State Superintendent of Education Eric Mackey opened Thursday's State Board of Education meeting describing February as a month of celebration, with the meeting itself largely devoted to recognitions. 

In addition to resolutions honoring this year's 50 Legislative School Performance Program Award winners, the board recognized Mountain Brook City Schools and Houston County Schools as the 2026 Top City and County School System Performance Awards for achieving the state’s highest ACAP and Alternative ACAP proficiency scores. 

The board passed resolutions recognizing five Alabama schools nominated as 2025 Blue Ribbon Schools: Lakewood Elementary (Phenix City Schools), Shades Mountain Elementary (Hoover City Schools), Kilby Laboratory School (Lauderdale County Schools), Monte Sano Elementary (Huntsville City Schools) and Heritage Elementary (Madison City Schools). These schools were nominated before the U.S. Department of Education discontinued the 43-year-old program in August 2025.

As part of Mackey's superintendent report and in observance of February as Career and Technical Education (CTE) Month, the board received an update on Alabama's CTE progress. Nearly 80% of high schoolers (more than 173,000 students) are enrolled in CTE programs, with 20,000 industry credentials earned and $100 million invested in CTE facilities statewide. The state also is celebrating the one-year anniversary of the Be Pro Be Proud mobile workshop, which has completed 42 tour stops reaching more than 10,000 students, with 27 additional stops planned.

Mackey also recognized Katie Collins, Alabama’s 2025-26 Teacher of the Year and National Teacher of the Year finalist, and commended Alabama Reading Initiative Director Bonnie Short who recently represented Alabama at a Congressional hearing on literacy in Washington, D.C.

Additional resolutions passed included recognition of the 2026 School Counselors of the Year, winners of the Annual State Superintendent’s Visual Arts Exhibit and proclaiming February as Alabama School Counseling Month and March as Arts Education Month. 

Work Session Discussion

Thursday’s board work session included a conversation with Alabama Teacher of the Year Katie Collins, discussion on adoption of the state’s new school counseling model, realignment of the information technology and business management and administration course of study and robust discussion on the adoption of K-12 social studies textbooks. 

Delay in Approval of K-12 Social Studies Textbooks 

The most extensive work session discussion centered on the long-delayed K-12 social studies textbook adoption. Board action on the committee's recommendations was expected in November but pushed back due to scheduling conflicts and some board members expressing they didn't feel prepared to vote. 

Mackey took responsibility for the timeline and acknowledged public confusion resulting from the delay, laying out four options in order of his preference to move the process forward:

• Option 1: Adopt the report as-is and forward it to local systems to choose from approved options. Local boards retain authority to decline any book or purchase alternatives with local funds.
• Option 2: Amend the report before voting (requires supermajority of six), though removed publishers could potentially file lawsuits.
• Option 3: Vote in sections, approving grades 6-12 now while holding K-5, especially given Gov. Kay Ivey has included $7 million in the proposed budget to develop state-written K-5 materials aligned to both Alabama history and reading standards.
• Option 4: Abandon the process and restart in 2027 with a new administration, which Mackey strongly discouraged as wasteful of the committee's work.

Some board members expressed frustration with continued delays. Dr. Yvette Richardson (District 4) warned that repeatedly rejecting expert committee recommendations would make it difficult to recruit future members and pressed colleagues to ask themselves: "’Is this really about the students in Alabama schools, or is it about me? Is it political?’" 

President Pro Tem Kelly Mooney (District 3) raised concerns that nationally written textbooks don't reflect Alabama's values. “Some of the values in other states are not the values of Alabama,” she said. “We want to keep Alabama Alabama.” 

She described as an example a book that featured a photo of a logging truck beside a page with a photo of smokestacks and references to deforestation and environmental pollution, despite forestry being “Alabama's number one industry as an agricultural product,” prompting an exchange about values versus standards. 

"There's no document that our school systems have that says these are the values that you should be teaching. Values can be different depending on whose value it is, but standards are supposed to be across the board,” Richardson said.

Dr. Tonya Chestnut (District 5) said she has not heard "one valid reason" to justify putting off approval and emphasized rural districts without local funding are disproportionately hurt by the delay.  

Tracie West (District 2) expressed discomfort with the quality of some materials. She stressed the concerns are not about questioning the committee's integrity but rather about struggling to endorse books lacking in rigor.

Mackey urged the board not to let the perfect be the enemy of the good, reminding members that teachers teach the standards, not the textbook page by page, and that no textbook will ever be perfect.

Path forward: Mackey said he intends to place the adoption on the March agenda for a vote, with a work session the day before. He added that he will consider bringing the recommendation in sections, allowing the board to act on less controversial portions while continuing to work through specific concerns.

2026 Comprehensive School Counseling Program Model

The board received a presentation regarding adoption of the state’s new school counseling framework, the first since 2003. Key highlights:

• Three domains with grade-band standards: academic success, career development, and foundational wellness, with age-appropriate benchmarks.
• Defining the counselor's role: A central goal is clarifying what a school counselor is and does, for principals, parents, community members, and new counselors alike. The plan outlines duties, skills and recommended use of time, while differentiating counselors from other positions and addressing the common practice of pulling them into unrelated administrative duties.
• New collaboration framework: For the first time, the plan maps how counselors work alongside career coaches, mental health coordinators, school psychologists and other support professionals that didn't exist in schools in 2003, with parents positioned as "chief collaborators."
• Data-driven accountability: Counselors will use PowerSchool Unified Insight to track achievement, attendance and discipline data and measure intervention outcomes, with accountability built into the state's existing compliance monitoring process.
• Shorter, more flexible design: The plan provides guidance and guardrails rather than prescriptive direction, allowing districts to tailor programs to their communities. The task force intentionally developed Alabama-specific standards independent of any national organization's framework.

Aligning Information Technology and Business Management Course Offerings

The board received a presentation on making four IT courses, Artificial Intelligence and Cybersecurity 1, 2 and 3, available under the Business Management and Administration cluster within the Business Information Technology pathway. The realignment will come before the board for a vote at the March meeting. 

Energy and Natural Resources Course of Study Committee 

The board discussed a resolution to appoint a course of study committee for energy and natural resources, a new CTE content area following the national consolidation of career clusters from 16 to 14. This course of study replaces and expands the former environmental science curriculum to encompass ecology and the use of natural resources for energy including hydroelectric, nuclear, natural gas, solar and wind. 

Next SBOE Meeting and Work Session

The board’s next regular meeting will take place Thursday, March 12, 2026, at 10 a.m. in Montgomery with a work session immediately following.

• Gordon Persons Building Auditorium
• Livestream viewing: https://www.youtube.com/user/aldeptofed/live 
• Archived meeting and work session recordings: https://www.alabamaachieves.org/state-board-of-education/meeting-videos/