001Well, we're going to jump into now the suitability rubric. So, as Amy shared, the job of y'all this weekend is going to be focused a lot on uh standards alignment. We're going to look at those TEICSS, look at those ELPS, and see, do these materials cover uh what the publisher says they cover and are they aligned to our state standards. uh part of uh the new EMRA process and I say new because it was part of a law passed in uh is that you as reviewers are now also reviewing for different facets of these materials more than just te's alignment. Uh so I'm Colin Dempsey again uh the district operations technology sustainability supports it's a mouthful we just say dots uh but essentially my team and I are charged with the instructional materials funding. So,
002this is how districts buy all of these books after they're reviewed. Uh, we're also charged with reviewing the materials with y'all this weekend and every year. Uh, so excited to have you here. Uh, when thinking about the laws and rules in Texas, it gets a bit convoluted and you might wonder how'd y'all come up with a suitability rubric anyways? Uh, and all of it is predicated on statute and and uh administrative code. So, we're going to cover that quickly today. Maybe you'll take a fun fact to take home to your family uh about the legislature. But uh so we'll start with the Texas Education Code. Uh the Texas Education Code or TEC uh states laws passed by the Texas Legislature related to public education. You can buy it on Amazon in three volumes if you'd
003like. Uh but it's also available online. Uh it's updated every oddnumbered year after our legislature meets. So, uh, I think some bills are going through right now, uh, as they're meeting. Uh, and then at the close of this, hopefully only one session, uh, the Texas education code is updated every 2 years. Inside of that, uh, or some of those statutes then give authority to agencies and other bodies to create rules. So we have statute that is passed by the legislature and then we have administrative code that is passed by agencies and other bodies including this the state board of education. Uh the uh Texas administrative code I think has a cooler cover. Uh but this is published about every week where agencies as they come up with more and more rules or uh remove rules
004publish the actions that have been taken by agencies around the state. Uh, this is where your TIEs live. So, TEACs live in the Texas um administrative code. That's why you see those numbers next to them because they're listing the chapters and subchapters of where you'd find those uh those rules. And so, what can I find in education code? Uh, chapter 31 of education code is all related to instructional materials. uh if you want to ask about we I could spend a whole dinner talking about chapter 31 if you're interested but most people aren't. Uh but this is generally what it does. It outlines the requirements for districts to provide free instructional materials to all students to cover all of the TEACS and ELPS and pre kindergarten standards or guidelines rather. uh it establishes the funding
005for in instructional materials and technology in the state and also outlines this new instructional materials review and approval process. Other things in code uh that impact our process this weekend would be chapter 28. Uh this outlines what are the things that Texas students need to learn in the state of Texas. uh and this is set by the state board of education uh authority given to the state board of education by the legislature uh and outlines the required curriculum for kinder through 12th grade uh and also outlines the requirements for the board to set certain standards for uh special topics. And so uh if you're wondering how did y'all come up with this stuff uh it's because we are taking directives from our elected officials uh in the statute turning that into rules and then applying
006those rules here this weekend. And so we're going to get into some of those rules that apply to you all now that you are uh working for the state as an EMR reviewer. One of the uh statutes that also has a lot of rules related to it is our instructional materials process. U so the standards alignment percentage the requirement that uh those full subject courses is outlined in Texas code. uh the requirement that we review for suitability is outlined in statute as well uh as well as quality review, the requirement that materials be free of factual errors, the physical and electronic specifications. We don't want the book to fall apart as soon as a kindergartner opens it on the first day, making sure that the binding is good, uh the paper's the right quality, and
007then the parent portal requiring that uh publishers host these materials in an open way so that parents and families can access those materials without having to make an appointment with the school. And so again, all of this came out of our 88th legislative session in 2023, signed into law by the governor. Uh, and the past two years, we've been working to stand up this process. This is only our second year, and we're already this big. Uh, and if you remember that chart that Amy showed you earlier of the uh, years and years that we're going to grow, this room will only get larger as we review more and more products year-over-year as part of this review. So, uh, now here you got to listen, uh, because there's a quiz after this. Uh, so make sure
008you're paying attention. The rules for y'all as reviewers are outlined in Texas uh, code in chapter 67. If you turn to the back of your EMRA book, y'all have this one. I have the math one, but it's all the way in the back. And they change page numbers, but if you're math, it's page 292. is uh 19 TAC67.29 EMR reviewers training duties and conduct and these are a set of rules to protect you as a reviewer to protect the integrity of the instructional materials review and to protect publishers and SBOE members as we're trying to have a fair and transparent process while we're reviewing these materials. uh if you can't find it in your book, it will be on screen. So, no need to worry. Uh but the first rule of of import is uh
