October 12, 2022: Texas Educator Preparation Programs Newsletter

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Texas Education Agency

October 12, 2022

Texas Educator Preparation Programs Newsletter

Three young students on the floor, sharing a book called Ovals, from Donna ISD

Welcome

This newsletter compiles the most up-to-date information concerning what EPPs need to know to best support their faculty/instructors, staff, and candidates. Please thoroughly read all the sections for reminders, upcoming events, To Dos, and FAQs.    

We encourage you to allow this week's quote to serve as a great reminder of one of the most important aspects of our profession (i.e., lifelong learning).   

 

 

If you are not currently subscribed to the newsletter, please sign up at the link below.    Educator Preparation Program Listserv Registration   

 


Upcoming Deadlines

Topic   

Action Item   

Due Date   

ELAR 4-8 Certification 

Last day to apply and recommend for certification using #117 

October 30, 2022 

Core Subjects EC-6 

Last day to apply and recommend for certification using #291 

December 30, 2022 

LOTE Spanish #613 

New Passing Standard 

January 9, 2023 

ELAR 4-8 #217 

(At committee recommendation) 

September 1, 2023 

Table Of Contents

EPP Points of Contact

Your best source for information and support at the TEA.   

As an Educator Preparation Program, your main point of contact is your Education Specialist.   

  • Or, EPPs (and candidates) may call (512) 936-8400 and select Option #5: Educator Preparation Programs. If an Education Specialist is not available to answer the call at that time, please leave a voicemail. An Education Specialist will promptly return the call.  

If EPPs (and candidates) would like to speak to a representative from another area(s), they may submit a Help Desk Ticket or contact (512) 936-8400 and select one of the options listed below. 

  • Option 2: Educator Certification  
  • Option 3: Fingerprinting  
  • Option 6: Investigations 
  • Option 8: General Office Information 

The Teal Account Access team and Educator Testing team are available through the Help Desk. Links to both teams are below. 

Educator Preparation Program Support

Educator Certification 

Updates related to Educator Preparation Program Management 

New: Effective Preparation Framework Statewide Survey 

The SBEC’s Effective Preparation Framework (EPF) aims to define the highest leverages practices effective Texas educator preparation programs strive to implement daily. The EPF has been developed in response to a desire from the SBEC and the field to define a Texas vision for high-quality educator preparation and support EPP continuous improvement. A wide range of stakeholders have worked to develop the current draft of the EPF over the past year. To further inform this development process, an EPF content validation survey will be shared with all EPP Legal Authorities by Oct. 13th for distribution to all EPP faculty and staff. The survey offers EPP faculty and staff the opportunity to examine and provide feedback on the EPF. We anticipate that the survey will take 30 minutes to complete. The deadline to submit responses is October 26, 2022.  

 

New: EPP ASEP Fee Invoices 

On Monday, 10/17, TEA will be distributing invoices for the ASEP Technology Fee for 2021-2022 to EPPs. This fee is assessed for each candidate who was admitted to your educator preparation program during the 2021-2022 academic year. The number of candidates is taken from the number of individuals reported as admitted by your educator preparation program in ECOS. Additionally, as was the case last year, admissions for the prior year who were added this year via a data fix will be included in the count. This is because they were not included in the prior year’s invoice. 

The invoice will have payment information, including information about how to pay using ACH and how to submit a payment by mail. Credit cards are not accepted. Please note that ACH payment is encouraged. 

TEA will send invoices to the EPP Legal Authority. Payment is due 30 days after receipt. Additional information about the ASEP Technology Fee is located in the Texas Administrative Code at 19 TAC §229.9. 

 

Coming Soon:  Opportunity: Texas Teacher Preparation Program Quality Review Grant  

 We are pleased to announce that the TEA will soon launch a grant application to support selected Teacher Preparation Programs to participate in a quality review of their program.  The selected Texas Teacher Preparation Programs (TPP) will engage with a vetted technical assistance provider in a comprehensive review of program quality indicators with an approved provider in support of continuous improvement.  During this process, the TEA seeks to learn alongside the selected reviewers and the selected TPPs to better understand the best practices in measuring program quality for the designated high leverage areas.  An informal informational session/FAQ will be held on October 17 3pm CST zoom link.  If you would like to learn more about this opportunity ahead of the grant’s posting, please reach out to Ebony.Love@tea.texas.gov. 

