SBEC discusses educator misconduct, certification

The State Board of Educator Certification met Friday, Feb. 13, to discuss ongoing changes to rules around teacher certification and educator misconduct, among other things.

Mentor teachers

Much of the last few SBEC meetings have been consumed with implementation of the Preparing and Retaining Educators through Partnership allotment, or PREP. HB 2 from the 89th Legislative Session included significant changes to the educator preparation landscape aimed at reducing the number of uncertified teachers in the state and supporting new teachers in their first few years on the job.

Early drafts of rules around a restructured mentoring program allowed campus administrators to choose veteran teachers as mentors but did not require them to agree to mentor novice teachers. TCTA succeeded in convincing the SBEC to include language to that effect.

Teacher certification

TEA is also working on revamping certification exams for teachers. The new assessment, called T-TEP, is still in development, but TEA staff give SBEC regular updates on the development process.

During the December SBEC meeting, TEA said that they intended to differentiate between teachers seeking certification in subjects for which high-quality instructional materials, or HQIM, are available and those in subjects without HQIM, requiring a demonstration of lesson internalization and delivery for the former and lesson design for the latter.

Since the passage of HB 1605 in 2023, TEA has strongly encouraged school districts to adopt HQIM and has tied it to many of their initiatives going forward. TCTA reminded SBEC that lesson design is among the recently-adopted teacher certification standards and should be assessed for all teachers, not just those in subjects without HQIM. Because there is no guarantee that a teacher will always teach in a district using HQIM or a subject that has HQIM available, all teachers should be prepared to design lessons.

Educators' Code of Ethics

Following the death of Charlie Kirk in September and the hundreds of complaints regarding educator social media posts on the topic, TEA proposed a new standard in the Educators' Code of Ethics that states "[t]he educator shall not promote, advocate, or encourage, in a manner that is reasonably accessible or visible to students, illegal conduct directly related to student behavior or school property."

TCTA has continued to voice First Amendment concerns over restrictions on the content of speech and suggested that SBEC include a condition that any such speech actually cause significant disruption to the learning environment before it is considered a violation of the Educator's Code of Ethics.

Educator misconduct

Last year, the Texas Legislature passed SB 571, a bill that creates new rules around how educator misconduct is investigated. Most notable among those new rules is the creation of a new temporary suspension framework through which a teacher may have their certification suspended before the full investigation process has taken place. To trigger a temporary suspension, an educator must be arrested for certain violent crimes or be deemed "an imminent threat to the public welfare," a term which SBEC must define. The proposed definition is overly broad and would likely include a number of behaviors not intended by the Board.

TCTA suggested minor changes that would narrow the focus of the definition and keep temporary suspensions focused on educators who are truly an imminent threat to students.

TCTA will remain active as these rules are developed and advocate for the changes that support classroom teachers.