Honorable Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor, Senate Honorable Dade Phelan, Speaker of the House, House of Representatives
FROM:
Jerry McGinty, Director, Legislative Budget Board
IN RE:
SB1267 by West (Relating to continuing education and training requirements for educators and other school district personnel.), Conference Committee Report
Estimated Two-year Net Impact to General Revenue Related Funds for SB1267, Conference Committee Report : a negative impact of ($200,000) through the biennium ending August 31, 2023.
The bill would make no appropriation but could provide the legal basis for an appropriation of funds to implement the provisions of the bill.
General Revenue-Related Funds, Five- Year Impact:
Fiscal Year
Probable Net Positive/(Negative) Impact to General Revenue Related Funds
2022
($100,000)
2023
($100,000)
2024
($200,000)
2025
$0
2026
($200,000)
All Funds, Five-Year Impact:
Fiscal Year
Probable Savings/(Cost) from General Revenue Fund 1
2022
($100,000)
2023
($100,000)
2024
($200,000)
2025
$0
2026
($200,000)
Fiscal Analysis
This bill's provisions would make a number of changes to various educator continuing education and training requirements and would repeal outdated training requirements. The State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) would develop and publish a comprehensive clearinghouse regarding continuing education and training requirements for educators and recommend requirements for completing each continuing education or training. School district trustees and charter school governing bodies would annually review the clearinghouse and adopt frequency requirements for the completion of continuing education or training.
The bill's provisions repeal professional development institutes and instead require research-based grants to monitor the effectiveness of the Mathematics Achievement Academies and to examine the effect of the math academies on teacher performance.
The bill's provisions also requires the commissioner to expand Literacy Achievement Academies and establish Mathematics Achievement Academies for teachers.
This bill's provisions grant districts the ability to determine how often its employees must complete cybersecurity training.
The bill's provisions amend continuing education requirements by removing required training on certain special populations (students with disabilities and English learners), and topics of training, such as grief and trauma-informed interventions. The bill also amends aspects of the Child Abuse and Mandatory Reporting training requirements, concerning frequency of training and tracking of employee participation.
Methodology
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) estimates the cost to establish and additional Literacy Achievement Academies and establish Mathematics Achievement Academies to be $1,620,000 per grade level for each academy. These costs would include project management charges; the development of new content; including development, review, production of grade-level training content and translation; copyediting; preparation of training materials; and provide for a turnaround of the academies for trainers following the training of trainers model. This analysis assumes the agency will continue to receive rider funding at the same level as was received in the current and previous biennia to continue work on developing the academies by grade level and subject. Assuming such funding continues to be made available, TEA could implement these provisions within current resources.
TEA estimates the cost associated with requiring the commissioner to issue grants to one or more institutions of higher education (IHEs) to study and monitor the effectiveness of the Mathematics Achievement Academy and its effect on teacher performance to be $100,000 in FY 2022 and FY 2023. As additional academies for additional grade levels are developed, it is anticipated that an additional $200,000 per biennium would be required to study effectiveness of new content as it is developed.
Local Government Impact
School districts and charter schools would be required to annually review the clearinghouse of information regarding continuing education and training requirements for educators and other school personnel and to prepare for and adopt the required frequency requirements for the completion of each required continuing education or training.
Schools must currently pay for educators to participate in literacy achievement academies. There would be additional costs to districts to ensure all educators who teach reading participate in the academies.