 

Update: LBB Reporting – Technical Difficulties 

As noted in an email on Friday, September 23, due to a glitch within ECOS, EPPs are currently unable to upload their 2020-2021 graduates, as this option is not available on the relevant drop-down menu. We have been working through the process below to gather and upload this data. 

As a reminder, LBB reporting is only for public colleges and universities. 

The target for submitting your data was Friday, October 7. If you are a public college or university and have still not submitted this data, please do so ASAP. You are required to use the information from the report to complete your required LBB reporting, and the report is created based on your data. Please refer to the instructions below. 

  1. Construct your .csv file as described in the ASEP Manual. Please note that these are your undergraduate teacher education program graduates for 2020-2021. 
  1. Name your .csv file with your EPP name and CDN. 
  1. Create a Help Desk Ticket in the Data Reporting tab and attached your file. Please title your ticket “LBB Data for Upload (EPP Name)” 
  1. Once TEA has loaded the data, we will reply to the ticket informing you that you can now view your 2021-2022 LBB report. 

If you have any questions about this process, please do not hesitate to reach out via a Help Desk Ticket. If you are a public college or university and have not yet submitted this data, please do so as soon as possible. 

New: EPP Assignment Updates 

The EPP team is currently in the process of updating the EPP Education Specialist assignments. Please reach out to Lorrie Ayers (Lorrie.Ayers@tea.texas.gov) or Vanessa Alba (Vanessa.Alba@tea.texas.gov) while assignments are being updated. 

Upcoming edTPA Supports

In this section, TEA will share updates, information, and support for programs choosing to utilize edTPA throughout the 2022-23 academic year. NOTE: edTPA remains to be an option for candidates to complete as their pedagogical exam in lieu of the Pedagogy and Professional Responsibilities (PPR) exam. 

Topic 

Description 

Event Date & Time 

Texas edTPA Implementation Series: 

Supporting the Change Process for Educator Preparation Programs 

 

 

In this webinar series, an edTPA National Academy Member (affiliated with a Texas Educator Preparation Program) will orient participants to the subject-specific, performance-based assessment edTPA, provide examples of best practices to effectively implement edTPA, identify strategies when supporting candidates during instruction and implementation, and describe methods for using and learning from edTPA evidence. 

3:Supporting Candidates during Instruction and Implementation

Wednesday October 26, 2022, 

1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. 

Register HERE For 

Part 3 

 

4: Learning from edTPA Evidence 

Thursday November 10, 2022, 

1 p.m. – 2:30 p.m. 

Register HERE For 

Part 4

Academic Language in edTPA: 

Supporting Learning and Language Development 

This workshop is intended for faculty, instructors, supervisors, and school partners who support teacher candidates. In this workshop, a member of the edTPA National Academy (affiliated with a Texas Educator Preparation Program) will provide participants with an overview of academic language and demonstrate how academic language is an integral construct in edTPA through the lens of equitable instructional practices. 

Wednesday (Half Day) 

October 20, 2022, 

9 a.m. – 12 p.m. 

 

Register HERE 

Evaluating Candidate Performance 

This workshop is intended for faculty, instructors, supervisors, and school partners who support teacher candidates. In this workshop, a member of the edTPA National Academy (affiliated with a Texas Educator Preparation Program) will provide opportunities for participants to review the edTPA rubrics, introduce a process for identifying and evaluating evidence within an edTPA portfolio, and identify ways in which the performance evaluation process can be used for continuous improvement. 

Thursday (Half Day) 

November 11, 2022 

9 a.m. – 12 p.m. 

Register HERE 

Curriculum Inquiry 

This workshop is intended for faculty, instructors, and supervisors who support teacher candidates. In this collaborative workshop, a member of the edTPA National Academy (affiliated with a Texas Educator Preparation Program) will provide opportunities for participants to review their programs’ scope and sequence and course syllabi to identify areas in which the constructs, measured by edTPA, are already embedded and could naturally be embedded. 

Tuesday (Half Day) 

November 18, 2022, 

9a.m. – 12 p.m. 

