TCTA urges board to reduce teacher CPE mandates

TCTA urged the State Board for Educator Certification to reduce teacher CPE mandates as the board discussed options for implementing legislation creating a comprehensive overhaul of educator training requirements, SB 1267, at its October meeting.

SB 1267 is the result of the consensus recommendations of the Teacher Workforce Workgroup convened by the Lieutenant Governor’s office in February 2020, of which TCTA was a leading participant, serving as a subgroup lead.

The workgroup was formed as a response to recognizing that educator training requirements have continually been added throughout the years, with none removed, crowding out the time and space for educators to be able to select training that would help them most in their particular areas of certification and in their classrooms.

In keeping with the goal of “right-sizing” educator training requirements, the workgroup’s recommendations included eliminating a number of mandatory CPE topics — both because they were duplicative of training topics elsewhere in statute and as a means of reducing the overall number of mandatory CPE training requirements.

Additionally, SB 1267 restored the cap on mandatory CPE topics to “no more than 25 percent" of required training, as it had existed for many years prior to being changed in 2019.

At the October SBEC meeting, the board was presented with several options for implementation, including one that would add the mandatory topics back into another place in SBEC rules.

TCTA testified that adding these topics back in would contravene legislative intent and go against SBEC’s long-standing tradition of allowing educators as much discretion as possible in the CPE they choose to pursue, thus recognizing them as the professionals they are.

During its October meeting, SBEC also gave initial approval to rules governing contract abandonment.