SB 1267 - streamlining of teacher training requirements

Sen. Royce West/Rep. J.M. Lozano

TCTA was a leading participant in the Teacher Training Workgroup, serving as a subgroup lead in this major effort to streamline and consolidate duplicative teacher training and professional development requirements.

Removes statutory training frequency requirements

Rather than have training frequency provided in statute, SBEC will publish a clearinghouse not later than June 1, 2022, of all educator training requirements, with best practices and industry-based frequency recommendations for local boards to annually consider in adopting their local professional development policies. Local policies must be adopted no later than Aug. 1, 2022.

In adopting local professional development policies annually, local boards must, to the extent applicable, annually review the clearinghouse and adopt a professional development policy that must be guided by the recommendations for training in the clearinghouse. The policy must note any differences in the policy adopted by the district/charter from the recommendations in the clearinghouse and include a schedule of all training required for educators or other school personnel at the district/charter.

Brief references to “clearinghouse” in parentheses throughout this summary refer to the local policy developed after review of the SBEC clearinghouse recommendations.

Requires educator input

Provides for SBEC to establish a clearinghouse advisory group consisting of educators, including classroom teachers and representatives of organizations that represent educators, to review and provide input regarding the best practices and industry recommendations included in the clearinghouse. In publishing the clearinghouse, the board shall ensure the clearinghouse reflects input provided by the advisory group.

Not later than Dec. 1 of each even-numbered year, the clearinghouse advisory group must complete a review of the clearinghouse and submit a report to the legislature of the group's recommendations regarding whether any required continuing education or training may be reduced, eliminated, or consolidated with other existing continuing education or training.

Removes annual training

For new employees: Annual training currently required in statute for staff development in suicide prevention; strategies for establishing and maintaining positive relationships among students, including conflict resolution; and preventing, identifying, responding to and reporting incidents of bullying will instead be governed by the local policy (clearinghouse).

For STAAR: Requires annual training only for the employee at each district campus who oversees the administration of STAAR; allows the school district employee who oversees testing on a district campus to, with discretion, require other district employees involved in the administration of assessment instruments to repeat the training.

For school district employees: Requires only the district’s cybersecurity coordinator to complete cybersecurity training on an annual basis. Other school district employees required to complete the cybersecurity training will do so as determined by the district, in consultation with the district ’s cybersecurity coordinator.

For school personnel and school volunteers: Removes annual required anaphylaxis training and training on CPR and the use of an automated external defibrillator; training will be in accordance with local policies (clearinghouse).

For coach, trainer, or sponsor for an extracurricular athletic activity: Removes requirements for annual CPR and safety training, which will be addressed through the district/charter policy (clearinghouse).

Removes provisions requiring employees to be trained on a schedule adopted by TEA

Required staff development for existing employees in suicide prevention; strategies for establishing and maintaining positive relationships among students, including conflict resolution; preventing, identifying, responding to, and reporting incidents of bullying; sexual abuse; and trauma will be addressed through the district/charter policy (clearinghouse).

Restricts commissioner’s ability to adopt rules regarding frequency of training

Provides that the commissioner may not adopt rules regarding a required frequency for training unless a frequency is provided by statute for that training; and the commissioner is granted explicit rulemaking authority related to that training.

TELPAS training

Provides that the commissioner may not require a school district employee to repeat training or online calibration activities the employee has previously successfully completed related to administering the TELPAS, except that the commissioner may require the employee to complete training or online calibration activities if the administration of or assessment using TELPAS has changed significantly since the employee completed the training.

The school district employee assigned to oversee TELPAS administration at a campus may, with discretion, require other district employees involved in administering the TELPAS to complete training or online calibration activities.

A school district employee may not be required to complete a training or online calibration activity in one sitting.

Reading academies

The deadline for completing the literacy achievement academies is extended to the 2022-23 school year.

Provides that reading academies satisfy the requirement for teachers of dyslexic students to receive continuing professional education for certificate renewal in dyslexia training, as well as any SBOE requirement for training in the Dyslexia Handbook.

Language proficiency assessment committee training

Provides that TEA may not require members of a language proficiency assessment committee to complete training to serve on that committee.