009please don't accept bribes. Right? I know it seems simple. We do have publishers here. I don't think any of them are going to plan to offer them, but uh we want to make sure that we state it. uh do not accept meals, entertainment, gifts, swag bags, gratuitities from a state board member, from a publisher or an author or a depository. That's places that store all the books that publishers make and then they ship them. Um agents for publishers, other authors who represent those publishers or any person who holds an official position with publishers, authors, depositories or their agents. Uh, essentially you should only be talking to the folks at your tables and in this room who have the right name tag on, right? You want to make sure that you're not uh there's not the
010appearance of a bribe or an actual bribe taken. So, that's rule number one. Next, you're only going to discuss the materials you are reviewing in official meetings. Whether that is as you're doing your quality review on Zoom uh or you're here in person, uh you're welcome to share with other folks, hey, I'm an EMR reviewer. I am reviewing K12 math. Uh but you won't be disclosing the product that you're reviewing until after the review has concluded. Uh so that means uh if you ever served on a jury, right, you're you're sequestered sometimes. Uh same thing here. Uh you're welcome to share about your experience, welcome to share about the training. Post a picture of me on Twitter if you'd like. Uh but please do not post your material. Why? Well, uh we don't want publishers
011knowing your identities uh so that they aren't able to give you a bribe or influence you uh and vice versa to protect your anonymity. So as a reviewer, we want to make sure that you have the independence and autonomy uh to make the calls as you see them because we hired you because you are the experts, the subject matter experts. Uh, and we want to make sure that those discussions stay in the room and there is no undue influence from outside forces. And so if you're on Tik Tok, that's awesome, but please don't post about your product when you get it later this afternoon. Uh, if you're on Instagram, same thing. Uh, but as you're posting, you can say, "I'm an Emma reviewer. I'm excited to be here in Houston for the Emmer review. I
012love my team. I thought Amy's session was really awesome." Right? You can say all those things, but we're going to avoid talking about the product that you are assigned. And again, we stated it twice because we liked it so much inside of the statute. U but you're you're not going to be speaking with SPOE members about the product. You can talk about the weather. Uh you can talk about traffic in Houston. Uh you can do lots of things, but you're not going to be talking about your product unless you are invited for specific testimony. Um or it's after the review is concluded. You might recall that timeline slide that Amy shared that the board will make an official vote in November on these products. And that's when after that time uh you'll be able to
013communicate with uh other folks about oh well I'm the one that reviewed that product and this is what I felt. Uh so there is this no contact period to try and help with that. Again um we're we're drawing the line. We're building the fence around ourselves to protect everyone as part of this process. uh publishers, agency staff, board members, uh reviewers alike. And so during this time, you're going to be observing that no contact period. It's why we were emphasizing the color of the name tag, right? Uh check that first before you start disclosing what you're what you're doing. U to make sure that you're not going to violate this. Now, this no contact, uh, I got a lot of questions last year to say, I'm I'm on the textbook selection committee for my district,
014and I often talk to publishers. Does that mean I can't speak with publishers? No. Uh, that's part of a different job duty. Uh, you just won't be discussing your part of the EMR review. You're still allowed to seek advice from other educators, uh, other parents, other content experts. If the SPE invites you for testimony at one of their meetings between now and September or sorry, November, uh, or if you're attending another conference, uh, I don't know why you want to dedicate all your time to EMR review, but if you're doing something else, that's okay. Uh, but just want to make sure that people are observing this no contact period. If you see something or someone tries to offer you something and you're not sure, go ahead and report it to us. We'd rather know than
015not know. Uh sometimes it's a new publisher, sometimes it's new reviewers, they're not sure, there might be a gray area. Uh please let us know and you're you're bound by the statute to report it to us. So inside of your EMRA reviewer help desk, u there is a selection to report a violation of the no contact. Uh and so if that happens this weekend or over the course of the summer, please let us know. U you're not going to be in trouble. We promise. Uh, but we need to know so that we can either have a conversation with that publisher or with the parties involved to make sure that everyone is aware of the rules uh, and isn't violating this no contact period. Here comes the quiz. Pull out your phone for me. You're going
