We hope you had a great Thanksgiving break. Here is this week's education news from the ATPE Governmental Relations team!

• • Election update
  • How did your legislator vote on education bills?
  • ATPE members: take a quick survey!
  • TEA releases new "HB 3 in 30" video
  • SBEC holds final meeting of the year
  • Part one of STAAR readability study released

ELECTION UPDATE: A runoff election date of Jan. 28, 2020, has been set for special elections in House Districts 28, 100, and 148. If you live in one of those districts, you may vote in the runoff election regardless of whether or not you voted in the original special election on Nov. 5. Check to see if you are registered to vote here as the deadline to register for the special election runoff is Dec. 29, 2019. Early voting in these three districts begins Tuesday, Jan. 21, 2020.

If you do not live in one of the House districts listed above, your next opportunity to vote will be the Texas primary elections on March 3, 2020. The deadline to register to vote in one of the primaries is Feb. 3, 2020! Visit TexasEducatorsVote.com to get involved, find activities you can do to drive more participation in elections, and sign up for voting updates.

The candidate filing period for those seeking a place on the ballot in 2020 opened last month and will end on Monday. Stay tuned to Teach the Vote in the coming weeks as we update our website to include profiles of all the candidates vying for seats in the Texas Legislature or State Board of Education. Read more election news in this week's election roundup post from ATPE Lobbyist Mark Wiggins.

Do you know how your state representative or senator voted on education bills this past legislative session? ATPE's lobbyists have carefully hand-picked key education votes from the 86th legislative session and uploaded them to all state legislators' profiles on our Teach the Vote website for your review.

This collection of recorded votes aims to help Texans find out how their own lawmakers voted on major public education issues and ATPE's legislative priorities in 2019. Use our search page to gain insight into incumbents' views on public education. Share the information with your friends and family, too, to help inform decisions at the polls during the critical 2020 election cycle. Also, read our recent blog posts to learn more about which education bills are featured and takeaways for using the information contained in our record votes compilation.

Do you have something to say about public education in Texas? Tell us about it in our short, three-question survey. This survey is meant to gather ATPE members' opinions on education issues, including results of the last legislative session. Don't worry if you didn't follow the session too closely, as the ATPE lobby team still wants to hear from you so that we can best represent your voice at the Texas Capitol. Take our "Your Voice" survey on ATPE's Advocacy Central. Call the ATPE Member Services department at (800) 777-2873 if you've forgotten your password for logging into Advocacy Central.

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has released another video in its "HB 3 in 30" series explaining the many aspects of the 86th Legislature's omnibus school finance bill House Bill (HB) 3.

This week's video explains the new, optional, Mentor Program Allotment which provides funding for districts who have, or implement, a mentor program that meet certain programmatic requirements. ATPE has long advocated for state funded mentoring programs for all new teachers as a way to curb the high cost of teacher turnover as well as support and improve teachers and teaching practice.

Find all of the HB 3 in 30 videos here, along with related presentations.

On Friday, Dec. 6, 2019, the State Board for Educator Certification (SBEC) held its final meeting of the year.

The board discussed several items, including data from the new teacher and principal surveys, the addition of educational aide to the list of certificates high school students can obtain, and other changes to implement numerous bills from recent legislative sessions. ATPE Lobbyist Andrea Chevalier provided testimony during the meeting asking the board to create a pathway for Master Reading Teachers to retain their teaching assignments once their Legacy Master Teacher certificates expire under HB 3. Look for a post by Andrea in the coming days about today's SBEC meeting and watch video of her testimony here (located at the 41:00 mark on the archived broadcast).

Part one of the STAAR readability study mandated by House Bill 3 was released on Dec. 2, 2019. The study was conducted by the Meadows Center for Preventing Educational Risk at the University of Texas at Austin. The 30-page report generally found that STAAR test passages are mostly at an appropriate level of readability, but was inconclusive regarding if individual questions were "readable" at grade-level or below. Additionally, the study leaves many questions unanswered regarding the measures used to determine readability. Read an analysis of the report by ATPE lobbyist Andrea Chevalier here.