probably speak more to this, but the the measurement that we're using to inform our student growth indicator is the
same measurement that is one piece similar to how student growth is one piece of our accountability puzzle. I believe the exact same indicator that we're using, same methodology is one part of school based accountability too. But, Jeremy, I don't know if there's more context you can share. We make use of the data that's used in the k 12 accountability system. That's where the annual growth points come in. In terms of, like, we have a different process. We don't roll the data up in the exact same way that they do. So I can't really speak to,
like, are these, like, the ways in which these are totally the same or totally different, but I can say, like, our our approach here is to find all students that associate with a teacher who we can match the subject, that they're teaching, to the tested area. And then we assess based on the board standard here, which is that 50% of the points. And then that's how we are driving towards an evaluation of the educator prep program. Thank you for that clarification. I would
encourage us to look to see if there's a way we can determine the performance of these novice teachers, because they are novice teachers, the ones we're using, right? Is it are we expecting them to perform at what's reasonable for for a novice teacher to perform? Jeremy, would you mind going back to the slide where we describe the student growth indicator? Yep. So I think it might be helpful just to ground in when we say 50% of the points. Am I right to say that when we say maintained,
where they we're we're basically looking at that orange section. And so if if to achieve that levels, the I I believe it says I'm sorry. I probably need glasses. That I'm I'm not at that maintained level, I'm not getting to it's kind of like a do no harm level. There hasn't been significant decrease in learning, but I haven't my students haven't made the expected growth that one would expect from one year to the next. Is that right? So Yeah. It's it's not necessarily at the as students are proficient or they've made the year
growth, it's sort of like I would it's a that do no harm threshold. Is that right to say? I I would have to look back at the there's a nice matrix that the k 12 accountability system has, but I think that's like what you're saying is reasonable in terms of, like, the level here is comparing proficient, like the SCORM masters meets etcetera between two years. And so like I think to the point Jessica is making here, we're looking closer towards I don't have I need to remember the categories.
I don't remember them off the top of my head as well as I should here, but it's the third category. So it's masters, meets, and maybe others can help me with all the categories. Approaches. Approaches. So if I remember this right and I can I will go back and verify this, but I believe we're looking at the approaches in each? And, the point five comes out of the there's a couple of there's one or two categories. I don't want to butcher this, like, but I think I'll let others kind of chime in.
Doctor. Yeah. And then that answers my question. And I apologize for not having the appropriate terminology to ask the question. But in this conversation, you've arrived at what I was wondering about, which is exactly what you mentioned. So it would be interesting to bring that back. We have a good slide for this. We probably omitted it and should have kept it in. Thank you. Deputy Commissioner? Thank you, Chair. And, so I do think an understanding of how the K-twelve growth system works is helpful for understanding how this
works. And it is more comparable, I think, to to looking at how we think about student growth, as part of domain two within the k 12 accountability system and how students are assigned points based on did that school move that student. And so if you think about a student who scores, and I'm looking at Mark so that he can shake his head at me if I get anything wrong too. But so if a student scores approaches in math in third grade and then scores
approaches again in math in fourth grade, that would be staying at the same level from third grade to fourth grade. So if you go from a third grade approaches to a fourth grade meets, you've actually accelerated the learning of that kid from third grade to fourth grade. So that third grade teacher who took a second grader this doesn't work. A fourth grade teacher there's no second grade star. A fourth grade teacher who took that third grader and got them in fourth grade
from they came in as approaches in third grade, got them to meet in fourth grade, actually made more than expected growth. For that kid, it's more than a year of, you know, going from approaches to approaches. So that's how the k 12 system works, and you get more points for getting that kid to go further from one year to the next, and you get less points if you if you don't move that kid or if that kid starts to fall further behind. So you you think you've got a kid that's approaches in third grade and actually
goes down to does not meets in fourth grade. So what this is doing is actually assigning those points to the teachers who receive those kids and how far did they get and move those those kids using that same exact growth score that is used in the K-twelve system. But the the expectation here is this point five level, which is maintaining, but failing to meet expected growth. So I feel like that's the place where we probably want to, like, bring you a little bit more detail of exactly what that means in our k
12 system so that we can see what that means. I think it falls with my question too, which is, you know, I I would love to be able to see here, for new teachers versus more experienced teachers, on average, what do we see them doing with kids so that we can so we would expect a year five teacher, for instance, to to be at a higher level than a new teacher. And so how do we know, like, what is that bar for a new teacher, and is this the right bar?
