The Texas Education Agency
The Texas Education Agency (TEA) is a government agency that superintends both the primary and secondary public education systems in Texas. Governed by the commissioner of education, the agency strives to better the results for every student in the state through provisions of excellent management skills, supervision, and supporting educational systems. After the elimination of the State Board of Education in 1949, the office of State Superintendent of Public Instruction established the Texas Education Agency as the official government’s agency to manage the communal school structure. Additionally, TEA’s main objectives are divided into departments such as field services department that addresses the communication among home-grown school regions and the educational representative, department of syllabus and valuation, and the department of specialized expansion. Also, TEA supervises the office of programs and instruction, which deals with immigration, special needs education packages, and multi-lingual tutelage (Smith and Burns, 2010).
TEA is located in Austin, Texas, and is funded by both the federal government and the state government and is also entitled to distributing funds to public schools. Additionally, it conveys strategic plans and survey plans to aid it in determining if its duties are carried out accordingly by the social workers. Contracts and Purchasing Division (CPD) takes care of the procurement of goods and services that are used to finance education, research, and the commercial creativities of TEA. Consequently, due to its link to the government and its role in the public sector, TEA boasts of approximately 400 contracts that value to about 1 billion dollars and has an estimated 250 million dollars in yearly expenses (Tea).
Enrollment of bilingual students in Texas schools has resulted in positive outcomes for students, especially those that need help in speaking the English language. Also, TEA has establishments of programs that address early childhood education, dyslexia, skilled and artistic education, and programs that address the needs of children in foster care. Apart from covering education, TEA also created websites for mental health and behavioral health to support student’s psychological and interactive health. TEA recognizes that educational premises are the second places in which mental health apprehensions in students can be discerned. Besides, before any mental illness emerges, ciphers of deteriorating psychological health are detected by social workers such as teachers (TEA).
Websites created are to back the faculty workforces with capitals for supporting the mental health of students. Besides, collective efforts, decrees, programs, and strategies are availed for the support of detecting mental health challenges and the means to address each and every problem that avails itself. Both The Health and Human Services Commission (HHSC) and the Department of State Health Services (DSHS) synchronize with TEA once a year to bring up-to-date best programs for implementation in public schools. Such applications include documentation of suicide prevention methods developed by the Education Service Centers.
To report issues involving fraud or to access TEA, individuals are requested to file printed grievances and mail or fax the objections or to fill in an online complaint form. Also, a page that addresses complaints from individuals is made available on the TEA complaints management page. Public schools in Texas employ a wide range of teachers; thus, TEA provides a vast canopy of services that enable these teachers to work more efficiently. These services comprise of issuance of teachers’ certificates, provisions of average tests, and provisions of textbooks for pupils in the public sector.
According to the Texas State Library Archives, TEA is honored for its role in the upgrading of efficiency of the public school’s educators and bureaucrats. Also, they are respected for improving educative programs for learners in the state, issuing enough monies to communal levels, and, at the same time, making sure that funds are appropriately used and efficiently, especially in educational researches (Hecker, 2012). Additionally, the agency is comprised of members who are designated from district levels and are interchanged every four years, with the governor appointing one member to be chairman of the board. Failure to meet state academic criteria, result in the closure of schools or the expulsion of school board power, as in the case of Shepherd Independent School District.
TEA expects educators and other school staff to be knowledgeable concerning child abuse matters, as social workers epitomize the biggest specialized reserve for recording alleged child abuse or desertion in Texas. Moreover, teachers are in a better position to create awareness of the Texas regulations by establishing efficient reporting services, databases, and commencing training of workers. According to the Texas Education Code, all schools should embrace and invent a rule that addresses sexual abuse and ill-treatment of children and provide literature to students and parents. Additionally, website links that address discrimination and bullying are included in the research, and schools must retain annals of staff who contribute to the training in handling child abuse (TEA).
Training involves knowing the indicators of a child at risk for sexual abuse, threatening ciphers that a child is a victim of sexual abuse or other ill-treatment, procedures for getting help for abused children, and methods to reduce a child’s risk of harm (TEA). Additionally, TEA offers services for pregnant students, such as the Compensatory Education Home Instruction, which scholars receive during prenatal and postpartum periods. These services are intended to aid pregnant scholars in academics, psychologically, substantially, and also to help them stay in school irrespective of their condition. Furthermore, TEA states that it is meticulously observing the much-dreaded Coronavirus outbreak and is collaborating with other Texas state agencies to efficiently get ready with assistance for all communal educational facilities across Texas.
Disciplinary actions through the Restorative Discipline Practices program have seen the preparation of schools on how to deal with scholars’ behaviors, especially after the suspension of African American males in the region. The primary purpose of the program was to build school conditions and students’ conduct by fostering a sense of belonging instead of exclusion, improving social interactions instead of control, and encouraging the feeling of being accountable for an individual’s actions instead of punishment (TEA).
The State Board for Educator Certification has criteria in which all educators go through as they emphasize on skills and know-how. Requirements to meet standards are mandatory for all educators in Texas, which involves grade one through to grade seven of the skill applications. Additionally, any educator wishing to acquire more Texas certificates has to enhance classroom areas through exams by finishing a package acquire organizational and learner’s services diplomas. Disciplinary actions on educators who have been brought forward for misconduct gets done through the State Board of Educator Certification (SBEC), which began in 1999. Before the administration of discipline, TEA conducts investigations concerning the complaints prioritizing the cruelty, the eminency of the accusations, and also the possibility of the educator to exert harm on the scholar (TEA).