From ruby.sandberg at state.or.us Wed Jul 25 12:37:11 2018 From: ruby.sandberg at state.or.us (SANDBERG Ruby - ODE) Date: Wed, 25 Jul 2018 19:37:11 +0000 Subject: [SE-Dir] FW: Educator Reporting and Licensing Update In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: From: ODE Communications Sent: Wednesday, July 25, 2018 12:20 PM To: suptprincipals at listsmart.osl.state.or.us Subject: Educator Reporting and Licensing Update [cid:image002.png at 01D42289.FC73F9F0] TO: Superintendents and Principals FROM: Colt Gill, Director of the Oregon Department of Education and Anthony Rosilez, Executive Director of Oregon Teacher Standards and Practices Commission DATE: July 25, 2018 RE: Educator Reporting and Licensing Update This joint memo responds to stakeholder feedback regarding special educator licensing requirements under the federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA). ESSA amended portions of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA), and current Oregon Administrative Rules. In spring 2017, the Teacher Standards and Practices Commission (TSPC) and the Oregon Department of Education (ODE) released a new Course to Endorsement Catalogue. The catalogue provides a list of approved courses for each TSPC endorsement. The purpose of the catalogue is to provide more transparency and alignment between TSPC licensure rules and ODE ESSA reporting requirements. When the new catalogue was launched, TSPC and ODE informed school districts that the 2017-18 school year would be an implementation year, meaning that: * TSPC would not sanction districts for discrepancies between the teaching assignments, endorsements and the newly created catalogue (NOTE: TSPC reserved the right to sanction for egregious mis-assignments such as an educator with an advanced mathematics endorsement assigned to an English course for more than 10 hours per week.); and * ODE would not report the "out-of-field" result on the 2017-18 school report card. During this implementation year, TSPC and ODE discovered three primary issues that needed to be addressed: * ISSUE: Educators holding the Middle Level/Multiple-Subjects endorsement with middle level endorsements or holding the Basic and Standard licenses with elementary endorsements who are teaching 7th and 8th grade without the foundational endorsements. * RESOLUTION: The Commission (TSPC) has enabled these educators to add the foundational endorsements in Social Studies, English Language Arts, Science and Math with no additional requirements if they have the required teaching experience or with passage of the appropriate test if they do not have the experience. * ISSUE: ESSA eliminated the "highly qualified (HQ)" designation for teachers and now requires teachers be properly licensed and endorsed according to state rules. Educators who were teaching as "highly qualified" but do not have the proper TSPC endorsement for that area are now considered "out-of-field" for ESSA reporting and not properly licensed for TSPC purposes. * RESOLUTION: The Commission (TSPC) created legacy teaching endorsements for the educators who were deemed highly qualified, but do not have the proper TSPC endorsement. TSPC is currently in the process of transitioning the HQ teachers to the new legacy endorsements. For the most part, the legacy endorsements will have the same course codes assigned to them as the regular endorsements. * ISSUE: Educators who hold a Special Education (SPED): Generalist endorsement who are teaching content areas. * RESOLUTION #1: For "HQ" SPED Teachers: The Commission created legacy teaching endorsements for educators with the Special Education: Generalist endorsement who were designated "highly qualified" in a content area. (See above.) * RESOLUTION #2: For new or non-HQ SPED Teachers: TSPC and ODE will create a SPED advisory committee to discuss the issue of educators with only Special Education: Generalist endorsements and content course assignments. The advisory committee will include educators, parents and providers of SPED teacher preparation programs, TSPC staff, ODE staff and school districts. The goal is to have the advisory committee conclude its work by January 2019. As such, for the 2018-19 school year, TSPC will not sanction educators or districts for special education/content course assignments. In addition, ODE will continue to exclude "out of field" information on the report cards for special education assignments. The agencies believe this plan is the best option for limiting disruption to students who access special education services and teachers who have been "mis-assigned" under the new catalogue but may be the best educator for that particular learning situation. As always, school districts must continue to adhere to the federal IDEA and free appropriate public education (FAPE) special education requirements. The Oregon plan for the Every Student Succeeds Act has provided an opportunity for TSPC and ODE to work together to build a consistent reporting and licensing structure for educators, school districts and the public. We would like to thank you for your patience and partnership in these efforts. Finally, we believe that TSPC, ODE, the Chief Education Office, school districts and educators share a common, vital goal: To ensure that all Oregon educators are well prepared to increase the achievement of all Oregon students. We look forward to our future collaboration in this important work. Sincerely, [cid:image003.png at 01D42403.4359FDE0] Cc: Lindsey Capps, Chief Education Officer District Chief Human Resource Officers District Special Education Directors -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... 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