Part 1 of 2
During the board’s Dec. 6 meeting:
New Officers
The board unanimously elected Harlingen CISD Superintendent Arturo Cavazos as board chair starting with the board’s Feb. 21 meeting.
The board’s current chair, Haskell ISD teacher Jill Druesedow, announced that she asked Gov. Abbott to not consider reappointing her to the board after her board term expires in February.
The other SBEC board officers unanimously elected were Klein ISD counselor Rohanna Brooks-Sykes as vice chair and Leander ISD elementary teacher Jose Rodriguez as secretary.
Troubled Ed-Prep Programs
Two ed-prep programs face closure very soon unless they can quickly correct deficiencies identified by the TEA’s educator certification division staff. (Agenda Items 14 and 15 and webcast (click items 14 and 15)).
The SBEC board accepted agreed orders with:
- South Texas Transition to Teaching (STTT) Alternative Certification Preparation Program in Edinburg, and
- Training via E-Learning — An Alternative Certification Hybrid (TEACH) in Austin. (Note: the agenda incorrectly referred to this program as Teaching via E-Learning ...)
To prevent a complicated, potentially lengthy, revocation process, both programs — which are both rated Accredited Warned (a step above Revoked status) — agreed to meet specified conditions set by TEA staff by March 25, 2020, and additional conditions set by staff by May 25, 2020.
A program failing to meet the TEA-imposed requirements by either deadline will, under the agreement, automatically result in staff’s final decision to revoke — a decision that could not be appealed.
Both programs, as required by TEA, stopped accepting new candidates as of Dec. 6, 2019. TEA staff said if they ultimately issue a final revocation order, plans will be in place to transfer students still in the revoked programs into other nearby ed-prep programs.
During discussion, SBEC board members praised the agreed order system as an efficient way to shut down poorly performing ed-prep programs. The process of a negotiated agreement in-lieu-of-forced revocation has been used only once before — which led to the 2018 voluntary closure in lieu of revocation of the 21st Century Leadership Principal Preparation Program in Dallas.
Lifted Conditions
In a related agenda item (agenda /webcast-click Item 16), the board lifted the conditions that have been in place since 2015 that have prevented the Edinburg-based TeacherBuilder.com alternative certification program from receiving automatic continual approvals to operate from SBEC.
TEA staff said that as a result of their intensive three-day on-site visit to the program’s headquarters last October, it was determined that the program meets the minimum ed-prep requirements in state law and SBEC rules. TeacherBuilder.com is currently rated Accredited Probation (First Year).