001All right, it is 5:33 p.m. and we will call this M special meeting to order. Um, only item of agenda on this agenda is the board training on the legislative update. We do have >> My name is Al. >> I'm the board trainer here at region 14 and today I'll be joined uh here in this presentation with Rose Burke. She's the deputy executive director here at Region 14. Uh just to let you know, uh this is not all encompassing as far as what happened in this legislative session. Uh we'll just hit the highlights of of some of the bills, not necessarily all the bills. So, please keep that in mind. U wanted to get something out because a lot of these things uh these bills take effect September 1, 2025. So, with that, uh, we
002will move on. Uh, let's get the big picture here. In the House, there was 500 or excuse me, 5,852 bills filed. 235 bills were sent to the governor, and he just vetoed one of those educational bills that dealt with criminal trespassing. In the Senate, there were 3,162 bills filed. uh 277 bills were sent to the governor and one of those educational bills was vetoed and it dealt with appraisal board. So some of the things we just need to keep our eye on in the future again these did not pass uh a standardized uh school start date uh may be on the horizon. Of course, the A through EF adjustments, uh they're dealing even in our special session, they're looking at some of the testing for the state of Texas. Uh unrestricted uh student transfers again
003with the student savings account that goes into effect uh in one more year. Uh unrestricted student transfers uh may be on the horizon. Also, elimination of sovereign immunity in some instances. uh lobbying restrictions that should be discussed right now in the first special session. Uh and that just would involve uh for example Texas Association of School Boards and Texas Association of School Administrators and what they might could do with you or for you and uh using public funds uh to support those efforts. uh also uh prohibiting AI use, artificial intelligent use during instruction. Of course, then we'll also talk about cell phones later on in this presentation. Limit our own superintendent salaries. Uh create an office to investigate parent complaints. Uh you'll see a lot about parental rights uh in this presentation. Some of the
004things that just address uh school bonds and their programs, limit all bond elections to November was uh looked at repeal of unspent bond proceeds. just the flexibility using those unspent bond monies. A twoyear to even a five years what I heard probation uh if you had a failed bond election uh limit on uh local government debt and all these show signs of momentum uh in 2027. >> Okay. Uh my name is Rose Burks. I'm deputy executive director at Region 14. And I'm going to kick us off with uh House Bill Two. House Bill Two. We could spend the entire legislative update just talking about House Bill 2. It is that u that large and that complex. There are actually seven different articles, but I'm going to So what I've done is I've gone through you're
005going to see some information on your slide. I'll just give you a little hint of that now. And then um I've gone through and picked out the most important pieces that I feel like you need to know. And there may be some other bits and and pieces or some best practices of things uh that I may give you a heads up about. Uh but it is in no way the entire 150 pages of information. So we'll get started. First of all, article one, uh, the compensation retention article provides teacher retention aotment which includes um, and you should be familiar with this. If if you're over 5,000 students, you get, you know, teachers with three to four years of experience, they get an amount of 2.5 um,000. And then the 5,000 for the five plus years.
006Those first, second, and third year teachers don't get anything in those in over 500 for 5,000 or under 5,000 ADA. Um, and so you can take a look at that and see how much you should be becoming more familiar with this as you build your budgets for the 25 26 school year. All right. Also a little money in there for support staff. Um, and then it also provides some information on the teacher incentive aotment. And here are some of the changes. It creates an acknowledge designation. Now what this is normally or in the past the teacher incentive a lotment TIA has had three steps to now they've added a bottom step below uh and it's acknowledged and the acknowledge will be from $3 to $9,000 depending on the ruralness of the of the uh where
007the teacher is teaching and the u socioeconomic status of your students on that campus. So acknowledged um and it goes all the way up to the teacher payout. Now the mastery level has gone from the top end being $32,000 to $36,000 which is a nice little chunk of change for your your top performing teachers. And then between between those uh those two acknowledged and the masters before I move on to enhance um then you know it kind of runs the gamut. It's similar to what it was before and that those are more details we won't go into right now. Now, as far as enhanced uh the enhanced TIA, I'm not going to go into all the detail. Instead, I'm going to give you the the a couple of things that will be either uh where
008you think, oh, no, I'm interested or absolutely not, you know, and so you should know about these couple of things. So, first of all, uh if you're interested in in participating in enhanced TIA, that means you will substantially um have all of your classroom teachers substantially all whatever that means must be eligible for TIA and that designation. It doesn't mean they are designated. It just means that they have to be eligible. And now substantially, we don't know exactly what that means. It doesn't say in the bill, but knowing our commissioner and the push that he's made uh in his in additional work and grants that have rolled out, my gut tells me that's 95% or higher of your teachers will be eligible for TIA. So that's that's probably where it's going to be, you know,
009we'll know more soon. uh also so in order to participate in enhanced you have to have at least 95% of your students I mean teachers eligible and then the second piece is you have to be willing to have a differentiated salary schedule based on staff appraisals. So what this means is there will no longer be any across the board salary increases uh for classroom teachers. No, except for except for pay for the periodic changes to adjust for inflation. Otherwise, um it's essentially merit based, you know, merit pay. Um so that's that's the enhanced TIA. If you're interested, those are a couple of the caveats. Uh if you're willing to do that, then you might look into a little more. We will have to wait for commissioner uh for the commissioner to roll out some more
010details on this, but we know we know some of the specifics. And then last but Please. Um, this article one requires TA to contract to provide state supported lowcost liability insurance for teachers, which doesn't seem like a big deal. But there is one little caveat and I'm going to quote this. Um, this insurance company is quote prohibited from engaging in political activities or advocating for issues regarding public schools, including school boards or school districts in general. So, you know, but there's some liability insurance coming that will be, you know, fairly affordable for teachers so that if some for some reason they are uh sued, then they'll be covered. All right, moving right along. Uh, article two, and again, there are seven of these articles, so just get ready. Um, one of the main things is
