001This presentation will discuss the Title I Part A requirement related to the parent and family engagement policies, which have been selected for review as part of the program monitoring validations process being conducted by the Federal Program Compliance Division at the Texas Education Agency. This presentation is intended solely to provide general information and guidance to Texas LEAs, ESCs, nonprofit subgrantees, and participating private schools receiving equitable services. The content of this presentation reflects the Texas Education Agency's current understanding of statute and applicable federal guidance. The content of this presentation is subject to change as a result of future guidance or other updates provided by federal agencies with regulatory oversight of these programs. This presentation does not constitute legal advice, and entities are therefore advised to seek legal counsel regarding the information and guidance provided in this presentation
002before acting upon the information provided. The Texas Education Agency does not permit third-party recording or the use of artificial intelligence summary services during its grants-related trainings. Attendees of TEA's grant-related trainings may not use AI services, language models, applications, interfaces, or assistants to attend, review, or record the trainings. TEA further prohibits any person or entity from using the information included in its grants-related trainings to train AI technologies. Any attendees of TEA's grant-related trainings who violate this prohibition may be removed from the trainings and may be barred from attending future grants-related trainings. Documenting overall compliance for a program requirement may require several forms of documentation to be maintained locally and available upon request by TEA and or an auditor. To ensure overall compliance with program requirements, LEAs should refer to the program guide and or other program-related
003resources that reference the multiple forms of documentation required to be maintained locally. The documentation requested for submission during the validation process may not include all forms of documentation that are required to be maintained locally. The agenda for today's presentation will include a discussion of the specific program requirement, acceptable documentation for the validation, past validation issues, a discussion of examples, and the resources that are available. For this validation, we will be looking at the LEA's Title I, Part A Parent and Family Engagement Policy, as well as the Title I, Part A PFE Policy that has been developed for the specified campus. For item 1.1, the LEA should submit the Parent and Family Engagement Policy that has been developed for the LEA for the specified school year. If the LEA has only one campus, it is allowable
004for the LEA and campus policies to be combined into a single document, provided that the requirements for both the LEA policy and the campus policy have been addressed. >> We will be checking the LEA's PFE policy against the checklist developed by the Statewide Title 1 Part A Parent and Family Engagement Initiative at Region 16. The LEA's PFE policy should be specific to the LEA. It should include the LEA's expectations and objectives for the PFE program. And it should describe how the LEA intends to accomplish the activities listed. Issues related to item 1.1 that may result in an improvement needed status include auditable documentation requested was not submitted. The LEA's PFE policy did not address the required content. Or documentation submitted was not for the specified school year. For item 1.2, the LEA is asked to
005submit documentation for one meeting that reflects the LEA's PFE policy development and review process. This documentation should include the meeting agenda, meeting notes and minutes. And the sign-in sheet or participant roster for one meeting that provides evidence of the participation of parents in the development, review, and revision of the LEA's PFE policy for the specified school year. It should be clear from the documentation that parents had a genuine opportunity to participate in the process. A majority of the participants should be parents, grandparents, and guardians of children attending the Title 1 A campuses in the LEA. The documentation submitted should provide evidence that the LEA's PFE policy development and review process referenced in item 1.1 was followed. Documentation for virtual meetings is acceptable. Given the increased use of virtual meeting environments, participant rosters that include the
006meeting title, meeting date, and stakeholder names and roles would be acceptable substitutes for the more traditional sign-in sheets. This eliminates the need of participant signatures for virtual meetings. In general, to be acceptable as meeting documentation, an agenda should include the title of the meeting, the name of the campus or LEA as applicable, and the date and the time of the meeting. Best practice would be to also include the meeting location. Meeting notes or meeting minutes should include the meeting title, the LEA or campus name as applicable, and the date and the time of the meeting. Best practice would be to include the meeting location and the names and roles of the stakeholders. The participant roster or sign-in sheet should include the meeting title, the LEA or campus name as applicable, the date and the time
007of the meeting, and the stakeholder names and roles. Best practice would be to include the location of the meeting. Please note that the Texas Education Code states that parents' roles as stakeholders may not be filled by LEA employees. Issues that are related to the LEA PFE policy item 1.2 for meeting documentation that may result in an improvement needed status include the following. Auditable documentation requested was not submitted. The documentation submitted does not indicate that parents had a genuine opportunity to participate in the review, development, and revision of the LEA's PFE policy. Or the documentation does not indicate that sufficient parent representation in the development, review, and revision process for the LEA's policy took place. The documentation submitted may not have been for the specified school year. For item 1.3, the LEA should submit a copy
008of the PFE policy for the selected campus for the specified school year. If the LEA has only one campus and has included the campus PFE policy requirements in the LEA PFE policy document, the LEA may note that in the comments section of the work app. We will be checking the campuses PFE policy against the checklist developed by the Statewide Title 1 Part A Parent and Family Engagement Initiative at Region 16. The campus policy should be specific to the campus and should describe how the campus intends to meet the requirements. Issues that may result in an improvement needed status include the following. The auditable documentation requested was not submitted. The PFE policy submitted was not specific to the campus selected. The campus PFE policy did not address the required content. Or the documentation submitted was not
009for the specified school year. For item 1.4, the LEA is asked to submit documentation for one meeting that reflects the campuses PFE policy development and review process. This documentation should include the meeting agenda, meeting notes or minutes, and the sign-in sheet or participant roster for one meeting that provides evidence of the participation of parents in the development, review, and revision of the campuses PFE policy for the specified school year. It should be clear from the documentation that the parents had a genuine opportunity to participate in the process. A majority of the participants should be parents, grandparents, and guardians of the children attending the Title 1 Part A campus. The documentation submitted should provide evidence that the campuses PFE policy development and review process referenced in items 1.3 was followed. As we mentioned earlier, documentation for