Register HERE 

Tools for edTPA Data Analysis:

edReports and Results Analyzer 101 

This webinar is intended for edTPA Coordinators and edTPA Score Reporting Contacts. In this webinar, a Pearson representative will provide an overview and demonstration of Education Reports (edReports) and ResultsAnalyzer®(RA).  

Note: RA is an interactive 

reporting tool to review and analyze performance assessment data. 

Thursday 

November 8, 2022 

10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m. 

Register HERE 

*Please view the Fall 2022 edTPA Virtual Workshops and Webinars calendar linked here


Educator Standards and Testing 

Updates related to Educator Standards and Certification Testing   

New: ELAR 4-8 (217) Interactive Practice Exam Now Available 

The ELAR 4-8 (217) Interactive Practice Exam is now available for purchase. More information can be found here. 

 

 Summary: The proposed amendment would specify the satisfactory scores for the Languages Other Than English: Spanish educator certification examination on or after January 9, 2023. Publication in the Texas Register: September 9, 2022 

 Public Comment Period: September 16-October 17, 2022. A form for submitting public comments is available on the proposed commissioner of education rules web page. 

 Proposed Effective Date: December 19, 2022 

DID YOU KNOW? EPPs can track the number of times a candidate has taken a particular exam with data available within the ResultsAnalyzer® section of the edReports website. Administrators can review the data to determine if candidates are approaching or have reached the five-attempt limit. 

Updates about SBEC, Rules, and Legislation  

Updates related to actions by the State Board for Educator Certification, the State Board of Education, and the Legislature.   

September 2022 SBEC Work Session and Meeting 

The September SBEC work session and meeting were held Thursday and Friday, September 29-30, 2022. More information about the SBEC meeting, including the meeting agenda and access to view the meeting recording, can be found on the SBEC webpage. 

FAQs

Every newsletter we take this space to highlight questions that we have heard from EPPs. 

Q: Is an EPP required to inform finishers of Continuing Professional Education (CPE) requirements once a standard certificate is issued? 

A: While it is not required, it is a good practice for EPPs to advise their recently standard certified candidates of the requirements to renew standard certificates. The CPE requirement information is found on the Renewing My Standard Certificate page of the website. Teachers are required to earn 150 CPE hours every five years to renew their standard certificates and non-Teachers are required to earn 200 CPE hours every five years. CPE renewal requirements are found in 19 TAC §232.11. 

 

Resources at a Glance

Lesson Study Gateway Resources 

Practice based preparation resources for virtual field-based experience: Provides model lessons and video of instructional delivery.  

Texas Teach Like a Champion (TLAC)

Practice based preparation resources for virtual field-based experience:  Provides content neutral pedagogical skill building through observing a model of and practicing the same high leverage skill.    

Texas TLAC One Pager for EPPs   

PASL Videos

ETS and TEA have worked together to create instructional videos to orient faculty, staff, and candidates to the requirements of the PASL test. Video one provides a general overview of PASL, its content, and scoring/reporting procedures. Video two provides a more in-depth overview of the tasks associated with the assessment. Full requirements, descriptions, and resources may be found in the PASL Candidate and Educator handbook.   

PASL Video One: https://vimeo.com/user127014634/download/669946029/6aa375f585 

TEA Dyslexia Training 

TEALearn has a new dyslexia training, TEA Dyslexia, that has been made available (at no cost) to candidates who are seeking an initial certification for all certification classes. Information about the training and how to enroll can be found on the TEA Learn platform. NOTE: For candidates who have not yet been issued an intern, probationary, or standard certificate, please follow the steps noted on the webpage, Dyslexia Requirements for Educator Preparation Programs, to enroll in the course.   

If you need technical assistance please submit a TEALearn Help Desk ticket. For dyslexia course content questions, please send an email to specialeducation@tea.texas.gov. 

For More Information...

Information regarding educator certification testing can be accessed at the Texas Educator Certification Exam website.   

Information and updates regarding the Performance Assessment for School Leaders (PASL) can be accessed at the Important Updates link.   

Updated information related to the COVID-19 response can be accessed here.   

To view previous editions of the weekly newsletter, please see the Texas Educator Preparation Program Weekly Newsletter webpage.  

Information regarding the current Texas certification exams can be found on the 2021-2022 Required Test Chart for Texas Certification. 

Educator account setup instructions can be found on the TEA’s Educator Certification Online System website. 

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