011this is it prohibits uncertified teachers in the core courses. Now, this is not immediate, but but in the 2720 no 2728 school year, the um all of your reading, math, social studies, and science teachers must be certified K through 12. But let's start with the easier of the two. First, K through five, not this year, but you have one year to prepare for reading and math teachers and K through five to be totally certified teachers. Okay, that's the expectation. So, you have a year to prepare for that. Uh, some of us are in better shape than others, but we all know that we're struggling to find certified teachers. So, there's that. And then uh all grades and this is what I was talking about with the first bullet. All grades must in for reading and
012math and for social studies and science must be certified K through 12 by the 2728 school year which doesn't leave much time. Now along with that um if you don't have a certified teacher you can no longer use DOI to to not have to do this. not for these uh grade levels and content areas. And so you you have to send parent notification if there's an uncertified teacher in your child in their child's classroom. Okay. Also, um if you cannot meet this and and truthfully, there are going to be a lot of districts across the state that that cannot do this. Um, then the commissioner can grant extensions through the 29 20 uh 2029 20 let me say that again through the 202930 school year. Um, but if you grants an extension, you must have
013a plan in place and a timeline for getting your teachers certified. Okay. All right. And again, it prohibits the district innovation for those uncertified teachers in those grade levels and content areas. Okay, moving on. Uh oh, one last thing. There is going to be some grant money and and truthfully, uh we'll have to wait and find out exactly how the commissioner plans to roll these grant dollars out. You're going to see this throughout House Bill 2 and some of the other um legislation, but there are grant funds put out there to support uh getting your teacher certified. As a matter of fact, here's a little more information on that. Um it it allows you for recruitment and retaining your your teachers. There's going to be a grow your own program. We've seen a little bit
014of this in the past. Uh it grant funds and to allow your teachers to be working but also going to school and getting that certification at the same time. So we'll see how this rolls out. Uh I'm assuming that it'll be straight to the district, but we'll see. But it will be for and I'm not going to read all this to you, but you can see, you know, the a lot of prospective teacher candidates uh can get some some decent funding, 8 to 12,000, but it gets better. Uh then there's new state funding for training candidates before they even start teaching. And then for for that, there's some paid residents. So residents can get even more money for 24 to 39 a.5,000. And then, you know, you can in order retain student teachers. So, student
015teachers now and before many of our universities would not allow student teachers to even get paid for uh studying if they were called in to help out. They said they can't be paid. But now, you know, in order to get teachers to come into the profession, there will be dollars. We don't know what it's going to look like. Uh we know it's going to be between 10 and 215,000. So, that's a that's a pretty good chunk change, but anyway. So, we will see. Um also a couple more things u mentoring to help mentor pay mentor teachers and then improving the teacher prep programs. Um you know with the reading and mathmies because the goal of the state is to get the reading and mathmies actually to be embedded into our higher ed curriculum and through
016our alternative certification curriculum. Um we'll have to see how that works out. And then of course there's the little caveat there banning CRT uh in any of the prep programs. All right, I'm going to take just a moment to step away from House Bill 2 and let's talk about another ser uh House Bill 1178 that deals with certification. Now with this certification bill um because we are u you know just desperate for teachers. What is going to happen moving forward is that any teacher who is has moved to Texas from out of state who has a valid teaching certificate from another state. They will immediately be once they apply in through ESBAC you know state board of education certification. uh if they apply through ESPC then they will be automatically able to teach for one
017year in the state of Texas. It'll be an emergency type certification. Then once all their paperwork goes in and everything is good, then they will be um added to the list and be a truly totally certified teacher in the state of Texas. Again, they have one year. Now, there is an exception to that. If this teacher has a spouse who is an active duty military personnel, then they can get the same thing and they're automatically uh become certified, but now they get three years in order to ensure that every all the paperwork is done and that they have everything in place. Um so that will help with our teacher shortage hopefully. Now moving back to House Bill two. Uh moving on to article three. With article three, it's the educator bill of rights and um
018essentially the you know some of this strengthen support for teachers to remove students from the classroom. Uh we will talk more about this with Senate Bill six later. So I'm not going to go into a lot of detail on a couple of these bullets. uh the district must notify a teacher uh who may be directly affected by a threat if if you know they're possible threat against the teacher. Um also it requires the district to give notification to teachers who are entitled to give a written response or are able to give a written response if a complaint is is filed against them. So they can say, "No way. I want to I want to, you know, have a written response, a rebuttal if you if you will." And then this is really what I want
019to talk about because again will be touched on a little bit later. Um teacher supports. Um, for one thing, if a teacher has to abandon their contract for cause um such as um their spouse moves, you know, is is, you know, has to go somewhere else with their job, then the teacher can leave their contract at any time and and go and then you can't the school district cannot hold that or yank it or or request that as back pull it for two years. Instead, there's nothing nothing can be done. The same thing goes for um a teacher who has to abandon their contract for a family illness or something to that effect. If there's an emergency and they have to step away from their contract and there's a legitimate reason, then there is no
020negative ramifications. And truthfully, that kind of makes sense. I mean, if there's a just cause, then then that's fine. I'm assuming that no one in region 14 would be doing this anyway or be requesting that ESB pull their certificate that would be letting them out of their contract. So it probably will not impact us too much. Uh there are a few grants u back up one just for a second. There are a few grades that are tied to this article three. There'll be some things for strategic compensation to try and uh to help teachers in order to um you know some of you have done things like added child care uh maybe even teacher housing and things like that in order to attract teachers and retain teachers. And so there will be a little bit
021of grant now not for housing but maybe for teacher compensation and strategic staffing where you can't find enough ed qualified certified teachers and so you have to figure out you know strategically how you can staff uh the classrooms that you need covered and then also some behavior supports that's also included in this our educator bill rights which is article three. Now, moving on to article four with our special special education support. Um, essentially there are a few things here. I'm going to go ahead and roll these out. Um, essentially boards must annually discuss the performance of students receiving special education services. And so um you know that can be done in a lot of different ways but your administrator's team will need to determine that uh what's the best way but you do need to
