 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.
You may subscribe to the newsletter or access previous editions
using the links below:
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Topic
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Description
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Event Date & Time
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187 Bilingual Special Education EC–12 Framework Webinar
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The 187 Bilingual Special Education EC–12 Framework Webinar will guide program faculty or staff through an overview of the new Bilingual Special Education EC–12 Exam Framework, the exam timeline, and the context of the creation of the certificate. Programs will have an opportunity to discuss curriculum alignment and implementation planning needed to support the new Bilingual Special Education EC–12 certification pathway.
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Thursday,
September 3, 2026
10:00 AM - 12:00 PM CST via ZOOM
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Exam Launch Reminders and Resources
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186 Special Education Specialist EC-12
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165 Bilingual Education Spanish Supplemental
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187 Bilingual Special Education
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Texas Test of Educator Proficiency (T-TEP) (pending SBEC action)
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Updated one pager anticipated Summer 2026
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- Core EC-6
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Core with Fine Arts/Health/PE
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Core with Bilingual Education Spanish
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Core with ESL
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Updates related to Educator Preparation Program Management
Reminder: Charter School Closures
The following charter schools are officially closing on the Effective Date and thus are no longer acceptable placements for candidates completing field-based experiences (FBE) or clinical experiences:
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Bridgeway Preparatory Academy
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Meadowland Charter District
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Two Dimensions Preparatory Academy
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Goodwater Montessori School
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These LEAs will no longer appear in the drop-down menus for clinical experience records or intern/probationary certificate recommendation screens as of the Effective Date of closure. If your program has incomplete records that require access to one of these schools for data entry, please submit a help desk ticket to Preparation Programs and the Educator Preparation team will assist you with your request.
Reminder: Limited Time Remaining to Complete Attestation of Compliance with State Law
Revisions adopted to TAC Chapter 228 [§228.31(e)] require all Texas EPPs to attest to compliance with certain coursework prohibitions and requirements, as statutorily required in TEC §21.0442(b)(3) since July 2025. The rule requires this attestation of compliance by September 1, 2026.
TEA sent this attestation document via Qualtrics to all Legal Authorities (or for ESC/District/Charter EPPs, the Primary Point of Contact) earlier in July. Reach out to EPPreview@tea.texas.gov if you need the link or if your link has expired.
Updates related to ASEP Reporting 2025-2026
New: Help Desk Ticket Processing Delay
We are currently experiencing a higher-than-normal volume of Help Desk tickets, which may result in longer response times than usual. Please be assured that all tickets are received, retained, and tracked. Your ticket has not been lost, and our team is actively working through requests as quickly as possible.
To help us process requests more efficiently, please avoid submitting duplicate tickets for the same issue, as this can increase processing times for everyone.
We appreciate your patience and understanding during this busy period and thank you for your continued cooperation as we work to address all requests.
Countdown to ASEP Reporting 2025-2026
To assist EPPs with completing ASEP Reporting with ease, we have developed weekly reminders for those EPP staff working on ASEP Reporting. Each week, you will receive weekly reminders in this Newsletter that include timely tasks that will lead to successful completion of data reporting by September 15, 2026. Please remember that the 2024-2025 Technical Manual published on the Program Provider Resources page on the TEA website is a wonderful “how to” resource for using the various functions needed for reporting in ECOS and contains some useful tips for problem solving, if needed.
New: Week 4 ASEP Tasks 8/3-7/2026: Update the Finisher Records List.
- Verify that all 2025-2026 finishers are correctly listed on the Finisher Record List (FRL) with a status of “Finisher” (F). If a finisher is on the FRL for certificate categories they are not finishing, remove the certificate categories that the candidate will not be finishing.
- If candidates left your EPP without completing program requirements during the 2025-2026 reporting year, remove all certificate categories from your FRL and ensure any associated test approvals have also been removed. The candidate's record must be updated to "Removed" during the 2025-2026 reporting year. Once ASEP closes on September 15, 2026, you will no longer be able to make changes to the FRL for the 2025-2026 reporting year.