So I think, like, understanding that would also probably be helpful here. Thank you so much. That is exactly thank you for elaborating and helping us get to that point. That is exactly what I was hoping for, that we can expect our recent graduates to be performing at a very solid, effective, novice teacher performance, right, that we're not expecting them to be performing at an experienced teacher level,
but that we that their performance is appropriate and is high. Of course, we want the best strong teachers for for all students to to perform at their best, but that we recognize that they're novice teachers and that that the level of performance that we're expected from them is appropriate for them. Miss Glasgow. I'm just wondering too, and I don't I don't wanna put an extra layer into what's already complicated statistics. But I think in addition to teacher preparation,
once that novice teacher is in a district, there's district processes and procedures or lack thereof that play into their success that first year. And I don't know how how you factor in those external factors Mhmm. To kick back a grade to the EPP, if that makes sense. We I I can talk a little bit about that. We we have talked about the district side, which is definitely a part of this story.
I think I just like to reorient and remind here, like, this is a part of your multi measure system. And I think, like, a key thing here is this is absent from the current system. Right? We have no no information going into the system that's actually about the performance of students. And I think we could probably argue for days, researchers do, about these types of measures. But I think a key question to ask here is like, what are the tradeoffs between like not having that information in the system versus like
thinking about introducing new information, which, you know, both pushes this conversation but also like raises challenges, right? Mr. Gore. Sorry to do this, but this sparked another question. On the student growth, would have the student growth would have the highest fell rate for an indicator in both 'twenty three and 'twenty four. And then you're talking about dropping to 60 and then ramping back up to sixty five and seventy because of that because it's just proportionally higher than any of the other measures. The horizontal bars,
that's showing by sorry, words comparing against pedagogy, content pedagogy, principal survey, observation, dex survey, etcetera? Yes. That's fine. Yes, that one. In my mind that raised the question and I know you guys do the very best we can. But on the principal survey and the teacher survey, how confident are we here, I'm gonna give you a silly example. I took Lyft I took the a Lyft home the other day to my house, and it was a terrible experience. And I'm like, okay. He's coming up with the five star. Please evaluate this driver.
And I'm like, this guy seemed kind of surly, and he seemed like the kind of guy that would have a really bad attitude about getting a low evaluation. Plus, if I get marked by these surveys as being somebody that's difficult to deal with because I disproportionately don't give five star ratings, does that mean that the Lyft drivers who are in my neighborhood are like, I'm not going to pick that guy up. So I'm anticipating what the outcomes are of my survey results that might negatively impact me. And so I gave the guy a four star review when really I thought he was a one or two star.
Does do principals, as an example, they are located in yes, I'll use Texas Tech as an example because we know they are a great program, right? But let's say they weren't a great program, but you are a principal in a school that's 40 miles outside of Texas Tech and you need the Texas Tech teachers because you may not think they're doing a great job preparing, which of course would not be true in the case of Texas Tech. But you may not think they're doing a great job preparing your teachers. But at the same time, you're wondering, will it get back to Tech that I'm evaluating some of their students pretty low
or disproportionate number them low? And therefore, do I over evaluate their students? Because as a principal, I'm thinking, what if Texas Tech starts warning their students to not apply to my school district? And I don't know if there's any potential biases or suspected biases in those systems. But I just ask that we keep that in mind. Teacher surveys, I met my alma mater. I evaluate very high in terms of their preparation of me academically. But it may have had more to do with I made some great friends there and met my wife there. And so I've got some really fond memories of my alma mater.
