Thank you for subscribing to Texas Education News

This page references
link(s), website(s)
and or document(s)
from articles in the
Dec. 7, 2020, issue.
(Vol. 37 / Issue 39)

Note:
Older links may have expired
and/or may,
no longer be available
due to circumstances
beyond our control.

Texas Education News
is not responsible
for the content of documents and other information
that may be obtained from outside sources and websites.

• Note: See also this page for the Page 1 SBOE article, and for links to SBOE resources (agendas, webcasts, etc.)

• Said their goodbyes (click Resolutions here) in kind words and resolutions to the board’s four retiring board members — Republicans Donna Bahorich of Houston, Barbara Cargill of Conroe, Marty Rowley of Amarillo and Ken Mercer of San Antonio.

  They also received, courtesy of legislators from their districts, Texas flags that had been flown over the Capitol, as did Debbie Ratcliffe, who recently retired after 25 years at the TEA serving in various roles, including as the agency’s official spokesperson.

  The board’s next meeting is Jan. 26-29.

• Approved (agenda/committee minutes) what is projected to be a record distribution from the Permanent School Fund (PSF) to the Available School Fund (ASF) for Fiscal Years 2022 and 2023 (roughly School Years 2021-22 and 2022-23).

  Based on preliminary figures and projections, the annual distribution will be about $1.72 billion, or $3.44 billion for the biennium, which would be about $900 million greater than any previous biennial distribution by the SBOE.

• Adopted (agenda) prekindergarten instructional materials for School Year 2021-22 first time classroom use under Proclamation 2021.

• Gave final approval to a revised Framework for School Board Development (posted here), which specifies requirements for team building training for local board members, and qualifications for trainers that provide the team building training. The board, in the Committee on School Initiatives, spent a great deal of time making last-minute changes based on input by TEA staff and the Texas Association of School Boards.

  The framework was initially adopted by the SBOE in 1996, and underwent a second revision in 2012.

• Approved (by not rejecting) three sets of rules previously approved by the State Board for Educator Certification that:

  -- agenda Specifies that the Legacy Master Teacher Certificate — for the approximately 5,000 former holders of the now-discontinued Master Teacher Certificate — never expires and never has to be renewed.

  -- agenda Designates certified personnel assignments and

  -- agenda Revises ed-prep program accountability rules, including by not rating programs this school year due to the disruptions caused by the pandemic.

• Set prices (agenda) for private schools to administer state student assessments (the STAAR and Texas English Language Proficiency Assessment System) for the current (2020-21) school year.

  The cheapest assessments for private schools to administer this school year are the 5th grade reading and math STAAR, at $2.76 per student — and the most expensive is the 4th grade Spanish writing STAAR, at $24.41 per student.

  Last school year (2019-20) — due to the cancellation of state assessments — was the first time that no private school chose to administer a state assessment. In School Year 2018-19, 26 private schools administered 4,802 state assessments.

• Gave TEA staff the go-ahead (agenda) to issue requests for proposals for high school equivalency test providers to provide the tests for Texas starting Sept. 1, 2021, when the contracts for the two current providers expire.

• Adopted (on 2nd/final reading) a rule (agenda) specifying penalties for publishers that fail to comply with state law and rules governing the review and adoption of instructional materials.

  The board was prompted to adopt the rule due to a recent incident in which a publisher made changes to their state-adopted textbooks without first getting permission to do so from the TEA and SBOE.

• Agreed (in the Committee on School Initiatives) to consider starting the SBOE rule-making process in January to allow Boys Ranch ISD in the Texas Panhandle to seek district of innovation (DOI) status (agenda/webcast-Click Item 4).

  Note: BRISD is a special-purpose ISD that serves a low-enrollment co-ed student population residing at the Cal Farley Ranch for at-risk youth.

  Jeff Cottrill, a TEA deputy commissioner, said that BRISD is not allowed to be designated as a DOI because (due to a state law) the district is not assigned academic accountability ratings. He added that BRISD would have been a high performing district if it were to be assigned an accountability rating. To be a DOI, the district must have at least an “acceptable” accountability rating.

  Cottrill said the education commissioner used his governor-authorized pandemic emergency waiver authority to grant BRISD the right to become a DOI for this school year only so that the district could modify its school start date due to the health crisis. The waiver is one time and expires at the end of this school year.

  The state’s other special-purpose districts — the San Antonio military-based Lackland, Randolph Field and Fort Sam Houston ISDs — are rated for academic accountability and are not barred from seeking DOI status