- Remember to review the candidates from your mid-year data set in ShareFile. This data was provided to you in your ShareFile folder in March 2026 and it includes the number of consecutive years of enrollment for your candidates. Pursuant to 19TAC §228.31(b), EPPs must have an exit policy that identifies a point of dismissal for inactive candidates after no more than two years of inactivity Please review candidate records to determine whether any inactive candidates should be exited in accordance with your program’s published policy. Note: Candidates that are removed will need to apply and be admitted if they want to work with the EPP in the future.
Reminder: Week 3 ASEP Tasks 7/27-7/31/2026: Complete all admission reporting.
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Each year TEA invoices each EPP for each unique admission. To do this accurately, we ask that you verify that each candidate admitted in 9/1/2025-8/31/2026 has an accurate admission record, and includes all required admission data has been included in the record. If you need to update a record, you can do so manually or by bulk upload. Instructions are included in the 2024-2025 Technical Manual located on the Program Provider Resources page of the TEA website.
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EPPs can also view their admissions in ECOS. The steps are as follows:
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Go to ASEP>Maintain Admissions in your greenscreen.
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Select 2025-26 Reporting Year and click the green Search button. You will see all candidates admitted for 2025-2026.
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At the bottom of the page, you will see “Click Here to download the data in comma delimited format (Excel sheet)
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Reminder: Admission records for candidates admitted in 2025-2026 cannot be created after 8/31/2026 except for candidates admitted in the last week of August beginning August 25, 2026. Those records can be entered until ECOS locks the ASEP reporting year on 9/15/2026 but should be entered within seven days of the date of formal or contingency admission per 19 TAC §227.17 or 19 TAC §227.15, respectively. This means that for all candidates admitted between 9/1/2025 and 8/25/2026, the deadline for ensuring that their admission records are complete and correct is 8/31/2026.
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Be sure to review the 2024-2025 Technical Manual on the Program Provider Resources page. It is located under Forms and Documents. This is a helpful resource as it provides step-by-step instructions for completing admission reporting.
Reminder: Week 2 ASEP Tasks 7/20-24/2026:
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Ensure that TEA has your updated EPP Contact Information.
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Each EPP should have one Legal Authority or, for an EPP at a school district or Education Service Center, a Primary Contact, and at least one Backup Legal Authority. If you have recently had a change in these staff, please use the EPP Change Request Form to update the contact information.
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Each EPP must have a Primary Title II Pearson and Title II IPRC contact and should have a Secondary contact for each, if possible. Ensure that TEA has these current contacts. The following organizations must also have current contact information for your Title II contacts:
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Make sure that the following contacts are correct (your assigned TEA specialist can provide you a list of contacts that we have on file for your EPP):
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Your LBB contact if you are a college or university.
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The staff that manages your data.
To verify contacts with TEA, please submit a Help Desk ticket to the Preparation Programs tile.
Reminder: Week 1 ASEP Tasks 7/13-17/2026:
1. Know your assigned Education Specialist. This is the TEA staff member that you will need to reach out to when you have questions about ASEP Reporting. The EPP Education Specialist Assignments list is published on the Program Provider Resources page under Forms and Documents. Your Education Specialist is one of four staff members:
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Trinity Bankhead
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Rebecca Bunting
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Jennifer Gonzalez
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Lorrie Ayers, Director
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2. Become familiar with the Help Desk, which EPPs should use for all questions related to ASEP Reporting. Your Education Specialist will address your EPP’s questions in the Help Desk. We are in the Help Desk under the Educator Testing and Preparation Programs tile. |
3. Review the 2024-2025 Technical Manual on the Program Provider Resources page. It is located under Forms and Documents. This is a helpful resource as it provides useful information needed to complete ASEP Reporting.
4. Review your ASEP reporting processes from 2024-2025. We recommend that you review internal documents, correspondence with your Education Specialist, and any place where you encountered difficulties. Particularly if your EPP encountered challenges with Observation reporting or was subject to an informal review, we encourage you to review your processes and reach out to your assigned Education Specialist early and proactively seek support.