016to scan a QR code. If it works, what would you do during your lunch break after my talk at the kickoff conference? An Emmer reviewer is approached by a representative from a publishing company. The representative offers the reviewer a branded tote bag filled with snacks and coffee mugs and a $25 gift card as a thank you for your hard work this weekend. Scan the QR code, vote for your answer. It'll show up on your phone. And if the technology works, the bars will change as people vote. So, are you going to accept the gift as a token of appreciation since it's not cash? It's harmless. It's only 25 bucks. Are you going to politely decline, which sounds like someone has already voted, 25 people, the gift and report the interaction to us? And the other
017answers are going away because all of you are getting it correct. Yes. Uh this is an example of where you as a reviewer should report that interaction in our EMR help desk. uh they can wish you well uh but they cannot uh be giving you anything material uh even if it's below a certain threshold. We need to make sure that we are maintaining that no contact period. So I'm going to assume our 1% accidentally hit the wrong button and that our check for understanding is good. So we're going to move on. Question two. A Nimmer reviewer receives an email from a well-known association of teachers inviting them to give a presentation about their experience as a reviewer. The presentation would take place before the final list is posted uh on the SPE website, but your
018friend at the association said it's totally fine. We're not going to ask you about the products. We're just wanting to know informally like how the review worked, but we just want to know. Cue the Jeopardy music. You have to scan a new one. Will you accept the invitation as long as they discuss the review only? Decline. Accept request and presentation scheduled after there's 600 of y'all. So, we'll wait. We'll wait for at least half. 15 more. There we go. All right. Uh, this one's a tough one, right? Uh, we said you you can share that you're an Emma reviewer, but please don't talk about your product. U, in this case, we would want you to do what the majority have said here. Decline the invitation and report the contact uh, in that form. The reason
019being is that in that stat in that administrative code there is a rule about not sharing with uh groups like the one mentioned in um in the question uh and even if you accept the invitation but afterwards just go ahead you need to tell us about it uh so that at least we know. We'd rather know than not know. Uh and so again making sure that any type of invitation to talk about your experience uh just let us know first and then we can let you know if yeah that's good or not u and if it's appropriate to do that before the list is posted or after your experience as an emmer reviewer. Um we had people stand who were return folks who joined us last year and came back. Uh we want that to
020happen a lot. Uh recruitment is it takes a lot to recruit all y'all. Uh so we'd rather you come back and so you might be asked to share about your experience um with folks at your district or we might you know ask you to help us recruit for folks next year um where you should be sharing about your experience. But again uh during this no contact period you're going to be mindful of that and make sure that you are uh following those directions. So what do we learn? Uh our legislature sets our laws. We elect them. They set those laws. From those laws come uh the authority for agencies and other bodies to set administrative code uh which we call informally rules here u and that these laws and rules regarding state contractors. You all
021know you're now agents. Welcome. Uh now apply to you as AMRA reviewers. And so uh this is the least exciting presentation. So thanks you all for uh hanging with me on how not to take a bribe. Uh so yeah, we'll move on from this one and jump into now our suitability rubric. Okay. And we're ahead of time. We're going to get to lunch early. All right. Suitability rubric. Uh so again, you're you have a a a dual role during this review. You're going to be reviewing for the the quality and content, but then you're also going to be asked to review for suitability. Uh you're not the only one looking for suitability. There's another team that will fill your table in two weeks from now who's going to look at the same set of products
022and only look for suitability. But we want to make sure that you all are familiar with it. Uh Amy said this earlier, right? If you see something, we need you to report the flag. It helps improve the product for teachers and students at the end of this process. It helps uh the publishers to be aware of where there might be u great or not so great things in their materials u and also helps the board members at the end of the day discern about how they're going to take a vote on these materials in November. And so I mentioned earlier that bill that passed in 2023. It was called House Bill6005. Um and it it did these five basic things on the left hand side. Do I have a laser? Do all right. uh on
023the lefth hand side it created this new instruction materials review process where we're checking for TE's coverage you've already started quality and then we had this piece about suitable for the grade and subject and that's really what the suitability rubric helps us to do uh makes it less subjective and more objective of what we're looking for uh inside of these materials. Some other things that House Bill 165 established was this parent transparency piece, putting all those things online for parents to see u as well as uh updating some of the TEICSS and and teacher protections around uh instructional materials. And again, you've seen this slide a lot, you'll keep seeing it. Uh but as part of the review, we're going to focus on this box right now on whether these materials are suitable and appropriate.
