TEA Begins Finalizing Requirements
For 2020-21 School Openings
At press time, the TEA was reportedly putting the final touches on the education commissioner’s mandates and recommendations for school openings for the upcoming school year.
Remote Instruction Funding
The TEA did release (June 23) long-awaited detailed guidance (FAQ/slides) on how the state will fund schools for remotely instructing students.
The two remote instructional settings eligible for state funding are:
- Remote synchronous instruction — two-way, real-time live virtual instruction between teachers and students when students are not on campus.
Attendance is taken similar to how it is for in-classroom instructional settings, with students not logged in counted as absent.
- Remote asynchronous instruction — instruction that does not require having the instructor and student engaged in instructional activities at the same time.Examples: Instruction delivered via prerecorded video lessons, pre-assigned work, etc.
Student attendance can be taken via measuring the student’s daily progress and/or completion of assignments.
Meanwhile, after it had been widely reported that the TEA would release, on Tuesday, June 23, its eagerly anticipated guidance for schools in opening for School Year 2020-21, the agency created quite a stir when it posted, on that day, a document purporting to be that guidance.
Mistakenly Posted
Turns out, the TEA told superintendents in a conference call, that this was a draft document that was mistakenly posted to a publicly accessible TEA web page, and that they should ignore it. The TEA promised, through a spokesperson, that the final School Year 2020-21 guidance would be issued “soon.”
But, the governor gave a hint as to what the upcoming school year requirements could be when he told legislators during a conference call — as reported by the Texas Tribune — that he expects in-classroom instruction will return next school year.
Morath: “It will be Safe” to Return to Campuses
Education Commissioner Mike Morath quickly followed up the governor’s statement with a three-sentence statement of his own starting out with “It will be safe for Texas school students, teachers, and staff to return to campuses for in-person instruction this fall.”
Morath’s statement added that there will also be “flexibility for families with health concerns so that their children can be educated remotely, if the parent so chooses” — and concluded that detailed guidance will be issued soon by the TEA.
A TEA spokesperson later clarified to the state’s media that although the state won’t mandate the use of face masks, shields, or the testing of students for coronavirus symptoms, it will leave many decisions to local leaders — placing the emphasis on local control.
It didn’t take long for the state’s major teacher-affiliated associations to push back.
Texas AFT: “A Big ‘Hell No!’”
The Texas AFT labeled as “A Big ‘Hell No!’” to what the union said looks like a return to normal in August.
“We are not in normal times. We won’t sacrifice our members and students for politics. Mike Morath’s comments do not inspire confidence for students, parents and teachers who would be returning to school campuses.”
Texas State Teachers Association President Noel Candelaria criticized the governor for being in too big of a hurry to reopen schools in the midst of a raging pandemic.
And Texas Classroom Teachers Association Executive Director Jeri Stone emailed letters to the governor and commissioner that, among other things, took issue with Morath’s “It will be safe” to return to in-person instruction this fall as not currently supported by the data that shows increasing rates of positive cases, hospitalizations and deaths due to COVID-19.
The Association of Texas Professional Educators — pointing to its survey (see TEN, June 22) listing the health and safety of students, and their personal health and safety, as top concerns of the 4,000+ respondents — said in a statement that it “anxiously awaits” further guidance from the TEA.
“Unacceptable Rate”
The talk about what schools will be required or urged to do for the upcoming school year came amid reports that the coronavirus positive test results in Texas have been increasing to what the governor labeled as an “unacceptable rate” — surging to a record of more than 5,000 cases on a single day on Tuesday, June 23.