And did they do a great did the program that I was in do a great job? I don't know. But I think a year or two afterwards, I would have evaluated my alma mater very, very effectively. But it may not have, it may have had to do with larger issues. So, I don't know how close historically we've looked at those or whether you can anonymize survey results or they may already be anonymized. But in the long run, those are important in DISHA, but making sure that we have a high degree of confidence that they are accurately
reflecting what both the principals and the teachers feel about the program. I will definitely take that feedback back. I will say like throughout the survey processes, we monitor, we get emails about the surveys. I can't speak confidently to every response, but we do have people who raise, like, and share additional information about, ways in which they did not feel prepared for that work. So I don't know that I like would say, I can't confidently speak to like the generalizability here of like across the whole field,
but there's a lot of surveys. There's, you know, I think last year, the teacher survey had over 6,000 respondents. The principal survey had 8,000. So there's a lot of data in here to suggest that, like, the things that are in here are going to be to the extent possible representative of what people believe. Now, to your point, like that's a question in surveys. I think that's something we can take back and continue conversations internally to think about
like, are there other things we should be doing here? Jeremy, just to clarify, the the principal when they complete the survey, when the EPP gets their data, they don't see, you know, principal Jones said this about my candidate. Right? Or a candidate when they complete the survey, they're not getting that, like, specific data back. It doesn't say names. I'd have to go back to look. I mean, I think the encouragement of this process is to encourage programs to be talking with
their partner districts. Right? And so, if they're seeing a common pattern from a district of bad feedback, like not bad feedback, but feedback that's below the board standard, I think, a goal of this survey is to create a feedback loop here. I think, for both Doctor. Rodriguez and Mr. Gore, just the idea that context matters, whether it's with the teacher survey, principal survey, or whether it's the growth data that context matters and it needs to be part
of the conversation. Would that be a fair assessment? Doctor. Galvan? Thank you. That that is, I think, an outstanding point because several very interesting points have been discussed. To me, looking at the point of that's a novice teacher, And so then although reasonableness is a statistical technique, it ensures that we're checking to saying this teacher is new. They're completing a program. There's so many variables to look at. They're preparing for examinations,
observations, and the cheeks have changed now with the drop and drag, with the addition of more than multiple choice. And with all those variables, that 60% is going to help to not have so many programs and be not meeting the standard. That would help because there's so much going on, changes in exams, in code. There's so many changes that are occurring. But looking at, is there a discrepancy that the survey the per the candidate is saying,
oh, my program is great, but their their scores are low. There's a big discrepancy for, oh, my program is horrible. They didn't let me test every time I wanted. They made me pass benchmarks to get recommended. So, I give them a low rating. But obviously, curriculum was great because your score was high. So how do we find it's very complex. How do we look at things? For example, elementary, secondary. I would like to believe the science of teaching reading has helped elementary with their
star score because it is a magnificent exam to help with reading comprehension, the vocabulary part in the core. So is there a difference too between elementary growth and the secondary growth? And then what would be really fascinating is that there's not enough statistics to run. When we adopt and go through with the T TAP, is that portfolio based of that reflection and analysis, is it going to help with that indicator?
Because they're saying, well, hey, with the portfolio base, you're doing a lot of reflecting and growth, hopefully, right? We're going to think very positive. We're going to see some a lot of growth in that reflection and to see is there a correlation, hopefully positive of saying, okay, here's my PPR has changed. It's not just multiple choice. And so do I see a growth in the STAAR exam? One other thing I'd like to point out, it's on page 102 of the handout I think online,
is that there is a standard of 70%, which is what we originally looked at, and then 65% brings it down to the level of that first year, that twenty twenty two, and 60% brings it down to, an even lower amount, but gets the standard started. And that's I had a little struggle with that. I'll just tell you at the beginning. I was like, are we lowering our standards? Are we how are we thinking this through? And and I came to think, and I'm open for conversation about it, that,
when when they the standard goes in at a lower level, it does get attention. It's sort of the same idea of why we redid some of our standards in 02/28 is so that they do get the attention. And so, but I'm I just wanted to point that out for discussion's sake. Doctor. Rodriguez? Yes. Thank you, Chair Strypi. And Doctor. Landa, I should have started my previous question by thanking you for this proposal because I think it's a great way to help EPPs
face in this new expectation. We know it's required, it's legislated. So we all need to move in that direction. And I think this is a great way and a great support for EPPs to allow EPPs to use the data that's already report only and start looking at what are our areas of concern and giving EPPs the time to work up to the ultimate 70% that will be required.