024And so uh as I was mentioning we have statutes chapter 31 back to my friend uh it says before approving instructional material the board meaning the state board of education may review the material and must determine that the material is free from factual error right 2 plus 2 is four and not three uh and suitable for the subject and grade level for which the material is designed. Uh that's pretty vague, right? And so uh part of the directions from the legislature when this bill was passed and it modified chapter 31 to read this way uh was that the board would establish their own rubric, approve that rubric and give it to y'all and then you would apply that rubric during this review. And so um it's also in your book if you want to go
025ahead and look for it, the uh the suitability rubric. I believe it's towards the back. Uh but the suitability rubric has the goal of providing guidance for determining that the instruction material is quote suitable for the subject and grade level and that the rubric is arranged sorry the rubric is arranged by category with suitability indicator and corresponding guidance supporting the indicator. Now raise your hand if you remember this in your pre-training sort of great. We're going to cover it again so that we definitely remember it. Uh the document is broken up in into three basic parts. Part one is this cover page that talks about which materials are required to be reviewed for suitability. Uh and uh how we're going to score that thing. Uh and then we have the two main sections. The first
026section is suitability prohibitions. These are things we do not want to see in our products. Right? A flag here is a red flag. We don't want that. Uh then we have section two which are suitability excellence requirements. So these are things that the board has expressed by passing this rubric. They do want to see included inside of our instructional materials in the state. Green flag good things, right? Uh you want to have a lot of flags in section two if you're a publisher. Uh you do not want to have a lot of flags in section one if you are a publisher, right? uh you're wanting to make sure that your rubric your materials are uh meeting don't have any prohibited content but also are meeting uh the excellence requirements that are outlined in the rubric.
027Easy way to tell them apart blue is section one, light blue is section two as you're looking through these rubrics. So let's look at the structure of the rubric just to help get you all oriented. Number one, we have uh that section title. Like I said, there's section one, which is not good flags. Section two, good flags. Next, we have the category. There are seven categories inside of the rubric. Uh, and so that's just the heading to help break it up into its parts. Then we have our subcategory. This is where you'll see the 1.1 or 2.1 structure. So that's the number. You'll have the actual indicator. And then you'll have guidance. There are occasions where uh the board in writing the rubric referenced penal code or Texas family code or education code. And so
028the guidance uh tries to put some of those statutory legal ease, if you will, into friendlier language because we know that uh parents and others are going to be applying this rubric besides y'all in this room and want to make that friendlier to work with. So, we're just going to cover the rubric section by section and then we'll close out by showing you how you're going to flag materials throughout the weekend if you see something uh as well as when you go home and you continue the quality review throughout the summer. So, like I shared there are seven total categories. The first is prohibition on common core. The second would be alignment with public education's constitutional goal. Uh the third would be parental rights and responsibilities. The fourth is a prohibition on force political activity
029uh meant to shield students from uh forced political activity inside of the lesson. Uh protecting children's innocence uh promoting sexual risk avoidance and compliance with the children's internet protection act or SIPA. So we'll start with section one. U again these are the flags that you don't want to see these things inside of the materials. If you do over the course of your review this weekend, you should be flagging it. We have two categories of flags. We have we have bad flags, good flags, and then another subset, right? Uh the first is a specific flag. Let's say there is one image that you think, h that's not great for a third grader. I don't think that should be in here, but it's not repeated anywhere else in the materials. That would be a specific localized flag.
030We only see that problem one time. The other is a thematic application. As you're reading, you see that every single lesson is actually referencing Common Core at the start of the teacher instructions. You see it in lesson one, lesson five, lesson 10, all the way through the book. That would be a thematic flag. That saves you all from having to, you know, flag every single time you see it. Uh, but we do require that you provide evidence for at least three citations if you're quoting a thematic flag. Uh so if I did see that example of common core uh I would pull three citations and say it's right here in this lesson. It's uh referenced in this student activity on in lesson further in the book. And here's the third time that I've seen it.
031I'm going to go ahead and call it and say this is a thematic flag. That cuts down on the amount of responses a publisher has to make where they can make a global change and just say we're going to remove all of that. That's easier than a lot of very specific flags. So there might be instances where you say, "Oh, I've only seen that once." And then a day later you see it twice and three times and four times. Uh your uh review managers are going to help you with spotting those so that if you do have a specific flag that's suddenly become thematic, uh we can go and help you redo that in the uh form so that we're giving publishers the most accurate information. Publishers will see these flags as you all enter
032them. They won't see your information. They'll just see that a flag was raised from an Emma reviewer about their product. This form is also open to the public currently. Uh so as folks who are looking at the materials over this summer during our open comment period can do the same and publishers will also get notified as those comments come in from the public uh for them to address. The publishers are required to address it. They can say thanks but no thanks. we don't agree, which is fine. Or they can say, "We accept that. We're going to change it. Here's our proposed change." And so either way, publishers are required to respond to your feedback as an EMR team, uh, as well as the public's. So, let's get to that example of prohibition on common core.
