Sept. 1-2 SBOE Meeting Highlights

Resources:
-- Agendas (Sept. 1 committees and Sept.2 general meeting)
-- Committee minutes
-- SBOE info: texednews.com/sboe

Note: This was the first of two State Board of Education meetings to be held this month. We’ll report on the Sept. 8-11 meeting in next week’s issue.

Final Adoption:
  • Implemented (with no changes from the agenda) 2019’s HB1026 to require schools to provide instruction in “character traits” for students in grades K to 12 starting in School Year 2021-22.

    The rule creates a new “character traits” TEKS (curriculum) that must be included in the instruction of students at least once during each of these four grade spans: 1) K-2, 2) 3 to 5, 3) 6 to 8 and 4) 9 to 12.

    The instruction can occur either as a stand-alone course or (ideally, TEA staff and board members said) be incorporated into the instruction of existing TEKS subjects, such as health and social studies.

    TEA staff said that the agency plans to produce TEKS guides showing which of the required character traits are included in the existing TEKS for other subjects.

    But, staff conceded that it would be a “stretch” to find a link between some of the character traits to be covered and an existing TEKS element in some subjects.

  • Approved (with no changes from the agenda) a rule to align the required secondary curriculum with the board’s recent actions implementing legislation that consolidated the TEKS for high school technology applications with the TEKS for career and technical education (CTE) to eliminate course duplications.

    The final rule also implements recent legislation by expanding the topics to be covered in health education to include suicide prevention, physical health, mental health, substance abuse, maintaining proper relationships, and other related topics.

  • Implementing (with no changes from the agenda) HB3 requirements for the SBOE to adopt rules to specify the conditions by which the tuition-charging UT Austin and Texas Tech University “special purpose” correspondence schools can accept state public school funding in exchange for not charging tuition to in-state students. Correction: The above item was incorrectly reported as being approved for first reading in the printed editions of TEN.

    In related activity, the SBOE Committee on Instruction was briefed (agenda) on the required annual curriculum audits on how well the K-12 credit-by-exams offered by UT Austin and Texas Tech matched the required TEKS for the courses tested. No significant issues were found in the audits, which annually examine 20 percent of the universities’ credit-by-exam offerings.

Approved for Public Comment (First Reading):
Note: When available, these first-reading rules, which are scheduled to be approved on 2nd/final reading in November, will be posted by TEA here.
  • Tightening rules (agenda) to clarify the penalties assessed publishers that revise their previously state adopted instructional materials without going through the proper approval process with the SBOE.

    The proposed rule is an outgrowth of the board assessing a $113,494 fine in July to a publisher (see the July SBOE item involving Origo Education here) for making changes to its adopted materials without prior approval from the SBOE.

    In related action, the board approved (agenda) requests by four publishers that had less than 100 percent of TEKS coverage in instructional materials approved under Proclamations 2019 and 2020 to revise 12 of their adopted products to increase the TEKS coverage.

    Five of the products now meet 100 percent of the required TEKS, staff said.

    The changes will be reflected immediately in all of the digital versions of the products, staff said


Other SBOE Activity:
  • The board postponed what was planned (agenda) to be the final approval of revisions to the Framework for School Board Training that governs requirements for local school board member training.

    The proposal discussed by the board was based on the work by an ad hoc committee that had been appointed by SBOE Chair Keven Ellis, R-Lufkin.

    After hearing testimony from several school board representatives, and receiving input from TEA staff, the board — in its Committee on School Initiatives meeting and at its general meeting a day later — spent considerable time making changes to the proposed revisions before ultimately deciding to wait until November to allow more time for stakeholder input.

  • TEA staff briefed the board (agenda/webcast-click Item 3) on the progress of the 2019 HB3906 requirement that the state move to 100 percent online STAAR testing starting in School Year 2022-23, and that the TEA develop a transition plan for meeting the goal.

  • Staff reported that as required by the legislation, the TEA is working with the Texas A&M Education Research Center to produce a report to the Legislature by the bill’s Dec. 1, 2020, deadline on what will be needed on the part of the state, ISDs and charters to be ready for full online testing.

    Staff said they are currently evaluating the results of a comprehensive survey of all ISDs and charters and their campuses that was conducted over the summer regarding their needs for online testing.

    Staff added they will have more details at the November SBOE meeting.