022pull you know get that data in front of them and see show how well those kids are doing or not. The eighth you know I'm not going to go into that because that is um still up for not for discussion but TEA will have to roll out exactly what that looks like in those four service groups. There are really no details at this point. We just know that they're coming. Uh the CCMR outcome bonus for our special education students increases from $2,000 to $4,000 in this school year 2526. Um which is good because uh it's hard to get an outcome bonus for any student, especially if you have a student with special needs. And so the $4,000 will be well worth it. Uh I mean, you know, you'll you will earn that to get them
023there. Uh the transportation a lotment has gone up a little bit for our special needs students and so has the or now you have the $1,000 towards the initial special education evaluation that's starting this year. Um we will the this evaluation is not new and I'll talk a little more about this later when we're not in House Bill 2, but when we get into Senate Bill two but just know that um later I'll I'll talk more about that when we get into the voucher situation. Okay. Uh, now let's talk early childhood. There's quite a bit of information on this article 5, so just bear with me. Um, first required K3 mathmies for teachers by the 2030 2031 school year. Um, that's we've got some time. TEA needs time in order to build these mathmies. That
024means essentially in five years mathmies will be rolling out. Until then, there will be a little adjustment, but we don't even know what that looks like at this point. Um, it also article five um requires the commissioner to adopt the list of K3 instruments to measure literacy and numeracy. He's already been doing this for literacy and now it's just added the numeracy uh to that requirement. There are uh clarifications of stipens for the use with readingmies and with mathmies. And before we go on to the intervention, let me just talk through a few of these. Um math academy reading and math academy stipens. For one, stipens cannot be considered when determining a teacher's minimum salary. Let me give you an example. Let's say you have a part-time teacher and a part-time teacher gets that additional
025$4,000 or $8,000 or $2500, whatever we talked about in in article one of House Bill 2, you know, those those extra sipons. Um, let's say you have a part-time teacher, they're already making good money because you you're having a hard time getting them. Then they uh get this $8,000 on top of that if they're if they're rural, you know, unless we're not in the same rural, but they're less than 5,000 students. Um, even though you may think that that's a lot of money, especially if they're TIA, because with TIA, they get the entire assignment. So, they could be uh part-time, they get the full TIA, if they're master teacher, they can that can add up to $36,000 to their salary. Then, they get the $8,000 additional because of the House Bill 2, Article One. And
026uh because they're in a small school and now you're saying, "Okay, now we have to give them a stipen for um reading of advocates." Yes, you do. Yes, you do. It has to be above and beyond because that's what a stipen is. A stipen is not part of their base salary. You can't say, "Well, they're making enough. They don't need it." Um, so just, you know, just know that teachers may be making really good money if they're having to attend all these things, especially if they're good teachers. And truthfully, I'm not I'm not heartbroken about this. I mean, if anybody needs to make more money, it's our it's our strong teachers in the classroom. So, there are some things um some ways that you do not have to pay assignments. For example, districts do not
027have to pay assignment if the academy is part of the teacher prep program. You know, uh TA's wanting to put math and readingmies into higher ed. Eventually, they want that to be a part of the higher ed process. um as I mentioned and so if they're doing that through their either an alternative certification program and it's built in and or they are part of higher red and they're getting their traditional or more traditional teaching certificate uh and it's embedded and I can tell you right now we already have one of our three universities in in Abalene McMurray who is embedding this into their course offerings so eventually their students who start rolling out and become and teachers, they'll already have their readingmies. So, you won't have to pay a sip for that. Um, so if
028it's embedded, they're paying for it. It's embedded, you know, because they're paying for the coursework. And so, that's already covered. Um, no siphon has to be paid for reading or mathmies if it's covered or the academy is covered during normal work hours. So if let's say you have three days in the summer that you normally provide teachers and allow them to go and get trainings and those are covered throughout the year. So for days off uh then like comps then you don't have to pay for those because you're already paying for that and you don't have to give a side and then if the rest is embedded during the school year and so you're paying for their sum you're already giving them a salary. you do not have to pay above and beyond and and
029you don't have to include that an extra site. Uh also if you have because remember as we talked about a minute ago those K5 teachers are going to have to be certified um next year in in 26 27. And so if you're if you've got a let's say a sixth grade teacher that you've already spoken to and said hey we're going to need you to drop down and teach fifth grade because you're certified. our fifth grade teachers are not is not we're going to move that teacher to sixth grade. Um, so if that teacher says, "Well, I want to go to a reading academy or a math, you know, mathmies aren't out there yet, but I want to go to academy and oh, I get assigned." Well, no. Unless the district has asked that teacher
030to attend, they don't get signed. Okay? Now, if you ask them to require them to and it's outside the work hours, then yes, you'll need to pay that stipen. Now, we don't know what the stipen is. Just going to be honest. We don't know what stipen is. That will be determined by the commissioner. Okay. All right. Let's go through a few more things. Intervention requirements for K through students who failed two consecutive assessments in in literacy. There'll be some grants available for that. We'll learn more as as time goes on. Uh but they're going to watch for those K1, two, and three students that before they even take a STAR test to make sure they're on grade level. And that's what this is about, the intervention. Um, this article five provides a fourth of the
031day funding for summer reading intervention. So if you've got kids who are not on grade level, let's say the K1, two or three uh student and you bring them back for summer school, you at least get a little money for that for the reading intervention and then you get full funding for four year um four year olds for prek. Now this is it goes into effect for the 2526 school year. We do know that we also know that teachers teachers uh uh stu uh children they are allowed to go to prek for no fee. And so that's kind of as a as a kind of like a retention. And so that's part of it. The only thing that's a little iffy right now is I believe looking at it look it sounds like the the
032teacher students will count for the funding. Uh it does not clearly say that but it does sound like it it intimates that. So we'll have to wait a little bit for a little more clarification on that. Uh but it does look like all it says all students who who attend and so I'm assuming that's teacher students uh kiddos also. So anyway, but we'll we'll be giving more information out to administrators on that. Okay. It increases this article five increases requirement to partner with private child care. Uh okay. Oh yeah. And already talked about the expansion to prek for children classroom teachers. But let's go back to that last second to last bullet. Increases the requirement to partic with private child care. Now, essentially what this means is that if you um if you are are