033Uh, here, and I'm going to jump to the suitability guidance because I think it's the the best plain language on this side. materials do not reference or allude to quote common core state standards end quote explicitly or implicitly. The materials terminology in structural methodology and assessment styles predominantly display alignment with the TEICSS where appropriate materials are aligned to the TICS. Okay. Uh y'all are Texas educators. You work with the TIESS. You may have participated in TIE's rewrites and revisions. You may have worked in this process before. you know what the teaks and elps look like, sound like, uh, inside of the materials, and you know that there's some words that, uh, nationally referenced common core standards use, academic vocabulary that they use that we do not use in ours as practitioners. Um, and so those
034are going to be the types of things to look out for as you're reviewing your materials. Uh, and want to flag those if you do see them. Next is alignment with public education's constitutional goal. This is the the media section. All right. U this has a lot of subcategories and subs suitability indicators. And so we'll start again on the right hand side. U that we want to make sure that we're preparing students for self-governance. And that consists of cultivating students in informed American patriotism and leading students in a close study of the founding documents of the United States and Texas to achieve the following objectives. And we list them there. This category is repeated in the suitability excellence in the good flags because we want to see this stuff inside of the materials. If you're
035raising a red flag or prohibition, that means you see something counter to the statement inside of this part of the rubric. U so you either see something that is counter to American patriotism or leading students not in a close study of the founding documents where you think they could. This subcategory continues uh and gives you more definitions about um how you should flag violence if it appears in the context of your materials. Perhaps there's a history lesson in one of the reading language arts products um and violence is is uh presented. Uh that might be appropriate, but when in doing so, we want to make sure that it's not presenting violence for reasons of unh wholesome excitement or sensationalism. So, right, it's not violence for violence sake, but it was part of a movement or
036part of a balanced approach uh in history. Again, this is going to be up to you all's discernment, right? We trust you all as educators and we want you to flag something if you see it. And you might not have any flags during your review. That's okay. U but just want to make sure that folks are aware of the rubric and know where to look for things as they're approaching the products. this week. Uh again, the board has outlined not encouraging or condone products. We don't want to see them encouraging or condoning current activities that promote civil disorder, social strife, or disregard for the law. Um this section doesn't prohibit a teacher from teaching about it. It can be there. It's just if it is, it needs to be done and as examples of demonstrations
037such as peaceful protests or boycotting. Then we get to subcategory 2.2 two uh which uh basically gives you a list of thou shalt nots, right? We don't want to um promote one race or sex is inherently superior to another race or sex. That an individual by virtue of the race or sex is inherently racist, sexist or oppressive. Uh consciously or unconsciously, an individual should be discriminated against or receive adverse treatment solely or partly because of that individual's race or sex. uh an individual's moral character, standing or worth is necessarily determined by the individual's race or sex or u an individual by virtue of their race or sex bears responsibility, blame or guilt for actions committed by other members of that race or sex. These rules are based in uh the quote the admin sorry the
038statute there of 28.0022. And so the board uh knowing that that's part of statute baked that into the rubric. And so if you do see any of these indicators, it's your responsibility to flag it for the board member uh and for the general public because we make all these flags available to school districts and parents who might want to know uh what y'all thought of the materials as you were working through them. We continue with 2.26 26 about uh not wanting to see uh traits such as hard work, sorry, seeing meritocracy or traits such as hard work, ethic are racist or sexist or were created by members of a particular race. Um and then we get into uh some components of slavery in the territory that is now the United States. Uh on the right
039hand side we have some more guidance here related to the 1619 project. Uh basically if you see any components of that 1619 project uh and we have the links there in your books if you need more further reading uh you'd want to flag that for the board members because it's something they've indicated they'd like to know about if it is in the materials. Then we have 2.28 uh with respect to their relationship to American values. Slavery and racism are anything other than deviations from betrayals of or failures to live up to an authentic founding principles of the United States which include liberty and equality. Again, we have some more explication that we carry down to the rubric for you on the right hand side. Uh and then we have the final one which is 2.29
