Streamlining Audit Season: SOLVED’s Documentation System Ensures CPE Compliance

The Stakes of a TEA Audit: An audit by the Texas Education Agency can happen without warning. TEA’s certification division may randomly audit educators’ CPE records at any time to verify compliance. If you’re selected, you must promptly furnish proof of all the CPE hours claimed for your certificate renewal period. Failing to have proper documentation readily available isn’t just an inconvenience – it can carry serious professional consequences. State rules mandate that educators keep written proof of all CPE activities on file. If you come up short in an audit (for example, missing certificates for some hours), you risk certificate inactivation, delayed renewal, or even disciplinary action for not meeting renewal requirements. In other words, “I lost my certificates” is not a valid excuse – lack of documentation could put your teaching license in jeopardy.

Common Pitfalls in CPE Record-Keeping

Let’s face it, many educators struggle with tracking their CPE hours over five years. Some common pitfalls include:

• Misplaced or inaccessible certificates: You might have a mix of printed certificates, email confirmations, and online transcripts from various training sessions. It’s all too easy for a paper certificate to get lost in your desk, or for an email with an attachment to disappear under hundreds of other messages. By the time you need them, you can’t find half of the records.
  
  
• Inadequate proof of attendance: Perhaps you attended a conference or webinar that offered CPE credit, but all you have as evidence is a name badge or a generic email. Vague documentation (like an agenda or receipt without your name) may not satisfy TEA’s audit standards. Each CPE activity is supposed to have clear evidence – if your proof doesn’t include your name, the provider’s info, date, and hours, it could be challenged in an audit.
  
  
• Risk of certificate inactivation or late renewals: Procrastinating on CPE or losing track of hours can lead to a last-minute scramble at renewal time. If you cannot verify the required 150 hours when your certificate is up for renewal, your certification can be put on inactive status until you complete the hours and paperwork. In some cases educators have had to file for a late renewal (with additional fees and hassle) or even stop teaching temporarily while they sort out missing credits. These pitfalls create stress and can disrupt your career.
  
  

SOLVED’s Proactive Solution for CPE Compliance

SOLVED Consulting anticipated these challenges and built a proactive documentation system to protect educators. Here’s how our solution addresses the pitfalls above:

• Instant, verifiable certificates: Every SOLVED course you complete provides an immediate downloadable certificate that is also emailed to you. It includes all TEA-required details: our CPE provider name and ID number, your name, the course title/content, date of completion, and credit hours. We follow the official guidelines to the letter. This means each certificate is “audit-ready” from the moment you earn it – there’s no doubt it will hold up as valid proof.
  
  
  
• Monthly consolidated reports: To make things even easier, SOLVED emails you a monthly “CPE Summary” report that consolidates all the courses you finished that month. The email lists each course with its date and hours, and includes the actual certificates as attachments. This means over the span of five years, you’ll accumulate a neat collection of summary emails (e.g. 60 emails for 60 months) that comprehensively document your CPE progress. Come audit time, you’re already organized – no frantic digging through archives required.
  
  

Step-by-Step Audit Readiness with SOLVED

Worried about a potential audit? Here’s how SOLVED ensures you’re always ready:

1. We store your certificates for you: At SOLVED, every certificate you earn is securely stored in your account. If you ever misplace or can’t locate a certificate, just reach out—we’ll email it to you promptly so you’re never without your documentation.
   
   
2. Don’t stress about keeping files: Even if you forget to download your certificates or lose track of summary emails, SOLVED has your back. We maintain a complete archive of your records and can resend any certificate you need, anytime.
   
   
3. Respond to audit with confidence: If TEA audits your CPE records, simply forward the relevant SOLVED summary emails (with certificates attached) to the auditor, or print them out as needed. For example, if you’re asked to verify the last five years of CPE, you might pull up the 60 monthly emails and ensure each year’s worth of hours is covered. Because each summary is clearly labeled and complete, this process can take just minutes. Your submission will fulfill the state’s requirement for written CPE documentation, satisfying 19 TAC §232.16(a) without any doubt or hassle.
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(By contrast, imagine the old way: shuffling through boxes of paper certificates or scrambling across different websites to find proof of workshops you did years ago. With SOLVED, those days are over.)

CPE Offerings That Meet Audit Standards

Importantly, SOLVED’s courses themselves are designed to meet TEA’s standards from the start, so you’re not only tracking hours easily but also earning legitimate, high-quality CPE credits. Our offerings include:

• Integrated Co-Teaching & SEL Series: Courses that cover required competency areas like working with special education (SPED) populations, collaboration strategies, and social-emotional learning techniques. These directly tie into state priorities for inclusive education and student well-being.
  
  
• Culturally Responsive Teaching modules: Trainings that help you address diversity in the classroom and meet the needs of all learners. Given Texas’s emphasis on educators being skilled with diverse student populations, these courses strengthen your practice and check off relevant CPE topic requirements.
  
  
• Family Engagement strategies: Courses providing actionable approaches to involve parents and guardians in the educational process. Family engagement is a key aspect of many school improvement plans and a valued professional development area – our courses give you credit for learning these strategies.
• Supporting Emergent Bilingual Students: In these courses we shift our mindsets and adapt our lessons to make learning more accessible and meaningful for ELLs.
• …and many other TEA-approved topics: Whether it’s digital literacy, classroom management, or content-specific pedagogy, every SOLVED course comes from an approved curriculum and counts as acceptable CPE for certificate renewal. Each one issues a proper certificate with our provider number, so any activity you do through SOLVED will be recognized during an audit as an official CPE credit.
  
  

Real-Life Reassurance

Imagine this scenario: You receive a letter from TEA inquiring about your CPE hours for the last renewal cycle. Instead of anxiety, you feel prepared. You log into your email and find the folder where your SOLVED monthly summaries are stored. You identify, say, 5 emails – one for each year of the cycle – and each email contains PDFs of that year’s CPE certificates. You forward those five emails to the TEA auditor or print them out to mail in. That’s it. In a matter of minutes, you have provided comprehensive, organized proof of your 150 hours. The auditor can see every course, every date, every provider detail clearly. You’ve turned what could have been a week-long scavenger hunt for documents into a few clicks. This peace of mind is exactly what SOLVED aims to give educators.

Conclusion

Audit season doesn’t have to be scary when you have SOLVED on your side. To take the stress out of CPE compliance, get in touch with SOLVED today. We’ll help you activate your monthly compliance reports and set up your dashboard so that you’re always one step ahead of any audit. Don’t leave your certification to chance – contact SOLVED for a free demo or consultation and ensure that your CPE records are rock-solid, year-round.