033needing to expand because let's say you have a lot of teacher kids, you know, you're you're at the normal uh you know, qual, you know, teacher students who qualify for the four-year-old uh prek, but then now you have all of these teacher kids that you weren't expecting. So, you know, we don't have the space. So before you start building you pass or before you pass it on, before you start renovating, you're required to visit with your um um any of your child care um daycare centers that are in your community. Now, there's a caveat to this though, and so I know many of our districts will not have to even worry about this, but some may. So let me let me go through the caveat of the things that must be in place for you
034to partner with the private child care. They must be a Texas rising star provider. Uh this childcare must be nationally accredited. This child care must have a head be a head start provider and it must be a Texas school ready participant. So not many of our rural schools are going to have child care uh providers who meet those qualifications. I may be surprised and there may be some out there but not many. I I definitely would not think so. Anyway, all right. Now, moving on. Um the next part of article five, we're still in article five. Told you it was it was uh very busy, a lot of information. Uh and again this is kind of the tip of the iceberg but the additional day school year the adi I know some have shied away
035from anie because it's hard to get uh teachers to stick around in the summer and teach summer school and there's some requirements for uh one of the things that's changed is that now it used to be in order to be to qualify for the additional day school year funding for summer school essentially um you had to have 100 180 day calendars Now you only have to have 175. Not everyone has 175 with the minutes. So, you know, that may be an issue. Um, it expands the funding to grades 6 through 8. So, it used to it was just K5 for that summer school, but now it's 6 through8. And it also provides three4s of day funding for campuses that total over 200 days of instruction. So, let's talk about this for a moment. Um, if
036you are true ADSY and you do you have the 175day calendar and you're going to do that summer program and you're meeting all the requirements for that, then you get full pay in the summer. It's just like like that's and it allows you to pay your teachers a full pay which helps with their retirement, gives them a nice, you know, extra checks in the summer depending on how long your your program is. But even if you don't meet that 175 day requirement and you don't do the entire ad, so you don't get into the ads program, if you offer summer school and you total it over 200 days, you still get threequarters of that funding. So So there's that, you know. So if you don't find the requirements, you can still benefit from some of
037the dollars. AI grant funds are available if you've never done ASI before. So that's that's one opportunity. Okay. Now, article six. So, we're moving right along through these seven articles. Um, this is CCNR, which college career military readiness and CTE, our career technical assistance or education, right? Um, what House Bill 2, article six requires is reimbursement. It provides reimbursement to an educator receiving CTE certification to cover certification fees. So, let's say you've got a teacher who is uh going back and needs additional certification because you want to be able to offer pathways to help, you know, with your uh students because we're we're having more and more of a CTE push from the state level. Then that those uh certification fees will be covered. So, it won't be out of the teachers pocket or out
038of the district's pocket. Okay. Uh, article six expands funding for college application uh, assessments like your SAT, ACT, TSIA. So, that's covered. It also expands district requirements related to setting CCMR goals. Now, if you don't have your three goals that you are supposed to already have in place, um, your three board goals, then please uh, reach out to me. Reach out and and and I'll be happy to come out. Alan, Richie will be happy to come out, but we can help walk you through that. And the goals are, and I know most of you are very familiar with this. I've already worked with many of you, where you have to have a third grade u uh literacy goal, which is a reading third grade star goal. You also have to have a third grade math
039goal, and you have to have a college career military readiness goal. So, those are the the basics that you have to have. Um, you're also supposed to collect data and follow those at the very minimum annually, but really you should be doing some some progress monitoring throughout the school year. Um, it expands this uh relating to the goals and let me tell you why and go through a couple of things. Um, it allows districts to spend I'll come I'll come back to that actually. Um, yeah, I'll come back I'll give you a little heads up on some things. Um, article six allows districts to spend funds providing college advising for two years after graduation. What the state has decided is that you know well with PEK you can get funding and supports for two extra
040years after you graduate from high school. You don't officially I mean you officially graduate but you still you're uh still under the high school and you get um ADA and all of that uh for two years. They can pay for college, pay for all kinds of things. And you also get advising because what the state does not want is for any more students to graduate from high school or graduate from college and not know what they're going to do and not have a plan. So the advising is there, the extra monetary support is there for an extra two years. And especially for those who get um their associates degree while in high school, they can also have that additional two years to get a four-year degree and have it paid for. So, it's a big
041deal. Uh the advising is just part of that. Updates to rural pathways and excellent uh partnerships. These are the uh our path and it's helping essentially cluster in the supports for CTE and those pathways. And so if you can't offer something that maybe your neighbor can, but you can offer something else. And so you help each other out there there's more money in those uh grants for that. Um see before we go on to to article seven, let me give you a heads up on a couple of things. Um that ties back to this and I'm going to I'm going to quote on this. TEA shall develop this is the verbiage from article six. uh shall develop a statewide goal for career readiness, including students attaining a workforce aligned credential while in high school. Now,
042what this means is um well, if you don't have strong pathways to to get credentials for your student, you're going to need to okay because um that's one of the pieces and and and just keep listening. I'll tell you more. Um you also have to make sure four goals that I talked about are set and posted on your website along with the any the data that you have for those. You also have to make sure you're tracking your progress towards those three goals like I mentioned and posting those results on your website. And then I'm going to I'm going to read a little bit for a second here. Again, TEA must compile all district annual reports all across the state. That that information that you're putting out there for your goals and your reporting on
