001Thanks Anna. Uh welcome everyone and good afternoon. Uh this is our July 24th uh tea lea sped webinar. Uh we have a few uh different presenters today. We have uh Donna Holmes around state performance plan annual performance report. Uh we have Nathan Poland around the autism circuit academy. Uh, and then we also have uh Jennifer Patterson uh with some tea, RDA, sped discipline uh announcements. Uh, so I'll pass it over to our first presenter, Donna Holmes. Uh, and we also have the Q&A that you are able to uh place questions in. uh those questions we use uh around uh document creation, guidance creation and um sometimes we provide uh further information in future webinars. So please attend. All right, Don, thank you. >> Thanks, Charlie. Good afternoon. Uh we have some announcements that we'd like
002to make this afternoon and we're going to start with uh some reminders of some timelines, some deadlines that are coming up. Uh July the 31st is our deadline for submission of child find in the TSPS uh application. Uh all of the um district applications must be in complete status by that timeline. Also, we have our deadline coming up for the SP7 and SP13 submissions in our till application. All of those must be um um finalized, submitted by the deadline of uh August the 8th. And then we want to remind everyone that our new uh special education data system, our speds summer submission will be opening on uh August the 4th. Now your data can be loaded into local systems, but uh uh it will be open for promotion into speds on September the 15th. So
003those are some of our timelines that are coming up. Uh we also uh speaking of speds, we do want to thank everyone for your questions that you submitted at our uh webinar where we presented our our presentation uh introducing our new collection. Uh we are taking those and we're incorporating those into our updated guidance documents and we'll be u communicating when those are ready and posted uh for uh you to view and use. Uh we also uh had announced some updates um in our uh sped newsletter here lately, but I do want to go over some of those uh webpage updates with everyone. And I will share my screen. So, and Anna, if you will just give me a okay that you're seeing it correctly. Yep, it looks good. Okay, it looks good. Graduation rate's
004showing. I get a thumbs up. You probably couldn't see me. >> No, I couldn't. Uh, our first update that we want to remind you about is on our graduation rate web page. We did add a definition of um graduating with a regular high school diploma because that is how the calculations are made. So you might want to visit this page and uh refresh your memory uh on uh the measurement for indicator one. Also on our secondary transition indicator 13 web page, we made a uh notation here of the difference in the requirements uh the state requirements for transition planning beginning at age 14 and then the uh reporting requirement for SP uh 13 that it is for students age 16 or older. So that clarification is noted on our SP13 web page. On our RDA
005documentation web page, we want to point out that not only do we have the historical manuals for your reference, at the bottom of the page, we have uh added uh a section for historical RDA documents in case you would like to refer back to those. Those will be listed down on the bottom of the page. On our local educational agency public reporting web page, we have a uh added a data note. It is uh referring to the fact that uh indicator 11 12 and 13 data that's submitted in our SP APR every year that is pre-clarification data. Uh that's a requirement for our federal submission that will also be noted when you click and uh link over to that public report generator page. That data note will also be noted there. And when you generate
006the reports, you'll see that data note as a footnote on the bottom of those reports just to make sure that that's communicated clearly. We'd like to let you know that the presentation that we gave uh concerning our new speds uh submission, summer submission, there is a link to that presentation on our SP 11, 12, 13, and 7 web pages. So you can scroll down to the resources and find that link. And then we have posted our federal fiscal year 2023 SP APR uh which contains our determination uh letter and we are very happy to report that for the second year in a row we have uh received the highest determination of meets requirements uh for our implementation of IDEIDA regulation. So that can be viewed on our state performance plan annual performance report web page.
007And with that I believe uh that finishes up our announcements today. Thanks Donna. Uh just to remind the audience members that this webinar is being recorded. So, if you want to refer back to any information, we'll have that recording out uh shortly after uh the webinar. Uh our next uh guest here is Nathan Fen. Head it over to you, sir. >> Thank you, Charlie. Um good afternoon, everybody. I'm here to share information on the Autism Circuit Academy, uh which is a training and coaching program administered, uh through the educational service center, region 13. So, if we want to follow find the ACA uh web page, you can navigate to our Texas spedsupport homepage. URL here is at the top. Um I should have it memorized, but I can't see it. Spedsup support.te.ex.gov is the URL
008for Texas Support. Once you're on, you can just search for Circuit Academy or go to our autism specific page. Uh there's multiple ways to find it, but if you go to Circuit Academy, and here I already had it up, so I'll just use this so you don't have to wait for my uh browser to load. On the Autism Circuit Academy homepage, you'll see some information on the program. It um has an application that is open right now for the fall cohort until August 15th. So once again, the application is now open for the fall cohort until August 15th. We have just over two weeks. We've redesigned it this year to um to move from an eight-monthlong, two semesterl long program, essentially one full school year to move to two semester long programs, one fall cohort,
009one spring cohort. And they cover different evidence-based practices for students with autism. So, those that join the fall cohort will also have the opportunity to join the spring cohort for your traditional eight-monthlong experience in the autism circuit academy. Me scroll here um find more information for you. So, this is free for Texas local education agency staff. Um it provides training around evidence-based practices with follow-up coaching on fidelity of implementation provided by ESC specialists on those evidence-based practices. that it incorporates artifact submissions where the participants will submit artifacts um on what they've completed as part of the program for their their teaching responsibilities at their classrooms. Uh there's discussions to engage in with other participants and with the ESC specialist and like I mentioned follow-up coaching on those evidence-based practices as well. Um there's 24 CEUs
