The Board of Regents conducted their monthly meeting on Monday, July 12, 2021. The majority of the Board members attended the meeting in person at the State Education Building in Albany for the first time since early 2020. Chancellor Young began the meeting by welcoming everyone, especially newly appointed Regents members Frances Wills, Ruth Turner, and Aramina Vega Ferrer. The Chancellor also praised the NYSED staff for their efforts over the past fifteen months in guiding the department through such difficult times.
As has been customary in the past, the meeting consisted of a significantly shortened public session with the majority of the two days being dedicated primarily to Board training.
During the public session, the Board did approve the extension of several recently adopted COVID-19 related emergency regulatory measures to include the 2021-2022 school year.
In the areas of P-12 and Higher Education, the adopted regulatory measures included:
- Continuing the flexibility associated with Extension of Incidental Teaching from 5 classroom hours per week to 10 classroom hours per week.
- Allowing substitute teachers who do not hold a valid certificate, but hold a high school diploma or its equivalent, to be employed by a school district for more than 40 days under certain circumstances.
- Expanding grade level certification for special education teachers to allow those who hold Grades 1-6 or Grades 5-9 certification to teach students with disabilities in grades 7-12.
- Extending the Snow Day Pilot Program which allows districts to shift to remote instruction for days that schools would be closed during a snow emergency.
- Allowing impartial hearing officers to extend due process hearing cases for up to 60 days to ensure that witnesses, administrators and parents are able to participate.
- Allowing testing centers to administer the Ability-to Benefit Test (ATB) remotely, to assist students with obtaining state subsidized college financial aid such as TAP.
Below is a link to the PowerPoint that was used which summarizes each of the regulatory measures that were extended. Slides 2 – 7 refer to the areas which relate specifically to P-12 and Higher Ed.