043the on your progress, that has to be on your website. TA is going to go they're going to pull that for every school district in the state of Texas. Uh that's your annual report and then [clears throat] they're going to they must make them publicly accessible on the AY's website. So, you have your posted. they're going to go out and pull it or they're going to link to yours or something and they're going to have to put it on the TA website so that anyone who's interested can go and look and see how well your school district is doing with the CCMR, not to mention the third grade reading and math. So, if you don't have these things in place, this is something that that is not new as far as those goals and supposed
044to be um monitoring that data and also posting them on your website. It looks like three legislative sessions ago. But if you haven't been doing that, just just call and we'll help you do it or um Tim, don't forget because it's there's going to be some some ramifications if you do not. All right. Now, moving on to article 7, last uh last piece of House Bill two. Okay. uh it establishes an aotment for the basic cost uh of 106 per enrolled student. Now now the good news is is that enrolled student is better than your ADA because your average daily attendance doesn't account for some of those students who are enrolled but don't show up. You know they're they're absent quite a bit for one reason or another. And so if they're on your roles,
045you have to have teachers there prepared to teach them. So at least now we'll be getting some of that uh some some money for those enrolled students. Uh increase basic enalotment by $55. Um you're you already have to pass a budget. So you should be very familiar with this. If not, this is part of your um your budget and then the small and midsize a lotments a lotment increased a little bit by 10%. We'll take it. This uh article 7 requires TEA to develop a list of high impact tutoring providers. Okay. And and part of this goes back to um House Bill 2, article five that we spoke about a few minutes ago. As far as those third graders who don't pass STAR, then you know there has to be some intervention and that could
046be tutoring. So now he the commissioner must give us a list of of tutoring providers and then that's it for article 7. Good enough. So, last but not least on this section for me is Senate Bill Two, the education savings accounts. All right, the ESAs, education savings accounts, uh, are to be administered by the comproller. Okay, do you know what I'm talking about? ESAs are essentially their vouchers. Okay, we're we're talking about vouchers. And if you don't know exactly what pass I know, I'm sure most of you kept up with this at least a little bit. Rules have to be adopted for these by next May 2026. uh programs begin the 26 27th school year. And here are some of the details. I might read these to you. You can see that. Okay. All right.
047And this is the piece that last bullet is the piece that I mentioned earlier um in article one of the earlier articles in house bill 2 about the um $1,000 that you will get as a district for each uh special evaluation and IP development. Okay. Um the reason this is in place is because TEA in the legislature understands that many of the private schools of these students will be grabbing those, you know, $10,000 or up to 32,000 if they're have special needs or up to 30,000 if they have special needs. They're grabbing those that money and carrying with it. It's not caring, but the money will go to private schools. the um many of our private schools do not have these um services in place. They don't they are not able to perform and develop
048those uh IEPs uh for the for the students. And so the home districts will be given given $1,000 to do that even though there it won't be their student. Okay? So, if this is one of your kiddos, you have a private school in town. They're going to that private school. They're going to take their voucher money with them to the private school. You may be asked by the private school to do this IEP the special evaluation and development of IEP and you'll need to do this. It's not it's not really a may. It's a must. So when you do this, just keep in mind that what the research says on vouchers is that and because there have been vouchers all in different states for years and what the research says that many of those students
049who go and take their voucher and go to a private school come back sometimes within the year depending upon transportation and things like that because private schools don't provide transportation most of the time and they don't have to provide transportation and So things happen, the kiddo ends up back with you. So as you're developing these IEPs, just keep in mind that if if that student comes back to you, whatever you put in that IEP, you're also held responsible for you can't revamp them once they come back. Say, "Oh, no. This is going to be really difficult for the private school. We're not really worried about they're not coming here." Uh they could. So that IEP is going to follow that child no matter where they go. So, if they end up back with your in
050your district at Christmas, then you're going to be uh held responsible for that. So, that's all I have on my section. And now I'm going to turn it back over to Alan. Okay. Next, let's look at severance pay restrictions for superintendent and others. Senate Bill 2237 uh deals with superintendent uh limits severance pay to 20 weeks. excluding time uh off paytime off and vacation days. Uh no severance pay uh if terminated from misconduct including criminal misconduct. Uh must post a school district must post severance agreement in a prominent place on their district website. House Bill 762 deals with employees and contractors of political subdivisions. kind of the same exclusions. Uh limited severance paid to 20 weeks. Uh no severance paid again if terminated from misconduct. Uh governance body determines misconduct. Severance agreement must be posted
051on the district's website. Uh and then let's look at House Bill 3372. Administrators are prohibited with certain exceptions from receiving a financial benefit when performing personal services to businesses that do business with their own district, curriculum business, for example, or from other LEAs or EFC's. Uh violation can result in fines up to $10,000. So on House Bill 3372, uh it would be an example of this would be a superintendent from one district, uh perhaps doing um board training or or something at another school district and getting some payment for it. You can pretty much no longer do that. Uh so the financial benefit uh prohibition uh again um you cannot do those services uh and have any benefit um it could be a roofing company. You cannot work for roofing company and be u uh
052a member of the school district there. So any education uh thing. Next let's look at school safety. House Bill 121 clarifies training required for school safety personnel who meet alternative requirements under statute. Uh so those that aren't sworn in officers. Uh it looks at the uh training required uh to be a school safety personnel. Boards must annually review and if appropriate renew good cause exceptions when not meeting facility safety requirements. Threat assess assessment teams must include individuals with special education and mental health expertise. So they should be on your team. Now TEA may employ sworn officers for the purpose of assisting school systems with safety requirements or support during school system emergency responses. And TEA must annually provide a status report on statewide school safety measures. And that again all that is under House Bill
053121, House Bill 33, New Valley Strong. Uh any school construction or renovation projects requires a formal security review. Uh each campus must maintain at least one breaching tool and one ballistic shield. And by September 1 of 2026, all public information officers employed before this bill's effective date must obtain the TDM, the certified emergency communications credentials. An alert must develop or will develop an active shooter template by December 1 of 2025. So later in the fall, uh this will become effective. So safety first. Another one was the Senate Bill 260 and that just deals with the funding. The school safety allotment was increased from $10 per student to $20 per student ADA. Each campus will receive an increase in aotment from 10 or 15,000 to $33,540 per uh campus. And Senate Bill 571 deals with misconduct