010that can be earned per semester as part of the ACA. Um, so if you do two semesters back toback, that's 48 CEUs for you. Um, at the end, the participants that complete the Autism Circuit Academy, including the coaching followup um on the trainings they've been provided, will receive a classroom kit as well for their use in their classrooms. And there's additional information here on the program with some questions, who it's for, um, what the endorsement means. If you scroll to the bottom, you'll see an email address to contact. If you have any questions about the Autism Circuit Academy, if you're interested in it and just want a little bit more information, please email this address and they would be happy to help you. Me scroll back up to show you the application link. The link
011is right here. Actually might make that a little bigger now that I'm seeing it. I might make it all caps and larger. Um, but the link is right here. That will take you to a Google form to submit for consideration to be in the autism circuit academy fall cohort. We have to have that because sometimes um folks apply or they want to be in the autism circuit academy but um maybe they are not um local education staff. So we do have to have an application to to make sure that you meet the criteria to be in it. So that is it for the autism circuit academy. Uh this link this URL will be provided in the followup for you all. Um and so please navigate there and share the information as you can with folks
012you think may be interested. Thank you. >> Thanks Nathan. Thanks for sharing. Uh last but not least we have uh Jennifer Patterson here to join us. >> Thanks Charlie. Hey everybody. Um, so I've got some information to share about a to the administrator address TAA correspondence that went out a week ago today. I'm going to be walking through a few different um pages that you can go to and then referencing House Bill 6, which is the origin of the change. So I'll share my screen. Okay, Anna, thumbs up if you can see it. Awesome. Okay. So, um, first I'll be referring to the TAA that went out on July 17th, so a week ago today. So, starting from the TEA homepage, um, anybody can get this information through the TEA correspondence link from the main
013page, which leads to the TAA web page. It's the top one right now. Um, it was it's state performance plan 11. Oh, wait. No, that was brand new. They just posted those. H these weren't here like 5 minutes ago. Okay. You'll go to July 17th and you look up the one about updating 2025 2026 results driven accountability special education determination calculations regarding discipline indicators per house bill 6. Okay. So when you click on that it takes you to the text of the TAA. Um it references Texas administrative code. it it has some links to the 2025 2026 accountability manual web pages and then House Bill 6. So briefly the summary of the changes that are are referenced in this TAA is that the RDA special education indicators having to deal with discipline that have a
014performance level or PL assignment that is um OSS and expulsion greater than 10 days ISS greater than 10 days and sped total disciplinary removals rate. They have performance level assignment. 2025 was the first year to add that to the uh OSS greater than 10 days and ISS greater than 10 days. Total disciplinary removals has had performance level assignment for years because of House Bill 6 and I'll refer to the text in just a moment. Um we are going to be displaying the performance levels for those indicators forformational purposes only. those performance levels will not calculate into the overall performance level mean or the determination level for the sped program area. So again there will be a performance level um assignment to those indicators but the performance level does not calculate into the performance level mean
015or the determination level. So, real quick, I'll show you where you can find a disclaimer statement on the 2025 accountability manual page and the 2026 accountability manual page. So, from the TAA, you can click on 2025. It will take you to the 2025 accountability rating system page. You can go to the where is it? Was there a second ago? Here it is. But the 2025 accountability manual. And if you scroll down below the chapters and appendices, you can see this disclaimer about the special education RDA indicator update and again mentions the greater than 10 days for OSS, greater than 10 days for ISS total disciplinary removals. The TAA is linked from this page. But these are the three indicators for 2025 that although it will show a performance level assignment, it will not calculate to
016performance level mean or determination level. Similarly from the TAA you can click on 2026. The manual is linked here where it says 2026 accountability manual. And again at the bottom of the page is that disclaimer. Uh the reason that we put a disclaimer on these pages is because um per per this has already gone the the accountability manuals have already gone through public comment and been posted. So these the chapter that says there's performance level assignment is still there. The uh appendix K that talks about the rate the thresholds for performance level assignment that is still there. But the disclaimer does state that due to House Bill 6 which passed after these were approved and posted because of House Bill 6 passage um there will not be calculation of PL mean or determination from that.
017There is an external link in the TAA to House Bill 6 text. So, I'm going to click over to that really quick and show you that the section you're looking for in House Bill 6 is section 17. So, if you want to go and read the actual text from the bill, it's this the underlined part here in section 17 that that says that the agency may not withhold any state funding or impose a penalty on a school district based on the number of students in a district that have been removed from a classroom. So, uh, RDA does does, uh, fall within that that section of the bill. However, just to make sure, uh, people are aware that it's this part B down here says that we are still required under federal law to have determinations
018of significant disproportionality. So, that is a federal requirement. So all of the areas of significant disproportionality that currently exist will remain including the discipline indicators that can result in a significant disproportionality year 1, two or three once you hit uh SD year 3. There is the 15% set aside because that is a federal requirement. That's why this is called out in section 17. uh however the RDA being a state mechanism for issuing determinations is why we are going to remove the per the calculation from performance level mean from these three special education discipline indicators. So if you have questions about uh RDA, the discipline indicators, performance levels, calculation of the perform performance subwamine, please reach out to your regional ESC special education department, your ESC sped liaison, your ESC sped directors. They are uh aware
019of this. they've been um they've been presented with this information and they're prepared to support all LEAs with uh what this means for calculations amount uh for 2025 and beyond. That's all I had. Thank you very much. >> Thanks, Jennifer. Uh just want to thank our panelists today again uh for all their announcements. Uh Donna Holmes, uh Nathan Polland, and then Jennifer Patterson. uh as audience members going into the 2526 year Anna will share uh more information of how you can help influence some of the uh topics and announcements that we share here on the webinars. Um that's all we have for today. Again this is these are all recorded so this will be placed uh up on our uh website as well here soon to come. Uh thank you today.