The State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) met in Austin September 19-20.
Perhaps the most consequential event of the meeting came early Thursday afternoon. After two previous attempts at reaching resolution, Texas Teachers of Tomorrow, the embattled alternative educator certification program, reached an agreement with SBEC. The company will submit to monitoring by a state appointee through early next year. If certain progress benchmarks are not met, their accreditation will be revoked, which would essentially end the company’s business of training teachers in Texas.
As promised to the State Board of Education last April, SBEC proposed minor changes to the recently adopted 19 TAC Chapter 228 rules for educator preparation. The stated goal for the changes is more flexibility—including time spent in professional development or supervising extracurricular activities—in meeting the hours required for clinical teaching. The SBEC plans to adopt these rules in December and then the SBOE will review them at its first meeting of 2025.
The board continued its discussion on TAC Chapter 231 related to teacher assignments for special education from the previous meeting and also considered the need for content area certification. The board continues to make positive improvements in this proposed language by adding flexibility for elementary students and considering closely related experience to meet content area needs. These rules are expected to come up for proposal again in December.
Texas AFT again delivered testimony in alignment with its partners at the Texas Coalition for Educator Preparation (TCEP) regarding the proposed revisions to the teacher pedagogy standards in 19 TAC Chapter 235. Consistent advocacy has ensured the foundational skill of lesson design remains a major component of these revised standards. However, the proposal still shows preference for high-quality instructional materials (HQIM) in alignment with House Bill 1605, even though these materials will not exist for several years for much of the required curriculum. The proposal fails to account for the fact that districts still have a choice ofwhether or not to adopt and use HQIM. It is critical that these standards align with best practices in teaching because they will be the primary drivers in how future teachers are certified (PPR and TxTPA) and how practicing teachers will be evaluated (T-TESS).
Texas Education Agency staff again brought forward for discussion proposed changes to 19 TAC Chapter 249 related to educator discipline. Texas AFT has attended stakeholder feedback sessions and submitted written comments to help improve some of the problematic language in the proposal particularly regarding so-called “grooming behaviors.” The suggested changes do not account for differences in patterns of behavior that would amount to solicitation and similar actions that lead to forming positive relationships with students. Despite previous testimony asserting the board has sufficient authority to act against inappropriate behavior, the nebulous language remains in the proposed revisions.
Texas AFT legal staff will continue monitoring these deliberations, and we expect to see this for discussion at the next SBEC meeting on Dec. 5-6.