054reporting. Uh updates reporting requirements to ESP and TA to ensure investigation of misconduct investigations. requires the superintendent uh reporting by the superintendent to ask back to EA within 48 hours of the superintendent awareness of the evidence of misconduct uh towards students minors by an individual employed by uh a school district. Uh regarding it could be any of these that are listed here. abuse, physical mistreatment of a student, including threats of violence, involvement in or solicitation of the romantic relationship, engagement in sexual contact, inappropriate communication, uh failure to maintain appropriate boundaries, uh and by the way, another big thing on Senate Bill 571 is child abuse reporting deadline for professionals is now within 24 hours instead of 48 hour. So anytime uh any of these misconduct happens, superintendent and or administrators or all school employees for
055that matter should report ASAP soon as possible. But now within 24 hours that is the new hall. Okay, let's talk a little bit about house house bill six and some discipline issues. Um, the district discipline coordinator has an expanded role now, but the campus behavior coordinator now every campus has to have a campus coord behavior coordinator, a CBC. Um, this must be a single person. Okay, who could be the principal or another campus administrator. The CBC shall monitor all disciplinary referrals and report any disciplinary issues to the campus threat assessment team. And these could be things such as a terrorist threat, a terrorist threat or a weapon on campus or threats to use a weapon, things along these lines. Um, teacher removals is the second bullet here under discipline. Teacher removals have been beefed up
056here. Um teachers may remove a student if they are are disrupted or or bullied even if it is their first offense. In the past teachers have been um required to have some documentation and things prior to but now if first offense you can you can kick them out essentially out of your classroom. Now parents must be notified of the student's removal from class. Uh the principal may place the student into another appropriate class. Let's say there's a a clash between the teacher and the student which could happen then they could place in another teacher this student another teacher's class or they could put the child in ISS or in the AP or even suspend the student depending on the severity of the situation. Uh take a look at bullet three. This there's no longer a
057maximum number of ISS days. Uh but you must take a look at a student's placement after 10 days. Um I think it's bullet four that talks about ecigarettes and vaping changes to the law. No longer is is um you know when you get caught vaping or using ecigarette is in an automatic DAP placement on first offense. If if you are a first time offender and it's and you're not the district decides not to place you in DAP then the student must be placed in ISS for a minimum of 10 school days. Uh and then the last bullet, you can no longer opt out of any chapter 37 uh requirements. These are the discipline things that we're talking about here and many others uh by including it in your district of innovation plan. So DOI you
058cannot you can no longer use that for discipline uh for getting around some of the discipline requirements. Okay, let's talk a little bit about cell phones. uh cell phones. Now, the school board must adopt a policy prohibiting students use of personal devices on school property during the school day. Now, this includes cell phones, smartwatches, tablets, any device that enables students to communicate with one another during the school day. Um, most of you have already kind of taken care of this. Um, as a matter of fact, we've been getting some really good uh feedback from from school administrators on this and the fact that students are actually engaging in class again. They're talking to each other at lunch. They're playing cards and things at lunch instead of being on their devices. So, hopefully this is going
059well for you and your district. Now, bullet three, uh, you can provide devices from can, I'm sorry, prohibit devices from being brought onto school property or you could designate a storage place during the school day. Again, most of you have figured this out already. If you have not, there are going to be some grant funds available uh to help you with this. These funds may be, you know, a little too little too late, but only time will tell, so we'll see. Now, continuing with cell phones, there are some exceptions to every rule, and this is no different. Um, if required by special education students IEP, then you must allow the child to use their device. Um, if you include this in a student's IEP, please keep in mind that you need to put it under
060an exception, not under FAPE, free and public education. If you put it under faith, then you have just committed to your district to uh be responsible for purchasing and replacing any of these devices. So, just remember exception. Choose the exception. All right. Um there's bullet two. Uh if there's a medical need, that's also an exception. For example, if a student needed to use um the app on a phone for an insulin pump and uh they needed that insulin, you know, information during the day, then that would definitely be an exception. Most of these, they're going to they're going to make sense to you. When you see them, you're going to know. And then bulletproof is there necessarily used to comply with health safety laws or protocols. This won't generally apply to to many of us,
061so I'm not going to spend much time on that. But I do want to take a closer look at the red bullets at the bottom. And essentially what this is saying is that TA and other organizations such as TASBY will be developing model policies to help you meet these requirements for cell phone use. Okay, moving right along. Oh, let's play hookie. Senate Bill 991, chronic absenteeism. uh on the screen. Um the first couple of bullets you can read the definitions to chronically absent and truent. Um this bill is really about dropout prevention. And so go put everything else on the screen here. Um there is research behind the chronic absenteeism and the fact that is an early warning sign for for being a school dropout. As a matter of fact, what the data say is
062that uh chronic absenteeism is more of an indicator for for to be a future dropout than failing grades. So, I thought that was interesting. Um there is a data collection piece to this that it will be done via PE. So, your PE people will need to be keeping up with this information and the data will be made available to the public. And then let's talk Senate Bill 10 with the Ten Commandments. I love the fact that that's connected. 10 and 10. Um, you must display in a conspicuous place in every classroom a durable poster or frame copy of the Ten Commandments if they're donated. And you see the requirements there. Um, nothing crazy, but you can see the requirements. Bullet three, I think, oh, it requires schools to accept donated posters. Uh, bullet four allows
063schools to use public funds. Okay, so I'm going to read for just a moment. I'm going to read some of the text from the actual bill. and I quote, "A public elementary or secondary school in which each classroom does not include a poster or frame copy of the Ten Commandments as required by subsection A may, but is not required to purchase posters or copies that meet the requirements of subsection B using district funds." Okay? So, this is full straight legislation. Um, so again, if they're donated, you must take them. If they're not donated and no one says anything, then you do not have to go out and spend your own mobile dollars in order to uh you know, put those posters up in every classroom. Um yeah, the last couple of bills, Attorney General is
