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As preparations for next school year are underway, please be advised that during the 2020-2021 school year, several IBC certifying entities retired a limited number of certifications. Additionally, some vendors ceased offering certain exams. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is not able to replace IBCs or vendors from the 2019-2022 Industry-Based Certification List for Public School Accountability due to the rigorous, stakeholder-driven process certifications must go through in order to be included on the list. For more information regarding how these vendor-driven changes affect IBC reporting in PEIMS, IBC reimbursements, and CCMR, please click here. As the TEA receives notification of retired certifications and vendor cancellations, the IBC Approved Vendor Crosswalk will be updated. However, school district personnel are encouraged to research the specific certifications their school district offers and plan accordingly.
As a reminder, while school districts are not able to apply for reimbursement for IBCs not included on the 2019-2022 Industry-Based Certification List for Public School Accountability, districts may purchase those certification tests with other funding sources.
The TEA is working with partners in industry to align material covered in Texas’s Career and Technical Education (CTE) courses with occupational skills. To help facilitate this task, TEA seeks qualified industry Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to complete reviews of job profiles for select occupations vital to the state’s economic prosperity. Data gathered through this process will be used to inform updates to CTE Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS). The TEA CTE team in collaboration with Skills Engine, a subsidiary of Texas State Technical College, will conduct skills validation sessions for all 14 career clusters, June – August of 2021. The following validation sessions are currently scheduled:
Professional Development Summer Conferences:
Texas Industrial Vocational Association (TIVA)
Career & Technical Association of Texas (CTAT)
Texas Health Occupations Association (THOA)
Family and Consumer Sciences Association of Texas (FCSTAT)
Agriculture Teacher Association of Texas (ATAT)
The immediate goal of the initiative is to have industry partners validate 250 occupations, 15 validators per occupation for a total of 3,750 validators. Please contact Kevin Johnson at kevin.johnson@tea.texas.gov for more information or if your organization would like to participate in a validation session.
Jennifer Bullock has joined the CTE team to provide support for the Manufacturing and STEM career clusters in Biomedical and Engineering programs of study. Jennifer is returning to Texas from Helix Charter School in California where she most recently served as a CTE Educator teaching Engineering, Architecture, and Digital Art courses and a CTE Coordinator. She is also a continuing education professor at the University of San Diego where she teaches courses on online technology and Geographical Information Science for teachers. Jennifer began her career in education in the Dallas area, where she started at one of the first STEM academies in Texas and worked with Texas A&M to publish one of the first project-based learning workbooks for teachers. She is a proud Red Raider who graduated from Texas Tech University and a completed her masters in Geographical Information Science and Technology from the University of Southern California. Between her background in GIS, engineering and CTE, she brings myriad strengths to her new role at the TEA.
Dr. Lacy Freeman joined the CTE team to provide support for Industry-Based Certifications and the Arts, Audio Visual Technology, and Communications career cluster. Originally an elementary education teacher, she developed a passion for serving the educational needs of traditionally underrepresented student populations while teaching in Hutto, Killeen, and Copperas Cove. For the past decade, she served as coordinator of federal programs as well as director of DODEA Grants and postsecondary readiness. Dr. Freeman considers herself a lifelong learner and is a proud graduate of Oklahoma Baptist University, Tarleton State University, and University of Mary Hardin-Baylor. Her understanding of education from elementary through postsecondary, and the programmatic requirements necessary for CCMR attainment are vital to her role at the Texas Education Agency.
TEA's CTE website now has a “CTE Updates” section on the right side of the CTE webpage. Timely and important information will be highlighted in this space. Additionally, historical listservs are linked so you can easily access CTE news, past and present, that is pertinent to your workflow.
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