2016

July

As part of the House Bill 4 High Quality Prekindergarten (PreK) Grant, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) Early Childhood Division was tasked with revising the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines. The revisions streamlined learning expectations for PreK students and aligned student outcomes with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for kindergarteners. The TXCC early childhood team collaborated with staff from TEA to develop a PowerPoint presentation on the Revised Texas PreK Guidelines for the Texas Early Childhood Summit in Dallas in July. The audience for the presentation included public school PreK teachers, school administrators, and child care staff. The TXCC early childhood team also met with the TEA Early Childhood Director and the TEA Statewide Early Childhood Coordinator to plan Year 5 technical assistance and support activities.

June

In conjunction with the High Quality Prekindergarten Grant established by House Bill 4, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) Early Childhood Division was tasked with revising the Texas Prekindergarten Guidelines. The revisions streamlined learning expectations for PreK students and aligned student outcomes with the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) for kindergarteners. The TXCC early childhood team collaborated with TEA to develop a PowerPoint presentation on the Revised Texas PreK Guidelines. A presentation was facilitated at the Texas Early Childhood Summit in Houston on June 25. The audience for the presentation was public school PreK teachers, school administrators, and child care staff.

March

The TXCC early childhood team continued to work with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to review submissions for the Commissioner’s List of Approved Prekindergarten Progress Monitoring Instruments. TXCC staff received and reviewed prekindergarten progress monitoring instruments between the periods February 5–March 4 and March 18–31, 2016. In all, twenty-eight assessment instruments were submitted and reviewed. Of those, thirteen were recommended for inclusion on the Commissioner’s List, eleven were recommended with restrictions, and four were not recommended for inclusion. The final report for this project was submitted to TEA on April 5, 2016.

February

The TXCC early childhood team continues to assist the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to review prekindergarten progress monitoring instrument submissions from publishers and local education agencies. Twenty-four instruments were submitted in the initial Texas Registry posting. TEA will post a second call for submissions on March 18, 2016. The deadline for the second submission is March 25, 2016. The Commissioner’s list of approved PK progress monitoring instruments will be available to local education agencies on March 29, 2016. The list will be in effect for the 2016-17 school year only.

January

The TXCC team partnered with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to develop a Call for Submissions for Prekindergarten Student Progress Monitoring Instruments. Publishers and local education agencies will be able to submit progress monitoring instruments for review beginning February 4, 2016. Submissions will be accepted for 30 days. The TXCC team will assist TEA in reviewing the submissions and making recommendations for the Commissioner’s list of approved progress monitoring instruments. The Commissioner’s list of approved PreK student progress monitoring instruments will be available to local education agencies on or before March 29, 2016. The list will be in effect for the 2016-17 school year only. Prekindergarten programs applying for and receiving the High Quality Prekindergarten Grant will be required to select one or more of the instruments on the Commissioner’s list. The High Quality Prekindergarten Grant application will be available to local education agencies in February and will be due to TEA mid-April. Notifications of grant awards will be distributed in summer 2016.

2015

December

TXCC hosted a webinar for TEA's High-Quality Pre-K and HB 4 Workgroup on December 2, 2015. The purpose of the webinar was to provide an overview of the public input on the draft Family Engagement Plan and Strategies that were developed during Workgroup Session 1 as well as input from the public hearing held on December 1, 2015. TEA staff shared input on the draft definitions of “family” and “family engagement” along with comments on the draft components and evidence-based strategies prior to an analysis of the input. In mid-December, TEA was informed that the due date for the Family Engagement Strategies and Plan had been advanced from February 2016 to the end of December 2015. TXCC reviewed documents and identified salient points from the public input (i.e.., continuation of local control, suggested rather than required strategies, recommendations on components that needed to be included in an local education agency plan, acknowledgement of effective practices/and programs already in place like Head Start and Montessori schools) while TEA made revisions to the draft document. On December 21, TXCC hosted another webinar so that TEA could share the revised documents with the workgroup members, who provided additional feedback and then gave consensus for TEA to move forward with the document’s submission to the commissioner. TXCC has also started working with TEA on another HB 4 requirement to submit a 2016-17 commissioner's list of prekindergarten language and literacy assessment instruments, focusing on phonological/phonemic awareness, phonics, and text comprehension (listening only). This work is also on a tight timeline but is in its initial stages.

November

The TXCC team collaborated with the Texas Education Agency (TEA) to discuss the public input posted on TEA’s Early Childhood website regarding the draft document “High-Quality Prekindergarten Family Engagement Strategies.” Public input focused on the working definitions of “family” and “family engagements” as well as on draft “components” and “strategies.” Overall, the comments were positive; many comments supported the continuation of local control, the recognition of Head Start and Montessori principles as effective approaches, and the need for regional differentiation. TEA and TXCC also prepared draft elements (i.e., outcomes, agenda, PowerPoint template, roles and responsibilities, etc.) of the webinar to share the public input with TEA’s Family Engagement Workgroup members. TXCC will host and facilitate the webinar on December 2, 2015.

October

Through a series of face-to-face meetings and conference calls with the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the TXCC team designed and facilitated a two-day workgroup session with TEA-approved participants from organizations such as the Health and Human Services Commission, Region 16 Education Service Center, early childhood education and policy agencies, protective services, parent-teacher associations, workforce and interventions divisions, and library services. Workgroup Session 1 was held on October 5-6, 2015, at AIR’s Austin Headquarters. During this session, participants identified a working/shared definition of family and family engagement; agreed on the essential components of a family engagement plan that addresses Texas’ early childhood educational needs using current research on family engagement plans and examples from what is working in other states; and generated a working list of both short- and long-term, empirically based strategies for family engagement based on the identified components. TEA posted the High-Quality Prekindergarten Family Engagement Strategies draft document for public input; the link to provide input will close on November 25, 2015.