040of uh not including or incorporating those 1619 project materials in what you see. Now, if you're reviewing a K through3 phonics product, are you likely to see this? probably not, but you should still have your eyes open for it and make sure that you are flagging it if you do see it. Category three is about parental rights and responsibilities. Uh the instructional materials should not rec or does not recognize or contradict that the parents have the right to direct the moral and religious training. Right? So if there's anything inside the materials that might contradict that statement, you need to flag it for uh for members. Then we have our section on forced prohibition of or sorry prohibition on forced political activity. U the instructional material should not compel teachers to discuss a widely debated and
041currently controversial topic and support teachers who choose to discuss them with material that allows them to explore both sides of that topic. Uh the instructor materials does not award grade or course credit including extra credit for a student who um works for is affiliated with or service learning in association with an organization engaged in these things lobbying and legislation, social or public policy, social policy advocacy, political activism or participation in any internship practicum or otherwise uh involving public policy. Again, this is probably more likely in a CTE course that requires a practicum, but it's something that you'll want to look out for as you're reviewing your materials. Then we have section five, which gets to protecting children's innocence. Uh, this section has lots of definitions. So, if you're unsure what they mean by harmful material,
042we have a definition in statute. So, we've added that here for y'all to reference. Structural material should not include harmful material. They should not include obscene material. They should not include things that are pervasively vulgar or educationally unsuitable. And again, those definitions are in code and part of your your packet materials. Then we have uh continuing with protecting children's innocence. Uh the IM does not include sexually explicit material. The IM does not include sexually relevant material or an sorry to a subject to a requirement of the teesques. meaning uh unless you're teaching human sexuality, you really shouldn't see this stuff at all. Right? And again, we had one flag of this in theund 300 plus products that we did last year. Uh it's rare, but again, it's something to look out for if you do
043see it. Category six, uh if you raise your hand if you're reviewing a prek through third grade product, and we have some math folks over here. Oh, that's interesting. Okay. Uh, you should not see any of this in anything pre-K through third grade. U, if you see it, flag it. Uh, raise your hand if you're reviewing something fourth grade and up, great. I don't think you would see this either, but if you do see it, uh, you need to apply the next part of the rubric to what you see, right? Making sure that if there is instruction on human sexuality, again, would this be in a stats book? Maybe not, but you need to be looking out for it. Uh, and if it does include it, then uh it needs to be presenting abstinence from
044sexual activity as the preferred choice. Uh, it needs to devote more attention to abstinence than any other behavior, sexual activity than any other behavior. Uh, it needs to emphasize absence from sexual activity if used consistently and correctly. is the only method that 100% effective in preventing pregnancy, STDs, uh infection with HIV or AIDS and the emotional trauma associated with adolescent sexual activity. Goes on uh defining what we do and do not want to see uh if there is instruction on human sexuality. Again, it is not likely. However, we want to make sure that folks are aware. Category seven uh I think is the trickiest one to deal with because uh the Children's Internet Protection Act is lengthy uh federal law and not something that all of us have memorized nor should you. Uh and so
045we've given you some uh a lot more subindicators here to help you with that. First, we want to make sure that the instructional materials allow a school to be compliant with SIPA. And then we list the things in SIPA that make them compliant, right? materials, including uh digital and computerenerated images, are devoid of visual depictions that are obscene, pornographic, or harmful, which we've already touched on. Uh no visuals should hint or allude to sexually explicit content, especially with minors. The content is age appropriate, aligning age appropriate, aligning with the intended audience's maturity. So, what might work for a kindergartener, or sorry, what might not work for a kindergartener might work for an eighth grader. Uh so, that's up to up to your all's discernment. This is the big one. External online resources, if linked, align
046with SIPA standards. Uh, all linked resources are pre-screened to ensure they don't host a redirect to non-compliant content. We want to look for back doors in the products that you're reviewing. If they are linking to a YouTube video, we want to make sure that that YouTube video is also vetted as part of the instructional materials. Uh, we don't want to have a way for a child to go clicking and getting into things we don't need children to be getting into as part of the instructional materials. And uh we have some enterprising intelligent students in Texas. Uh and if they can find a way, they're going to go find stuff. So we want to make sure that that's locked down. So if you see any links that are going to external sites, it might be the
047way that the publisher has set up the materials for you to review. Either way, you're going to want to flag it just so the publisher might respond and say that won't be in the final version. Uh but we want to make sure that we're checking it. The other thing we're looking for are user generated sections. So places where there might be interactivity between a student u and they're maybe typing back and forth with someone. Uh we want to make sure that there are clear guidelines for for moderation uh and that's a supervised activity and not a child doing it on their own. Uh and that again you all aren't likely going to see this but making sure that if there are continuous updates to a material that they continue to align with SIPA and don't