5. Register for the ASEP Reporting 2025-2026 webinar on Tuesday, August 4, 2026, at 10:00 AM CST. The webinar will provide useful information and reminders about state reporting processes and tips to improve the reporting experience. Please find the link in the Upcoming Events section above.
Updates related to the PREP Program Allotment
Updated: Deadline Extended for the Partnership Agreement Completion
Thank you to everyone who worked with your school system partners to complete the partnership agreements required for participation in the PREP Allotment programs. Due to requests from both school systems and EPPs, TEA allowed a draft agreement to be uploaded. However, for funding to be approved for distribution in 2026-2027, fully executed written agreements (MOUs) must be submitted by August 24, 2026. Reminder that the school system partner is responsible for submission of this document. Please be in communication with your school system partners to ensure compliance with this requirement. We are now waiting to receive approximately 300 partnership agreements, down from over 700 in mid-July. The PREP partnership agreement form may be completed and submitted online.
Updates related to Educator Standards and Certification
New: Bilingual Special Education EC-12 Exam (187) Framework Overview Webinar
The 187 Bilingual Special Education EC–12 Framework Webinar will guide program faculty or staff through an overview of the new Bilingual Special Education EC–12 Exam Framework, the exam timeline, and the context of the creation of the certificate. Programs will have an opportunity to discuss curriculum alignment and implementation planning needed to support the new Bilingual Special Education EC–12 certification pathway. Given that this is a new certification field, we strongly encourage program faculty and staff to attend to learn more. We look forward to seeing you there!
Updates related to Insight to Impact
New: I2I Observation Tool Statewide Launch in September
September 1, 2026, will mark the launch of the I2I Observation Tool, which is oriented toward TEA’s efforts to provide continuous improvement tools to Educator Preparation Programs (EPPs) across the state. The tool is designed to address observation collection difficulties and reduce the burden of analysis for users.
Learn more about the design, benefits, support received and how to access the tool on the Insight to Impact’s website blog.
We take this space to highlight questions that we have heard from EPPs.
Q: I have submitted an RFC or Help Desk ticket and have not heard back. What should I do? Should I submit a follow-up?
A: Please do not submit additional Help Desk tickets for the same issue. All tickets are retained, time-stamped, and tracked. Your ticket has not been lost, and it will be reviewed and addressed in the order received.
Submitting duplicate tickets or repeated follow-up requests slows down the process and increases the volume of work that must be reviewed, which can delay responses for everyone. The best way to help us process requests efficiently is to allow us time to work through the queue.
We are currently in a high-volume processing period and are working as quickly as possible to address all requests. All RFCs will be processed before the ASEP deadline.
We appreciate your patience and understanding as we work through this busy season.
Q: What is the process of transitioning teachers from one route to the residency route if they already have an admission record?
A: This situation is not considered a correction, and a new admission record should not be created. The candidate was appropriately admitted under the original route, and that admission record must remain unchanged. When a candidate transitions to the residency route, the change is reflected through updates to the Finisher Records list rather than through admission records. The EPP must update the candidate’s enrollment records to accurately reflect the new route. The enrollment record associated with the original route must be updated to a status of “Remove,” indicating that the candidate is no longer enrolled in that route. The EPP must then add a new enrollment record under the residency route and assign it a status of “Other Enrolled” to reflect the candidate’s active participation in the residency pathway. After the enrollment records have been updated, all subsequent program activity for the candidate should align with the residency route. For example, any continued clinical experiences or, if applicable, test approvals should correspond to the residency route.
Your best source for information and support at the TEA.
As an Educator Preparation Program, your main point of contact is your Education Specialist.
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View a list of EPPs and Education Specialist Assignments
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For most efficient assistance, please submit a Help Desk ticket to Preparation Programs.
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EPPs may contact their assigned Education Specialist directly via phone or email.
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Candidates may call (512) 936-8400 and select Option #2: Educator Preparation and Certification for assistance.
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Updated: If EPPs (and candidates) would like to speak to a representative from another area(s), they may call (512) 936-8400 and select one of the options listed below.
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Option 2: Educator Preparation and Certification
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Option 3: Fingerprinting
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Option 6: Investigations
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