So thank you for that. And my apologies for not have mentioned that because this is really good. Thanks. And of note, 72% of the students are now reaching that standard. So yeah, it's cutting a little close there at the beginning. But also, it's good news, I think, that at least 72% are at this point. Yes. Deputy commissioner? Thank you. Yeah. I I agree. I feel I I think the phase in of the standard makes a lot of sense. And given this is a new standard and one that we will wanna monitor,
see how programs, teachers respond, and the data we continue to get back from it, I think it gives us time to do that. And recognizing, I think also to Mr. Gore's point is that none of these measures individually are perfect. They all have issues within them and context within them and that they all need to contribute together potentially to a better system where things balance each other out. And so this allows us to to start to look at this as part of
this larger system and see how it contributes to the ratings. And I think this is an important one too when we think about the impact that we know teachers have on kids, recognizing there are a lot of school factors involved. There are a lot of district factors involved. But all of the research continues to say that teacher is the biggest factor on outcomes. And so looking at that in particular and seeing which are the programs that are producing the teachers that have the stronger impacts,
and then seeing how DPPs start to engage and say, okay, if I'm starting to be held accountable to that impact that this teacher has, and I know that some of these district factors are also involved, how do we partner with the districts to make sure they're getting that ongoing coaching that they're prepared for the particular curriculum that they are then going to go teach. So I think it has the potential to also, as we, you know, hopefully see both the, teachers being produced having those stronger results because of the reaction from the teachers and
from the programs related to how do we get the teachers to get these stronger results with kids. Thank you. Thank you for the rich feedback. I'm going to move us to the fourth item here, which is, we're bringing a not rated status update for discussion because when revisiting tech, with legal, we identified that the education code doesn't provide the board discretion on whether or not a year during which an EPP has a status of probation counts as a probation
year. To put a pin on this point, this item, this part of the item today is about EPP accreditation statuses, which are spurred by the calculation of ACEP index scores. So we're going to start with the current state. Fortunately, throughout this process, we were able to collaborate with Sarah to identify a solution that would still meet the Board's goal goals of, sorry, would still meet the goals of the Board while being better aligned with tech. The current rules are set up to ensure an EPP with no data,
but a previous status retain the previous year status to ensure that data drives the recommendations of sanctions. In cases where probation is carried over, the current rule does not advance the counter forward a year. Under this system, the EPP does not move towards revocation but also the counter does not reset. This ensures EPPs have some flexibility specifically in circumstances where they do a full program reset. The update we're proposing today Instead of instead assigns a status of accredited not rated to EPPs that have no
data to evaluate in a given year. The rewritten rules ensure the sanctions stay in place and ensures the counts for probation purposes are not reset. This holds the flexibility desired for programs that are resetting while also ensuring that sanctions are removed with demonstrated performance within the ASAP index system. I'm gonna share an example just to kind of try to give this some context. So under the current rules, this is an imaginary program in 2022,
received a probate accredited probation status. Their assigned status was accredited probation year one. Under the current system in 2023, they had no data to evaluate. And so they had a carryover status of accredited probation and the counter stayed at year one. And then in 2024, this program now generates data again. They were they were approved as status of accredited probation. And so the counter continues forward now because there's data to evaluate for year two.
The proposed update here, 2022 is the exact same result as the top line. But in 2023, instead of assigning a status of accredited probation and carrying a year one, they are now assigned a status of accredited not rated. And finally, in 2024, the assigned status is again accredited probation and the counter picks back up in this scenario. Overall, this strikes the current two two nine point four c five rules on page 13 of the item and adds new language in two two nine point four b two
b on pages eleven and twelve of the item in order to get us in statutory alignment, evaluate on the current reporting year data, focusing on driving demonstrated performance improvements and this retains the general flexibility of the rule as the Board was hoping for. I'll pause again to see if there's any feedback. Jeremy, just to just to clarify, this would be for someone for an EPP that actually paused their program. Correct? Not because it's super small?
Yeah. That I let me let me actually think about this for a sec. Yeah. So here's the the this would only really apply to reset primary like, because you basically have to empty your almost entire queue of people across all the indicators, which covers all the way from like a certification test, all the way to people who are like first year teachers for the principal and teacher survey. So you actually have several years of candidates that are represented in the system.
So if the program is in a full reset mode, it usually actually takes a year or two for their for the evaluation to itself to catch up with the fact that they've shut off, like, admissions, for example. And so the the the only use case that I can think of, and, obviously, I'm not gonna get every single one, but I the only use case I can think of at this point is, a program reset is gonna get covered here. Do those happen often? From my I've only been here for four and a half years.
But I do know of several programs that are in some state of reset at this point in time. And people who have been here for longer probably can speak to like how common this is. Thank you. Thank you. All right. This brings us to the fifth category. We'll look at proposed updates to closure rules to align with 02/28. Sorry, to align 02/29 to updates previously completed in 02/28. Just noting this is a direct response to the last meeting.
Chapter two twenty nine has closure rules connected to ASAP results, rule violations or certificate class or category outcomes. In 2024, the Board updated the procedures for closure in chapter two twenty eight. In February, the Board shared feedback about updating the 02/29 closure procedures. So, the proposed update here is really to get in alignment. On the left hand side, you can see current rule for chapter two twenty nine has no definition for closure
date, no end date for candidate teach out, no requirements for communication to candidates, no requirements for ongoing communication with TEA and there are different procedures between two twenty eight and 02/29. The rule updates in 02/29 clearly define closure date, setting it at a fourteen day timeline for revocation purposes. It sets an end date for candidate teach out. It requires communication to candidates. It requires ongoing communication with TEA about the process and it aligns the procedures between
the two chapters. Overall, this strikes language from chapter two twenty nine in two places, found on item twelve and fifteen and adds new language to align with chapter two twenty eight in its place. This ensures that we have alignment across the chapters that provides clarity on the closing processes and ensures transparency for candidates and EPPs. Pause here to see if there's any feedback. All right. Last but not least, and I appreciate everyone's feedback throughout an engagement. We performed normal manual and rule language enhancements.
