By Elizabeth Tegtmeier
Nebraska State Board of Education Representative, District 7
The Nebraska State Board of Education tackled a variety of issues at the June meeting held in Lincoln earlier this month. I will focus on just a few as the full board meeting is archived and can be viewed at the Nebraska Department of Education website.
Two areas that I am delighted to highlight are receipt of grants by several school districts located in our western board district. Hershey Public Schools and Perkins County High School were the recipients of reVISION Action Grants awarded to improve, modernize, and expand Career and Technical Education programs to align with Nebraska’s economic priorities and workforce demands. The following districts received Early Childhood Education program grants for the creation or expansion of preschool programs: Alma, Eustis-Farnam, Loup City, and North Platte. Expansion of early childhood programs is beneficial for student learning and crucial for the economic support and growth of our rural Nebraska communities.
As the Rules and Regulations committee chair, I helped facilitate changes to three rules that govern teacher certification and endorsement in an effort to address the current teacher shortage by making changes to our military permit, alternative program teaching permit, conditional permit, and local substitute permit. The committee will continue through the fall to look for areas that the certification process can be made smoother by adjusting state board policies. We will continue to work toward offering reciprocity to educators holding current out-of-state certificates as well as streamlining the process for college graduates to earn a Nebraska teaching certificate as many adults consider teaching as a second career.
Additionally, changes were made to the requirements for educator preparation programs including requiring teacher candidates to receive instruction in the science of reading often know as phonics. This change was made to address the board goal of having 75% of Nebraska third grades proficient in reading by 2030.
One topic that I was the lone dissenting vote was on the changes to the department’s Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) plan that must be submitted to the federal government. My concern, which I expressed at the prior month’s meeting, was over the change in criteria for identifying schools that need comprehensive support and improvement. The new plan loosens filters thus identifying fewer struggling schools. NDE staff indicated that these changes were made as a result of staffing and funding issues the department currently faces.
In previous years, a school that had a large number of students considered not proficient at grade level work or a school in which student academic growth is not occurring would be flagged in the first round and sent through two more filters to narrow down for identification. The new plan changes the word “or” to the word “and” now requiring a school to be unsuccessful at both before moving to the next filter.
To further explain, this means that a school could have a majority of seventh graders considered not proficient at seventh grade work but if they demonstrate growth from third grade standards to fifth grade standards, the school is not flagged and does not go through any further filters.
My concern is that fewer struggling schools will be flagged and Nebraska students and their futures will suffer as a consequence. As your district seven representative, I take my responsibility of providing an excellent education to all students in our state very seriously and I feel that these changes compromise the NDE’s ability to hold schools accountable and assist these schools in making improvements.
Finally, I want to notify the public that an additional state board meeting has recently be scheduled for July 7 at 9 a.m. This meeting will be held in at The Cornhusker in Lincoln to identify performance objectives for the new NDE Commissioner. The meeting will also live stream through the NDE website.
The opinions expressed in this report are mine; I do not speak for the SBOE.