Teacher Incentive Allotment

HB 3 established the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) to recognize effective teachers on three different levels: Recognized, Exemplary, and Master. These teacher designations generate additional teacher-focused allotment funding for districts in order for them to reward their top performers.

Eligible teachers may earn up to an additional $20,000.

To qualify for TIA funds, a teacher must qualify for a TIA designation.

Teachers may earn designations through two different routes. First, National Board Certified teachers are eligible to earn a Recognized designation. Second, districts may designate their effective teachers when they are approved for a local teacher designation system. The approval process is multi-step and includes the submission of a system application to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and then a data validation process through Texas Tech University.

Any teacher eligible based on a district's TIA Designation System that has received National Board Certification will automatically earn a Recognized designation for having achieved National Board Certification. That does not mean a nationally certified teacher is not eligible for Exemplary or Master status, rather that they are automatically eligible for at least the lowest amount of allotment in the Designation System.

After compiling the summative T-TESS scores and classroom student growth scale scores, the district will then calculate a final TIA score for each eligible teacher. The district will utilize the weights and measures provided on page 9 of the LISD TIA handbook to arrive at a final TIA score.  That final scores will determine which designation a teacher is given. 

Anyone who is coded as a classroom teacher in PEIMS is eligible for a TIA Designation. However, which teachers are considered for the program is dependent on each district and the categories or criteria the district chooses to include in its Designation System.

The TEA requires that:

• The teacher must have a valid SBEC certificate. Eligible types of certificate include: Standard, Professional, Provisional. Eligible classes of certificates include: Classroom Teacher (Chapter 233), Reading Specialist (Chapter 239), Legacy Master Teacher http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/sbecrules/tac/index.html 
• The teacher must be coded as 087 (Teacher) per the Public Education Information

Management System (PEIMS) description of codes for 90 days at 100% of the day (equivalent to four and one-half months or a full semester) or 180 days required at 50-99% of the day and compensated for that employment.

Additionally, LISD teachers must have attained ESL certification to be considered.

No. The TIA Designation Program is meant to recognize classroom teachers only. Instructional coaches, librarians, administrators, counselors, etc. are not eligible.

To be eligible a teacher must be coded as Role ID 087 in district PEIMS reporting. Role ID 087 includes teachers of record, assistant teachers, and support teachers. Interventionists, reading specialists, inclusion teachers, etc. are generally coded as 087. Districts must check with their PEIMS specialists and payroll personnel to ensure that teachers meet eligibility requirements before submitting them for designation.

Any teacher, including elective teachers, with National Board Certification is eligible for TIA.

Elective teachers without National Board Certification are not eligible through the local designation system for TIA at this time.  However, the district is committed to providing an opportunity for all teachers in the district to earn a designation under the local designation system. To meet this goal, the district is actively working to put student growth. measures in place in every grade and content area. Once the district is able to assure validity and reliability to the student growth data in additional grades and content areas,  then the district will expand the TIA plan to include additional teaching assignments.

LISD teachers must have attained ESL certification to be considered, a district requirement for all teachers by the end of the 2023-2024 school year, to help meet the needs of its student population of English Language Learners which has grown by 350 percent in the past 10 years.

When an allotment schedule is determined by the TIA Committee, it will be provided. Allotments are based on a teacher receiving one of three designations: Recognized, Exemplary, or Master.

Teacher designations have a base allotment. Recognized has a base allotment of $3,000. Exemplary is $6,000 and Master has a base of $12,000. 

The TEA has more information and examples of how allotments may be calculated at this website: https://tiatexas.org/about-teacher-incentive-allotment/allotments/

Your designation as a TIA Recognized, Exemplary or Master teacher follows you to any other district you may be employed by for the remainder of the 5 years after receiving your designation. If a district you move to does not have its own TIA Designation System, you would still receive the stipend from the state as the funds are provided by the state and not the district.

Districts that employ teachers who have earned designations will receive funding for those teachers based on the TIA formula, even if the district does not have an approved designation system in place. For example, a district that does not have a designation system in place could employ a teacher that earned a designation in another district or a teacher who automatically earned a Recognized designation for having achieved National Board Certification. Districts will need to develop a plan for how to spend allotment dollars that they receive, in accordance with the rules of HB3.

The TIA is designed to recognize and reward high-performing teachers. As the TIA requires eligible teachers to be coded as classroom teachers by PEIMS, if a designated teacher were to move into an administrative role, they would lose their TIA designation and stipend.

The process of requesting a second review would be no different than the current evaluation process.