Training reporting

Removes the requirement for districts/campuses to record names of employees receiving training (instead, requires numbers of employees) regarding sexual abuse, trauma, and mental health/substance abuse/suicide prevention. Removes the requirement that school districts annually report to TEA the number of teachers, principals, and counselors employed by the district who have completed trauma-informed care training and the total number of teachers, principals, and counselors employed by the district.

Removes mandatory topics from teacher continuing professional education for certificate renewal

Topics removed from mandatory training include:

• students who are eligible to participate in special education programs;
• students who are eligible to receive education services required under Section 504;
• students with mental health conditions or who engage in substance abuse;
• students with intellectual or developmental disabilities;
• students of limited English proficiency;
• how mental health conditions, including grief trauma, affect student learning and behavior and how evidence-based grief-informed, and trauma-informed strategies support the academic success of students affected by grief and trauma.

Instead, requires CPE for educators to include training regarding educating students with disabilities.

Removes mandatory topics from district staff development training

Topics removed from district staff development include:

• recognizing signs of mental health conditions and substance abuse; and
• how mental health conditions, including grief trauma, affect student learning and behavior and how evidence-based grief- informed, and trauma informed strategies support the academic success of students affected by grief and trauma.

Cap on mandatory topics for teacher, principal and counselor CPE

Restores the cap of “no more than 25%” (instead of the current “at least 25%”) for training on certain specified topics.

Consolidates various reading academy provisions and various math academy provisions

Reading academies:

• Extends the scope of teacher literacy achievement academies to teachers who provide reading instruction to students at any grade level (note that under law only K-3 teachers are required to attend academies).
• Repeals provisions establishing reading-to-learn academies for teachers who provide reading comprehension instruction at the fourth or fifth grade level and provisions establishing teacher reading academies for teachers who provide instruction at the sixth through eighth grade level.
• Restricts existing content requirements for teacher literacy achievement academy training to teachers who provide reading instruction at the kindergarten through third grade levels, and for teachers at other grade levels, incorporates certain content requirements applicable to reading-to-learn academies and teacher reading academies, respectively, as additional content requirements for teacher literacy achievement academies.
• Requires the commissioner to require a teacher to attend a literacy achievement academy if the teacher provides instruction in reading, mathematics, science, or social studies to sixth through eighth grade students at a campus that fails to satisfy any achievement indicator under the public school accountability system on the basis of student performance on the statewide standardized reading test for grades three through eight administered to campus students in any applicable grade level.

Math academies:

• Extends the availability of mathematics achievement academies from teachers who provide mathematics instruction in K-3 to teachers who provide such instruction at any grade level.
• Repeals provisions requiring the commissioner to develop and make available to districts certain math teacher training resources, provisions establishing the mathematics instructional coaches pilot program, and provisions establishing professional development institutes for 5th-8th grade math teachers.
• Requires a mathematics achievement academy, as appropriate for the grade level at which an attendee teaches, to incorporate certain content requirements applicable to professional development institutes in math.
• Revises the purposes of research grants for the study of mathematics skills acquisition and program effectiveness to include monitoring effectiveness for student performance and examining the effect on teacher classroom performance of mathematics achievement academies instead of monitoring and examining those aspects of professional development institutes.

Mentor training

Authorizes a district to allow the completion of the required commissioner-approved mentor and induction training program also to satisfy the requirement to complete a district-provided mentor training program for the following employees:

• a teacher seeking to serve as a mentor; and
• any appropriate district and campus employees who work with or supervise a mentored classroom teacher.

UIL safety training program revisions

• Removes the requirement for a physician who is a district or school employee or extracurricular athletic activity volunteer to complete the UIL safety training program.
• Removes a requirement for the program to include CPR training for a person who is not required to obtain certification under applicable statutory provisions.
• Repeals provisions that require the UIL to provide associated safety training to certain students and specify the entity required to conduct the safety training program.

Bleeding control training

Allows required training on the use of a bleeding control station to be provided as an online course.

Dating violence policy training

The bill limits a requirement for teacher and administrator training relating to a dating violence policy to campuses that instruct students in grade six or higher.