Sept. 8-11 SBOE Meeting Highlights
Part 1 (Part 2 in our next issue)

Resources:
-- Agendas (Sept. 8-10 committees and Sept.11 general meeting)
-- Committee minutes
-- SBOE info: texednews.com/sboe

Note: This was the second of two State Board of Education meetings to be held in September. Click here for a summary of the Sept. 1-2 meeting.

SBOE’s In-Person Meeting Included
Virtual Testimony by 200+ Speakers
The State Board of Education (SBOE) held its first in-person meeting since January, but barred the public from attending, resulting in the board hearing the more than 200 public testifiers on various topics virtually. Due to time constraints, not all who signed up to testify got to do so.

Highlights:

Charters
The board approved (by not voting to reject) five of the commissioner’s eight selections for new charter districts to open in School Year 2021-22.
None of the charters were approved (or rejected) by unanimous votes during the board's final Friday, Sept. 11 general meeting.

  • Note: Brief summaries of each of the eight charters were included in the commissioner's presentation (Sept. 9) on charters to the board (slides/webcast-starts at 10:40-minute mark).

A coalition of 20 of the state’s major ISD-affiliated associations unsuccessfully pushed for the board to reject all applicants, citing (in this letter) the state comptroller’s estimate of a $4.58 billion shortfall going into the next biennium and their estimate that the net effect of approving the eight charters would cost the state an extra $12 million initially, rising to a total of $88 million over 10 years.

Education Commissioner Mike Morath, in discussing with the board his reasons for recommending the eight charters, said that the accuracy of the initial $12 million cost estimate depends on many variables, and could range from “being true” to “nowhere close to true.” (webcast, starts at 10.49 minute mark)

The five newly SBOE-approved charters must next remove any “contingencies” identified by TEA staff before the education commissioner will sign off on their final approval status.

TEKS Actions on First Reading
The SBOE tentatively approved, for public comment, replacements for the current TEKS (curriculum) for these three subject areas (the links are to the agenda):
  • Health education (all grades) — As expected, most of the attention, during public testimony and by the board, focused on sex education provisions.

    The board rejected, by a 6-9 margin, a motion by SBOE member Ruben Cortez Jr., D-Brownsville, to include supportive statements in the middle school and high school TEKS to reference sexual orientation and gender identity, a provision that Cortez said would be beneficial for LGBTQ students.

    Nine of the board’s 10 Republicans voted to defeat the proposal, which was supported by the board’s five Democrats and the other Republican on the board (former Friendswood ISD school board member Matt Robinson).

  • Science for high school: 1) Biology, 2) Chemistry, 3) Integrated Physics and Chemistry and 4) Physics.

  • Physical Education (all grades).
The first-reading versions of the revised TEKS tentatively approved by the board are expected to be published in the Texas Register on Oct. 9 (and most likely will be posted here before then by the TEA) — and will return to the SBOE for additional public hearings and final adoption by the board in November.