| (D) No family members within the third degree of consanguinity
or second degree of affinity shall serve on the charter holder or
charter school board.
(E) No family member within the third degree of consanguinity
or third degree of affinity of any charter holder board member, charter
school board member, or superintendent shall receive compensation
in any form from the charter school, the charter holder, or any management
company that operates the charter school.
(F) The applicant shall specify that the governing
body accepts and will not delegate ultimate responsibility for the
school, including academic performance and financial and operational
viability, and is responsible for overseeing any management company
providing management services for the school.
(3) Educational and operational standards. An applicant
for an open-enrollment charter, a public senior college or university
charter, or a public junior college charter shall successfully meet
each of the following educational and operational standards to ensure
careful alignment of curricula to the Texas Essential Knowledge and
Skills, as determined by the commissioner or the commissioner's designee,
prior to being considered for award of a charter and must understand
that any failure to maintain ongoing compliance with these requirements,
if awarded a charter, will be considered a material violation of the
charter contract and may be grounds for revocation.
(A) The charter applicant must clearly explain the
overall educational philosophy to be promoted at the school, if authorized.
(B) The charter applicant must clearly explain in succinct
terms the specific curricular programs that the school, if authorized,
will provide to students and the ways in which the charter staff,
board members, and others will use these programs to maintain high
expectations for and the continuous improvement of student performance.
(C) The charter applicant must clearly explain in succinct
terms the ways in which the school, if authorized, will differ from
the traditional neighborhood schools or charter schools that currently
operate in the area where the school or schools would be located.
(D) The charter applicant must clearly explain how
classroom practices will reflect the connections among curriculum,
instruction, and assessment.
(E) The charter applicant must describe in succinct
terms the specific ways in which the school, if authorized, will:
(i) address the instructional needs of students performing
both below and above grade levels in major content areas;
(ii) differentiate instruction to meet the needs of
diverse learners;
(iii) provide a continuum of services in the least
restrictive environment for students with special needs as required
by state and federal law;
(iv) provide bilingual and/or English as a second language
instruction to English language learners as required by state law;
and
(v) implement an educational program that supports
the enrichment curriculum, including fine arts, health education,
physical education, technology applications, and, to the extent possible,
languages other than English.
(F) As evidenced in required documentation, the charter
applicant must commit to hiring personnel with appropriate qualifications
as follows.
(i) Except as provided in clause (iv) of this subparagraph,
all teachers, regardless of subject matter taught, must have a baccalaureate
degree.
(ii) Special education teachers, bilingual teachers,
and teachers of English as a second language must be certified in
the fields in which they are assigned to teach as required in state
and/or federal law.
(iii) Paraprofessionals must be certified as required
to meet state and/or federal law.
(iv) In an open-enrollment charter school that serves
youth referred to or placed in a residential trade center by a local
or state agency, a person may be employed as a teacher for a noncore
vocational course without holding a baccalaureate degree, subject
to the requirements described in §100.1212 of this title (relating
to Personnel).
(G) The charter applicant must commit to serving, by
its third year of operation, at least as many students in grades assessed
for state accountability purposes as those served in grades not assessed
for state accountability purposes.
(H) The charter applicant must provide a final copy
of any management contract, if applicable, that will be entered into
by the charter holder that will provide any management services, including
the monetary amount that will be paid to the management company for
providing school services.
(4) Additional requirements. An applicant for a competitive
open-enrollment charter to be considered for award, as authorized
by TEC, Chapter 12, Subchapter D, must ensure that each of the following
occur or the application will be disqualified.
(A) The application is complete and meets all of the
requirements set forth in paragraphs (1)-(3) of this subsection, as
determined by the commissioner or the commissioner's designee.
(i) The commissioner or the commissioner's designee
may conclude the review of an application once it is apparent that
the application is incomplete or that the application fails to meet
one or more of the requirements set forth in paragraphs (1)-(3) of
this subsection.
(ii) Any applicant who submits an incomplete application,
an application that fails to meet one or more of the requirements
as set forth in paragraphs (1)-(3) of this subsection, or an application
that contains information referenced in subparagraph (D)(i)-(iii)
of this paragraph will be notified pursuant to §100.1002(b) of
this title (relating to Application and Selection Procedures and Criteria)
by the TEA division responsible for charter schools that the application
has been removed from consideration of award and will not be sent
forward for scoring by the external review panel.
(I) An applicant that is notified that the application
has been removed from consideration of award by the commissioner or
the commissioner's designee will have five business days to respond
in writing and direct TEA staff responsible for charter schools to
the specific parts of the application, which was received by the application
deadline, that address the identified issue or issues, or to submit
missing attachments.
(II) Once any additional review is complete, the decision
of the commissioner or the commissioner's designee is final and may
not be appealed.
(B) A representative of any applicant must not initiate
contact with any employee of the TEA, other than the commissioner
or commissioner's designee, regarding the content of its application
from the time the application is submitted until the time of the commissioner
award of charters in the applicable application cycle is final, following
the 90-day State Board of Education (SBOE) veto period.
(C) An applicant or person or entity acting on behalf
of the applicant may not provide any item of value, directly or indirectly,
to the commissioner, any employee of the TEA, or member of the SBOE
during the no-contact period as defined in §100.1002(k) of this
title.
(D) All parts of the application are releasable to
the public under the Texas Public Information Act and will be posted
to the TEA website. Therefore, the following must be excluded from
all applications:
(i) personal email addresses;
(ii) proprietary material;
(iii) copyrighted material;
(iv) documents that could violate the Family Educational
Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) by identifying potential students of
the charter school, including, but not limited to, sign-in lists at
public meetings about the school, photographs of existing students
if the school is currently operating or photographs of prospective
students, and/or letters of support from potential charter school
parents and/or students; and
(v) any other information or documentation that cannot
be released in accordance with Texas Government Code, Chapter 552.
(E) Any application that includes material referenced
in subparagraph (D)(ii)-(v) of this paragraph will be removed from
consideration without any further opportunity for review.
|
| Source Note: The provisions of this §100.1015 adopted to be effective April 18, 2002, 27 TexReg 3110; amended to be effective April 1, 2003, 28 TexReg 2743; amended to be effective August 26, 2010, 35 TexReg 7213; amended to be effective September 12, 2012, 37 TexReg 7097; amended to be effective September 18, 2014, 39 TexReg 7295; amended to be effective September 25, 2019, 44 TexReg 5397 |
