SECTION 66.72. Contracts

(a) The state contract shall not be changed or modified without approval of the Texas Education Agency (TEA) legal counsel.

(b) Contracts shall be sent to the publishers for signature. Signed contracts returned by the publishers shall be signed by the chair of the State Board of Education (SBOE) and attested to by the commissioner of education. Properly signed and attested contracts shall be filed with the TEA.

(c) The publisher of instructional materials adopted by the SBOE shall:

(1) enter into a contract with the SBOE for a term not to exceed eight years and that ends at the same time as any contract entered into by the SBOE for other instructional materials for the same subject and grade level; and

(2) commit to provide the instructional materials in the manner specified by the publisher in the official bid specified in §66.28(f) of this title (relating to Requirements for Publisher Participation).

(d) A publisher of adopted materials may add post-contractual bids to its contract in response to identified needs of districts.

(e) The commissioner shall annually review contracts for instructional materials and identify those that should be renewed.

(f) The SBOE shall renew existing contracts upon determining that the renewal would be in the best interest of the state and after considering the following factors:

(1) placement of subject areas in the review and adoption cycle;

(2) availability and projected cost of new instructional materials;

(3) willingness of publishers to renew contracts; and

(4) cost of instructional materials under a renewal contract.

(g) Publishers awarded new contracts shall be prepared to make the adopted instructional materials available for at least one extended contract period of not more than four years at prices that are mutually agreeable to publishers and to the commissioner. The SBOE may consider refusing to award future contracts to a publisher that, after receiving written notice to do so, refuses to rebid instructional materials at least one time. Failure of a publisher to negotiate an acceptable price for an extended contract shall not be considered failure to rebid instructional materials.

(h) Contracts with publishers are subject to all provisions of the Texas Education Code (TEC), Chapter 31.

(i) The SBOE may execute a contract for the printing of open education resource instructional materials on the adopted list that allows a school district or an open-enrollment charter school to requisition printed copies of open education resource instructional materials as provided by the TEC, §31.103.

Source Note: The provisions of this §66.72 adopted to be effective September 1, 1996, 21 TexReg 7236; amended to be effective August 15, 1999, 24 TexReg 5699; amended to be effective December 25, 2007, 32 TexReg 9611; amended to be effective July 8, 2012, 37 TexReg 4911; amended to be effective May 5, 2016, 41 TexReg 3137; amended to be effective March 27, 2018, 43 TexReg 1846; amended to be effective March 24, 2020, 45 TexReg 1989