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FEATURED NEWS

Delegates elect new state leaders at annual meeting

Delegates to the Representative Assembly approved revisions to TCTA's governance documents and elected new statewide leaders during TCTA's 2024 Annual Meeting in San Antonio last week. State President Nydia Alvarez-Alonzo of Mission CTA presided over the meeting.

Elected to two-year terms on the Board of Directors (formerly the Executive Board) beginning June 1 are:

• President-Elect: Vivian Burleson, Northside CTA
• Budget Director: Tommy Evans, Abilene CTA
• Curriculum & Instruction Director: Cristal Isaacks, Levelland CTA
• Teacher Personal Services Director: Melanie Love Hoyt, Pottsboro CTA

Elected as Council Members-at-Large to serve a one-year term on the Advisory Council (formerly the Directors' Council) beginning June 1 are:

• Albert Mosqueda, San Benito CTA
• Omar Esson, Killeen CTA
• Velma Sanchez, PSJA CTA
• Joyce McCurdy, Wichita Falls CTA
• Maria Lara, Lubbock CTA

Delegates in even-numbered districts also elected the following members to the Advisory Council for two-year terms beginning June 1:

• District 4: Dawn Hopkins, Lamar CTA
• District 10: Mocha Wohlgemuth, Whitesboro CTA
• District 12: Sherry Miller, Killeen CTA
• District 16: Myra Borchers, Amarillo CTA
• District 18: Melanie Jones, Midland CTA
• District 20: Kimberly Villarreal, North East CTA

For those unable to join us last week, recordings of the three CPE sessions presented Feb. 16 will be available on TCTA's website by mid-March.

Click here to see more photos from the 2024 Annual Meeting.

TCTA urges SBEC to retain flexibility for how special education teachers show content competency

TCTA testified during the State Board for Educator Certification's Feb. 16 meeting about the need to provide ways other than having to obtain content certification for special education teachers to demonstrate content competency to meet federal requirements.

TCTA’s Quinn McCall pointed out to SBEC that TEA’s current proposal was to require elementary and middle school special education teachers to hold content certification, while providing flexibility for high school teachers. TCTA’s testimony focused on the significant burden this could place on both veteran teachers and those who are just starting their teaching careers, especially given the critical shortage of special education teachers.

TCTA emphasized that while TCTA supports flexibility for high school teachers, under current SBEC rules, all grade levels of special education teachers have the option of using a flexible method (HOUSSE) to demonstrate content competency and that a similar flexible approach should continue to be allowed for all special education teachers. Click here to read more.

Early voting in March 5 primaries ends March 1

Early voting in the March 5 Texas primaries began Tuesday and ends March 1. Many important races are on the ballot, including U.S. president and a U.S. Senate seat. Texas voters do not register as Democrats or Republicans. Any registered voter can vote in either party’s primary, regardless of which primary you have voted in previously. 

Go to TexasTeachersVote.org now to learn more about candidates for Texas House, Texas Senate and State Board of Education. TCTA does not endorse candidates, but the website does show how incumbents voted on key education issues in 2023 and notes teacher-friendly candidates receiving support from ACT For TCTA, our political action committee.

DECISIONS, DECISIONS

District terminates teacher's contract after she slapped a student who spit in her face

A school district board of trustees proposed the termination of a teacher's contract after she slapped a student. The teacher requested a hearing regarding the proposed termination of her contract.

At the hearing, the teacher argued that she should not be subject to termination because she was acting in self-defense, claiming she reacted after the disruptive student spat in her face. Click here to read more.

OTHER NEWS

SBEC moves edTPA forward as an option to the PPR exam

A year and a half after TCTA and others were successful in persuading the State Board of Education to unanimously reject a proposal by the State Board for Educator Certification to replace the current teacher pedagogy certification exam with a controversial national performance assessment called edTPA, TEA staff reported to SBEC at its February meeting that its first attempt at identifying an entity to develop a Texas-specific performance assessment yielded no results.

TCTA’s long-standing opposition to requiring a performance assessment as the only option for a pedagogy certification exam was reflected in testimony by the Texas Coalition for Educator Preparation, of which TCTA is a founding member. TCEP expressed concern about TEA’s last-minute change in the proposal to move edTPA out of “pilot status” to permanent status while also keeping the Pedagogy and Professional Responsibilities exam (PPR) as an option. TCEP emphasized that it was paramount for SBEC to overtly commit to keeping edTPA only as an option and not a requirement until another option for a pedagogy certification test was available. In response, several board members emphasized their commitment, including Chair Jean Streepey who said that it was the board’s intent to keep PPR as an option until another alternative to edTPA is approved. Click here to read more.

TEA adds new subjects to through-year assessments

The Texas Education Agency recently announced that third and eighth grade math and Algebra I would be added to the subjects tested via the through-year assessment pilot for the 2024-25 school year. The subjects join sixth and seventh grade math and eighth grade social studies. TTAP will feature three one-week testing opportunities tentatively scheduled for the following dates:

• Fall: Nov. 11-15, 2024
• Winter: Jan. 27-31, 2025
• Spring: March 24-28, 2025 

Districts must apply by March 29 to participate in the pilot program during the 2024-25 school year. Click here to read more.

The College Board plans big changes for SAT exam in March

Starting in March, the SAT will be digital, according to the College Board. The traditional paper-and-pencil format is no longer available, with rare exceptions for students with visual impairments, severe reading disabilities or other documented challenges. The new format comes amid fierce debates over whether colleges should consider students’ race in admissions, and after some colleges reinstated the test score requirement.

While the College Board says the scores will be comparable, the new exam isn’t just an on-screen version of the paper-and-pencil test from years past. Both the math and reading sections will be divided into two parts. A student’s performance in the first part of each section will determine the difficulty level of the second part that shows up on their screen. 

With the digital SAT, students also will get more time per question. Math questions will be explained more concisely than before, and reading passages will also be shorter. The format works better for testers, said Priscilla Rodriguez, the College Board’s senior vice president of college readiness assessments. Click here to read more from USA Today.

153,000 borrowers have student loans erased through SAVE Plan

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Education zeroed out loan balances for nearly 153,000 borrowers. They are people who borrowed $12,000 or less, have been paying their student loans for at least 10 years, and enrolled in the Biden administration's new repayment plan called SAVE launched last summer.

"We're providing debt relief to people who need it the most," said Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in an interview on NPR's Morning Edition. "We're also addressing the root cause of the issue, which is, the cost of college is out of control." Click here to read more from NPR.

• Early voting in the March 5 primaries ends March 1.
• St. Patrick's Day is March 17.
• Easter is Sunday, March 31.