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• Ed-prep accountability — (agenda 8) Revised the Accountability System for Educator Preparation (ASEP) by:

  -- Assigning all ed-prep programs (EPP) a Not Rated: Declared State of Disaster designation for the 2019-20 school year due to disruptions caused by the pandemic. This is the same accountability designation given all districts, charters and their campuses for 2019-20.

  -- Restructuring ASEP as a so-called “index system” that assigns “weights” to the system’s five indicators, resulting in a system that staff said would provide more transparency as to how each of the EPP ASEP ratings are calculated.

  -- Adding a provision in rules that will one day fully implement an 11-year-old legislative requirement (under 2009’s SB174) that the academic (STAAR) performance of students of “beginning” teachers who are within their first three years of being certified to be calculated as an ASEP indicator for the EPP that trained the teacher.

  The actual start date for the requirement was left as undetermined because it is unknown when the TEA will be able to produce the required data linking the academic performance of students to beginning teachers, staff said.

• Master teachers — Adopted two rules (agenda 9 and 10) that together finalize the transition of the Master Teacher certificate into a lifetime Legacy Master Teacher certificate that doesn’t have to be renewed. SBEC staff said that they will take care of, at no charge, upgrading the certificates of the approximately 5,000 holders of Master Teacher certification to reflect their Legacy Master Teacher status.

  Due to what was largely seen as an unintended consequence of 2019’s HB3, SBEC was required to no longer issue or renew the Master Teacher certification as of Sept. 1, 2019.

  One of the two rules (agenda 9) updates requirements for courses that can be taught by Legacy Master Teachers and additionally sets the certification requirements for teaching several new and revised courses approved by the SBOE — such as by setting the requirements for teaching the new African American Studies Course.

• Renewals and closures (agenda 11) — The board approved 16 ed-prep programs for five-year renewals.

  Staff reported that nine other programs will be considered for five-year renewals at the board’s Dec. 11 meeting, and that these ed-prep programs closed over the summer:

  --Training via E-Learning (TEACH), Austin.

  -- Intern Teacher ACP (Houston).

  -- Texas ACP Brownsville (Brownsville).

  -- ACT—Houston ACP (Houston).

  --Weatherford College (Weatherford).

  --Western Governor’s University (Austin).

• Meeting dates (agenda 13) — The board approved these meeting dates for 2021: Feb 12, April 30, July 23, Oct. 1 and Dec. 10.