064supposed to be supporting any district that's had a lawsuit or will have something filed against them. Um that's already taken place. There's already a lawsuit over the bill. As a matter of fact, we've had a preliminary injunction that impacts 11 school districts across the state of Texas. Most of these are well, they are larger school districts and they're in the some of the you know, Dallas, Austin, San Antonio, Houston area. No, no one in region 14 is impacted. So on September one, this goes into place for us. So, just keep in mind you do not have to go out and purchase these, but if someone donates them, you do have to accept them as long as they meet the requirements that are on the screen. All right, that's it for me now. Let's send it
065back to Alan. Thanks. Next, let's look at uh some particular bills that focus on school boards. Uh just a heads up here. Uh there's quite a few of these. Uh House Bill 1522. Uh now, uh notice of open meetings. uh you have three days uh to post your agenda in advance that se effect of September 1 of 2025. So you're in a September board meeting need to adhere to a lot of these things here. So uh it's always been the 72 hours in advance notice, but now it's three business days in advance. So no longer can you uh post an agenda on Friday and have a Monday night meeting. So, uh, three business days in advance. If [clears throat] you're adopting the budget, notice must include a physical copy of the proposed budget unless it
066is posted on the homepage of the district's website. It must include a taxpayer impact statement showing the impact to the median valued homestead property, comparing uh the tax bill in dollars for the current fiscal year to an estimate of the tax bill. if the proposed budget is adopted. Uh, Senate Bill 413 also uh says that you uh have your schoolboard minutes must uh document each trustes attendance and your voting record. Most of this is already on your uh board book and you can your superintendent can utilize what's there to uh run a copy of that and post it. uh must post regular and special board meetings or call board meetings on the district's website within seven days. Uh they don't have to be approved minutes just minutes and then if you have to go back
067I guess you can have a corrected copy later on. So all regular and special board meetings must be recorded and as far as I know right now it's uh the minimum is audio. You can do video, but the way I understand it is it must be audio and must be available to the public. A few other things. Senate Bill 11 authorizes the district board of trustees uh by record vote on a resolution adopt a policy requiring every campus to provide students and employees with an opportunity to participate in a period of prayer and reading of the Bible or other religious text on each school day. House Bill 3629 It was a person who was required to register as a sex offender from being eligible to serve on the board of trustees of your school district.
068House Bill 3112 deliberations of cyber security measures, policies, contracts intended to protect your critical infrastructure of your district are not required to be in open meetings. Uh it also exempts the public information act requirements for this information to be available for the public. Uh yet along with your your safety measures uh safety, security and cyber security all are exempt uh from uh open meetings act. Now, uh, Senate Bill 843, TEA must establish a database to track all bonds, taxes, and bond related projects, and districts must report all of this information. Senate Bill 1453. When setting INS rates, districts cannot adopt a tax rate higher than what is required to pay their debt that year without an explicit board vote authorizing that higher amount. If the board authorizes a higher amount, districts must publish how much
069higher the I or how much lower the INS rate would have been otherwise. So you have to to um again you have to publish the difference of what it uh what you could have had as far as the lower tax rate there. Uh Senate Bill or excuse me, House Bill 1458 authorizes school boards to allow a chief of police or a school's police department to appoint reserve police officers for the district. The board has the ability to limit the number of those that were appointed. House Bill 3711 now offense under the open meetings act committed by a county or municipal officer or a school board uh member of the trustees is an offense against public administration. So now you could be under investigation by the public integrity unit uh within the DPS. Senate Bill 204,
070new board member training required uh will require focusing on parental rights and that's by the school board uh of a state board of education and more information to follow on that uh as far as your required schoolboard training for the year. Uh, Senate Bill 1173, purchasing contracting limits under the Texas Education Code, has been raised to uh, $100,000. If that applies to you, immunity, House Bill 4623 applies to superintendent, administrators, educational leaders, chief executive officer of the school, parent principles, uh teachers, substitute teachers, supervisors, school social workers, school counselors, nurses, basically every employee of the school district and also you as a school board member. If a school that is ne negligent, grossly negligent or reckless, or engages in intentional misconduct in hiring, supervising or employing a professional school employee, you become liable for an
071act or admission that is uh considered sexual misconduct or failure to report suspected child abuse or neglect under this chapter. The professional employee who committed the act or admission of on this claim is based upon the name as so you would be able to tend it in this case and each claim plus court cost and attorney fees is up to $500,000. Immunity is weighed by the school and the individual. So you really need to check out your hiring procedures and make sure that you're hiring the right people and they do not have any this in their background. Next, let's look at the GPA, your grade point average for students. to calculations under Senate Bill 1191. Uh it requires the commission of education to develop a standard uniform method of computing a student's GPA that gives
072equal weight to advanced nonCTE AP IB and onramps dual enrollment and dual credit courses. provides a differentiated way for workforce dual credit courses of a student's GPA. It requires school districts to adopt this uh method to calculate a student's GPA. So, it sounds like it's going to be more uh uniform across the state of Texas on calculations of student grade point averages. Uh [snorts] let's now turn to uh UIL extracurricular bills. Uh one that's got a lot of attention is Senate Bill 2929 now allows referees, judges, and other official [snorts] extracurricular activities to eject spectators without first issuing a verbal warning. So, uh, just be careful who you sit by, I guess, because an official, for example, at a basketball game can, uh, just kick you out, uh, and make you leave, uh, without a
073warning. Uh, also, uh, if you don't know already, learn about the three strikes that a school district can get in a year as far as from UIL. So, uh, we want to practice good sportsmanship, uh, always. Uh, Senate Bill 401 requires rather than allows a public school to provide an otherwise eligible non-enrolled student the opportunity to participate in UIL activities on behalf of the school unless the school district board or governing board of the charter school or school district adopt a policy declining to grant the opportunity to participate. So now every year you basically have to opt in or out allowing homeschoolers for example to uh participate in your school's uh extracurricular activities. Uh I think the new bill uh Senate Bill 401 did not mention anything about they were going to uh stay neutral