048come out of violation. Those are the bad flags. So if you see any of that, you're going to flag it as part of your materials. Then we have our suitability excellence indicators. There's only two categories here. And you've already seen both of them, right? Uh so 2.1 in a way fitting. We want to do these things. We want to see uh that we are increasing students knowledge of the deepest and noblest purposes of the United States and Texas. We need to enhance students intellectual independence so that students may become thoughtful, informed citizens who have an appreciation for the fundamental democratic principles of our state and national heritage, including as a constitutional republic and that materials guide students toward an understanding and functioning productiv productively in a free enterprise society. This might show up in lots
049of ways. If you're reviewing a math product, it might be a word problem in a math product. Might be an economics based problem that talks about capitalism. Uh or talks about a free enterprise society. U if you're in a phonics product, I'm not sure as much that will come up, but if it does, we want to flag it because these are the things that uh the board has indicated that we want uh baked into the products that are going to go out to five and a half million students across the state. So again, flagging those things as we see them. Suitability excellence 6.2 6.25. U again this is not sexual risk avoidance topics are typically not in a phonics product. Uh but again we need to look for it and if they are including that
050uh if the publisher does decide to include that in their products that uh they're framing it in the correct way uh per the rubric. So, time check here. Great. Uh, so let's jump into how you all are actually going to flag these things. So, now that we've looked over the rubric, how are you actually going to operationalize and let us know and let the publishers know what you've seen during the review? Each of you are going to uh be reviewing the materials and your suitability flags are independent. You do not have to vote with your partners at your table in order to flag something. If you see something and you feel in your personal conviction and in your subject matter expertise that that should be flagged, you need to flag it. Uh you do not
051have to you can confer with your table or with your reviewers, other reviewers on your team. Uh but not required. So this is an independent activity. Uh and you might be you might be the lone person that thinks that it might be a violation and that's okay. uh go ahead and flag that because the more information that publishers and the board members have at the end of this review, the better. And so again, this is a this is a group effort. This is a group project, right? Uh y'all are the orange here. So you're going to be doing standard alignment today. Same time looking for factual error and uh the quality review, but you're also doing suitability within this, right? So just because we have this purple bar of suitability, folks, doesn't get y'all off
052the hook. uh we're all looking for suitability concerns while we get our way to a final uh review product report. So again, your all's job, the suitability teams are going to focus only on suitability. They're not going to touch your all stuff, right? They're not going to be doing uh TICS alignment or quality review. They're only looking for suitability and they'll start that in a couple of weeks right here in this room. Quality reviewers, again, if you see something, say something. So, you're going to be looking at every single page inside of these materials. You'll become deeply familiar with all of your products. Uh, and so therefore, if you're in there, we want to know what you're seeing. And so, that's why we're asking of you all to do this task of flagging if you
053do see it coming across your review. Uh, and so again, anyone who sees something is obligated to report it as a flag. So, how are we going to do that? Uh if you've been working with us, which you all have over the past month, you might have noticed that we use the application smart sheet frequently. Uh and so we're using a similar uh smart sheet form in order for you to uh look at suitability. You feel free to scan uh scan the QR code if you want to look at it. Uh we'll flag everything that comes in right now as dummy data so you can kind of work through the form. So I'll give you all a second. But as you're reviewing, let's say that you come across uh what you perceive as either a
054positive or a negative flag. You're going to open the form, which you'll have on your desktop, and select, is this going to be a section one flag, meaning it's a prohibited content, or a section two flag. And you'll use the drop down to make a selection. The survey will then grow and give you more things to enter, including your reviewer role, whether you're a quality or suitability reviewer. You'll input your name. Again, this is not information we pass on to the publishers. It's so that we can come back and ask a question if we're not quite clear on the citation or around the meaning or if we need to go find one that you flagged as specific and oh, suddenly it needs to be thematic, right? So, we just need your information to help us