I'm going to highlight three here pretty quickly. The first is we did definition cleanup in chapter 229.2. We removed some terms that are no longer used in the chapter and we added residencies and reporting year So it is clear what we are referring to. We did a pretty extensive cleanup in the manual. We removed duplicative instructions from worked examples and we updated some technical procedures to make sure those aligned with our actual processes. And finally,
we added language related to residencies and enhanced standard certificates since those are now officially codified by the board. We don't have any public testimony I believe and just want to Doctor. Galvan? I'm so sorry. I was too busy thinking of my question. Can you go back to the closure one? Yes. I apologize for going backwards. No, that's okay. One more, please. One more. But you've got it didn't have the time that one, sir. On on
on the up I agree. This is this is something that needs to be added. On the fourteen day timeline, is it going to be, like, a business? Like, the how what is the fourteen day? Is it starting, like, Monday through Friday? So is it a business? Is it just counting fourteen days down and not Saturday, Sunday? Let me I need to look at the rule here. While I'm looking. So that fourteen days, the language says if a letter is not sorry. Nope. So it's the current language reads no later than fourteen days after the revocation identifying a
closure date. So, we don't we have not specified whether they're they're like, right now, they're read as, I think, fourteen total days. I guess, is there a is there feedback on which is preferred? Just to be very clear, just to make it very clear because if it's business day, so if it's June 1 and then I go fourteen days and say, but I didn't think you were in a count Saturday and Sunday. And so then there's a challenge there. And also for the required communication, that is outstanding that the communication to candidates is required and the ongoing communication to
TEA is required. But to avoid the but I did call or I did. Do we require evidence of that required communication? In other words, they need to submit or we can say upon request. Can we say there there in the event that there is a question to make sure that they have on file ready to go evidence because a candidate could say, I didn't get that. I did not get communication for my program. Or even somebody from TEA saying,
I don't remember them calling and but I pull out documentation and saying, on this day or maybe you can't find documentation. Miss McLaughlin? So, Doctor. Govan, this is a great question. We do and I'm looking at Laurie on the other side of the the big screen, but we do provide a set of communication letters to programs when they're in the process of closure that we require that they distribute to their candidates. And we and and they're distinct by where a candidate is in the process. So if they're other enrolled versus if they're on an intern certificate,
etcetera. And so we we give the program a set of communication letters and tools that we then the expectation in your rules are that they then implement those letters in particular. And so they're responsible for sending Yes. Those letters out. Correct. But we have no way of knowing that they indeed followed through. Correct? We might receive questions, from candidates, but you're you're right. We're not, asking for that. And at that point oh, sorry. Go ahead. They they copy the agency. They copy us on this.
Great. Terrific. And then we go back to have they updated their profile. So what happens if the mailing address has changed or the email has changed? So they're they're copying us on the program's copying us on their communication with candidates. So that's the that's whatever the communication chain is between, those two entities. So then part of that requiring ongoing communication, if I'm understanding this correctly, includes the communication that they have informed the candidates of the closure.
Terrific. Chapter 228.21 has very specific like here are the communications that are ongoing and kind of like it sets the structure for all the other things that Laurie's team actually executes. Thank you. Does 02/28 say business or calendar days? Calendar. It does. It will we the process we abide by is calendar days. Okay. Okay. Thank you. Doctor. Landa, did you get the feedback you needed from the board or is there anything missing that we can touch on for you?
I don't have any other, large needs. I think if unless anyone else has something to share here. I had one other question on commendations. Do you know when your those are expected to return if we're moving those to 02/29? I think that's what that might have. So, we do anticipate bringing a discussion item to the board at your July meeting where we'll, give an update on the redesign of your continuing approval review process. We got direction from the board to align those commendations with kind of your vision for best practice for the continuing approval review.
So more to come on that in, July. Super. Any other questions for Doctor. Landa? Thank you. Thank you so much. Board, I'm so happy to say this completes our business as posted. Those were some heavy items, but remember, it starts like that every time, right? And this is where the discussion has to happen. So thank you for leaning in. Is there any further business, or are there any announcements from the board? Great. It is 03:05PM, and this meeting is adjourned. If there's anything now that we're adjourned.
Adjourned.