010virtual meetings is acceptable. Given the increased use of virtual meeting environments, participant rosters that include the meeting title, meeting date, and stakeholder names and roles would be acceptable substitutes for the more traditional sign-in sheets. Likewise, the guidelines we discussed previously concerning meeting documentation for the LEA meetings would also apply to the campus meeting documentation. Issues related to item 1.4 that may result in an improvement needed status include auditable documentation requested was not submitted. The documentation submitted does not indicate that parents had a genuine opportunity to participate in the development, review, and revision of the campus's PFE policy. The documentation does not indicate sufficient parent representation in the development, review, and revision of the campus's PFE policy. Or the documentation submitted was not for the specified school year. Some common issues that have been found during
011previous validations include that the policy may have cited old statute, either the No Child Left Behind Act or the Improving America's Schools Act. The ESSA statute has been in effect since 2015, so the policy needs to be updated to include new statutory citations. Other issues are that the PFE policy does not mention how the program is evaluated or that the PFE results from the evaluation will be used to improve the program. In other cases, not enough parents have participated in the review and the revision of the policy. And lastly, LEA employees cannot be serving as the parent representatives according to state law. Other common issues include that the policy is missing one or more of the PFE policy requirements. That the policy was not for the school year specified. That the campus policy was submitted
012as opposed to the LEA policy. That the documentation uh that was submitted uh in support of the policy review and revision was not matched. In other words, the agenda, the meeting notes, and the sign-in sheets were not from the same meeting. Another item that is an issue is when the what is submitted is not actually a policy. And we have an example of that follow. Here is a section that is an excerpt from a student handbook that was submitted by an LEA or a campus as its PFE policy. This is standard boilerplate language from a particular company's student handbook template. Uh what is here is, you know, fine for, you know, the student handbook, uh but it's not a policy. It's basically a list of things that parents could do, but it's not a list
013of what the LEA is planning to do or how it's planning to accomplish the PFE policy requirements. Here's an example of a template that an LEA used to very effectively lay out its uh campus PFE policy. On the left-hand side is the requirement. On the right-hand side is what the campus plans to do to accomplish that particular requirement. It has the advantage of being clear what the LEA is what actions the the the LEA or campus is taking to accomplish the requirement. Um in the future years when the LEA is reviewing this policy, um it can see what it has said it was doing in the past and can make a judgment about whether it needs to revise uh the statements uh that it's made about what the campus or LEA is doing to accomplish
014the requirements. Uh an advantage that this has over uh just a standard narrative is that if the LEA deletes a section because they're not accom or not taking uh those steps anymore, it leaves a blank and so they're prompted then to uh write down what they are doing to achieve that particular requirement. If they just write it in a standard narrative, paragraphs can get deleted and there's no prompt perhaps for the LEA or the campus to replace that particular language with what they are actually doing now. Some common issues that have been found uh with regard to campus PFE policies are that the policy is not for the correct year, not for the year that's specified for the validation. That it doesn't mention how the PFE program will be evaluated or how those results will
015be used to improve the program. That old statute is cited in either the policy or in the other PFE materials that are submitted. And that it's a combined campus and LEA policy. This is allowable if the LEA has only a single campus, but only if it includes all all requirements for both the LEA and the campus. So, now let's discuss some takeaways from both the campus and PFE policy reviews that we've conducted in the past. First, there are templates available. And LEAs would be well advised to use those templates to assess the current state of their policies. It's a built-in relevant activity for the LEA and campuses policy review committees to take those templates and use them to assess the current policy. Uh they are easily able to see what might be missing, what might
016what might need to be revised. Uh it's just a good thing, uh a good activity for them to do. We use those templates at TEA when we're reviewing the validation submissions. So, if the LEA has used the templates to create or revise their policy for the LEA or for the campus, then they're more likely to be in compliance because we're reviewing their submissions looking at those templates. And finally, documentation that's submitted for validation should address the questions that are asked. If it's submitted, we are required to review it. If it happens not to be relevant to the validation, it just is another opportunity for us to find things that we might not otherwise see. So, if the LEA is submitting documentation for the PFE policy reviews, and they've been asked for a copy of their
017policy, and they've been asked for documentation related to uh the meeting where the policy was reviewed and revised revised, then that's the documentation that should be submitted, not necessarily um other documentation related to other PFE activities. Next, we will review the resources and support that are available to assist LEAs in completing the program monitoring validation process. In the category of overall process resources, LEAs can access the PMV process handbook, instructions, training video, and training slides for tips on submitting documentation, and a video on how to navigate the Smartsheet work app system. These, as well as other program-specific resources, are available on the ESSA program monitoring validations webpage. For each requirement included in the validations, there's a guidance document that describes the acceptable documentation, as well as training slides and a training video that discuss previous
018findings. These resources are available to LEAs to review prior to submitting documentation for selected PMV requirements. Please take advantage of these documents to ensure that the district is informed of the overall process for program monitoring validations and all program-specific resources. Complementary technical assistance and training are available from each regional education service center. ESC contacts for each regional center are located towards the bottom of the TEA Title 1 Part A webpage. Questions related to program monitoring validations for the Title 1 Part A program may be directed to Vivian Smirl at essa support at tea.texas.gov.