055with that. You'll select the grade level of your product, which will generate some publisher names. Uh, and essentially you'll drill down to the product that you're reviewing all the way down to the particular component. So, if it's in the teacher guide, we need to know it's in the teacher guide. Please don't just say it's in the third grade math product. It's not helpful for the publisher. It's not helpful for the board. Uh we need to get as specific as possible and where possible provide the uh standard book number, the ISBN or the product component number. The most helpful is provide the URL that will be inside of your portal as you're reviewing. So, if you can give us the hyperlink, that lets everyone know right where to go to see what you're seeing and what
056might be of concern for you. So, again, we're going to look at specific flags and thematic flags. If you say this is just a one-time thing, it's going to ask you for your citation evidence. Like all good writers, we use evidence to uh communicate our point. We should with suitability flags as well. And so, when looking at that form, it's going to ask you for a page number. Uh please indicate if it's the page of the PDF or the page that is printed on the PDF. Uh that is helpful. Sometimes they are maybe off by three or four page numbers depending on the product. Uh so if you're going to say the PDF page, just write page seven of the PDF or page seven on the actual materials. That's very helpful. You're going to describe
057the location. It's in the top right hand corner. It's in the callout box on the lefth hand side. it's the only picture in the middle of the page, right? You're going to tell us where to look. Then you'll include the hyperlink for the specific location. If it's thematic, you'll do that three times over and then you will hit submit. Once you submit, you're welcome to send yourself your own copy, but we'll have a whole report. Uh, and then the page should reload should you have another suitability flag to flag. Where does all this information go? At the end of the review, we'll collect from all from that group project, right? All of the public who have left comments on suitability. All of uh y'all in this room are suitability reviewers uh in a couple of
058weeks. And they will generate these EMRA suitability flag reports uh where it will summarize all of the flags flagged by a reviewer or the public with the publishers's response published there. So it might be again the publisher accepts the critique and decides to make changes to their product. If so, that's listed here and the board will have these reports before their vote. So they'll know if a publisher has committed to change something in their product before they give it an up or down vote in November. Uh or they'll know if a publisher has decided uh they're not going to make a change and that's information that a board member needs. And additionally, this report will list the positive flags. So, it'll have a count of the flags that are in the second section for excellence
059indicators. Um, and again, all we're we're flagging and tagging and then the board members are going to make sense of the flags that we all have flagged. U, so it's not our job to be judge and jury for these suitability flags. It's our job to if we see it, flag it, and then we're going to leave it up to the folks who were elected to vote on it. uh if that is rises to the level that they would say no to a product or yes. So here's the takeaways. We have a suitability rubric. It has two sections. There's good things and bad things. Uh your job is if you see any of those things in your materials this weekend or the rest of the summer to open that form and complete that suitability submission. In
060doing so, you're helping us all get to better products for the students in Texas, more clear products for teachers and school districts. Uh, and ultimately, right, we're we're supporting that vision of high quality, rigorous, engaged content that's suitable and appropriate for all kids in Texas moving forward before we go to lunch. Pause there. I don't know there they're probably not questions, but we'll do my teacher pause. That'll be sufficient wait time. All right. Uh All right. A couple of housekeeping things before lunch. Uh you're going to be back here at 1 p.m. We're going to do one more. We're not going to PowerPoint you to death. I promise. We'll do one more training uh on the actual system that we use to start recording your votes for TICS alignment. And we're going to walk through
061an example of that. So, please be back here at 1 p.m. Publishers, you were previously told that you had to leave after lunch. You can stay for the 1 p.m. training. So, you're welcome to stay for the 1 p.m. training. Uh then there will be a point in that training where we dismiss you and uh you have to leave, but the reviewers will stay here and start getting into their products. Uh there was also some maybe some information out there about a publisher meeting happening. That is not happening. Uh, so make sure publishers enjoy your lunch. Join us back here at 1. Uh, folks are welcome to leave their materials here, but the doors won't be locked. So if you're concerned about your laptop or your technology, be sure to take it with you. Um,
062and do not leave it on the table if you're concerned about that. U, there are several lunch options within the hotel. You're also welcome to Uber Eats, right? But you just need to meet uh those folks down in the lobby. You can't tell them to come up to the fourth floor if you're going to get food driven here for you. Uh and making sure that you're again back here by 1:00 and then we have uh there's a flyer on your table of lunch options. Thank you, Janet. Uh there's a flyer on your table of lunch options around the hotel. Uh but again, we encourage you go outside. It's beautiful day. Go grab some lunch. We'll come back here, get ready for standards alignment, and then jump into products. Thank you all for your time this
063morning. Uh we'll see you at 1 o'clock. [Music]