074as far as financial uh responsibilities there. The old rule was if you allowed them to play, you got up to $1,500 a activity. So, I think that's still into play there. Uh that you get $15 or $1,500 for every sport uh that they participated in. Uh Senate Bill 865 uh adds CPR and AED training and certification to sponsors and others including student trainers. Uh so, Look at the commissioner's list of those. Basically, uh you have anybody at your school districts anything is for sponsored UIL activity. They need to have CPR first aid and AED even stop the bleed train probably. Uh House Bill 121 requires districts to develop a safety plan uh for extracurricular activities within the district. Hopefully, you've already done that. uh exact an example if a storm comes up at a football
075game uh what are you going to do evacuation wise of that or a gymnasium or something. Senate bill 2398 tea will provide a form for concussion accommodations for all students not just those that are in UI activities but for uh all uh students on your campus. Parental rights and responsibil Uh, Senate Bill 204 requires TEA to create no later than January 1st, 2026, so kind of mid year, and maintain a handbook that explains all rights of the parent regarding the education of the parents child, including a student's right that the parent may enforce on the students behalf. Senate Bill 1049 requires a school district by request of a parent or legal guardian to excuse that student from attending to attend a release uh from attendance. Uh basically uh to attend a release time course defined
076as a course in religious by a private entity for at least one but no more than 5 hours per per week. Uh, Senate Bill 12 provisions regarding parental rights, school district grievance policies and prohibition of um, diversity, equity, and inclusion among other duties. Senate Bill 11 allows a school district to adopt a policy requiring a period of prayer or reading the Bible or other religious texts uh, subject to parent permission. Boards must take a recorded vote on such a policy within 16 six months again six months of the effective date. Library books uh they've been in the news quite a bit the last two or three years. So let's look at Senate Bill 13 entitles parents to access access information related to library books assessed access by their children. clarifies the meaning of harmful, profane,
077and indecent content. Permits local library councils to perform material reviews and has specifics that challenge uh that challenge must be accepted by any resident, parent or staff member. And the library council must offer a recommendation to the challenge within 90 days of receipt of those challenges. Next, Senate Bill 12 also has some grievances and parental rights uh in it. Clarifies the process for grievances uh as far as the process, the filings and the timelines of those grievances. Grievance policies must be posted online now allowed to be submitted online and provide information on how to appeal decisions at each level. So you have to have all of this online. Now after five successful parental grievances from the commissioner appeals, superintendent must appear in front of the uh state board of education. Parental engagement policies that include
078an online portal to collect per uh parent comments, provide for parent comments at the beginning of each schoolboard meeting, requires board meetings outside working hours, uh requires parental participation plans that must be communicated annually. So again, uh I would be even careful when I have board meetings. Make sure they're not during the so-called work day. Adopt policies relating to the publishing of instructional plans and a sylli for each course prior to the beginning of the semester. Uh again with Senate Bill 12 requires one day notice to parents when it is suspected that a criminal offense has been permitted against their child. So you need to now notify the parents as soon as possible. Requires two parent conferences instead of one. Human sexuality instruction is now an opt in not an opt out. Uh so print
079uh parental uh permission must be given to opt in to human sexuality uh sexuality instruction. DEI, gender transitioning support, sexual orientation and identity instructions all are prohibited and it is required uh for a new facilities usage report to TEA. Trustees names and e emails must also be sent to TEA. So ever anytime you have a change in your board, uh those names and emails must be sent to the uh TEA property taxes, home state exemptions, Senate Bill 4 and 23. Uh I believe this is up to a voter approval in November. Uh if it's approved, your homestead exemption will increase from a h 100,000 to $140,000 again pending that voter approval. Uh increased elderly and disabled exemption from 10,000 to 60,000 pending on voter approval. So if you're above 65, it could uh go up
080to 200,000 with those two combinations there. Personal business exemptions. Uh this is in 2027 to 125,000 pending again voter approval and there's a hold harm no hard hold harmless there districts to receive hold harmless funding from the state in the amount reduced in INS collections from homestead increase gives ins debt as of September 1. All 25 26 funding plans assume the passage of these provisions. So what they're looking at now as far as the start of this school year is all of these will be uh factored in Senate Bill 546 effective September 1, 2025. This is just an extension of what they've done in the past on seat belts and school buses. uh just making it a little more difficult for schools not to have uh seat belts on their buses. Regardless of what year
081the bus was manufactured, they should have seat belts on it. But it does provide for an exception. If a district determines it cannot comply for budgetary reasons, it must submit to TEA and present in a public meeting of the board a report that includes the number of buses and the estimated cost to equip those buses. So, as you phase out those older buses, uh I would definitely put new seat belts on the new buses. Uh we understand, I think TEA and the state understands it's uh not very cost effective some of these older buses to uh refurbish and and put new seat belts on there or seat belts. and also requires TEA to collect information from all school districts and report to the governor by January 1st of 2027. Uh so it's a year of
082collection this year. Uh but again uh pay attention to your school buses and for that matter it's any uh vehicle uh that transports your students. It should be uh a seat belt for every student on on that vehicle. Uh we'll end with this. The special session is actually as we we are recording this, they're looking to wind down the first special session. I think the governor will call another one. Uh there's a lot right now on the redistricting, the mapping uh for the state of Texas as far as Democrats and Republicans. Uh some things that they worked on uh and the governor called the special session for some of the items were flood warning systems. communications due to the floods of July 4th down in the Hill Country. Looking at the STAR test, uh cutting
083the property taxes, uh protecting uh children and all from uh THC and to regulate the hemp products, protect unborn children. Uh again we mentioned earlier uh ban taxpayer uh public funds to fund lobbying on behalf of school districts is one uh protect human trafficking victims protect women's work spaces and several others. So we might add a few more in the next week to this uh as it becomes available. Again, thanks for your time and we do appreciate everything that you do for the students of your school district and uh have a nice day. Thank you. Make a motion.