East Texas teachers, including eight from Chapel Hill ISD, are being recognized for their exceptional efforts in education.
Through the Texas Education Agency’s Teacher Incentive Allotment program, those teachers will receive incentive pay based on overall performance.
“We feel like one of the best things we can do for students is invest in our teachers,” said Dr. Joshua Tremont, Executive Director of Curriculum, Instruction, and Assessment of Chapel Hill ISD.
Created by the Texas Legislature, the Teacher Incentive Allotment program helps provide a realistic pathway for top teachers to earn six-figure salaries, and to help attract and retain highly effective teachers at traditionally hard-to-staff schools.
“Teachers are recognized based on student growth in their classroom observation with administrators,” Tremont said.
The teachers were selected based on collected data from test scores, academic planning and yearly evaluations.
Last year was the first year for data collection, making this the first year for teachers to receive the incentive pay.
As one of 378 districts in the state to be approved for the designation program, Chapel Hill ISD had approximately 45 teachers eligible for the incentive pay.
With the incentive, teachers can earn a bonus between $3,000 to $32,000.
According to Tremont, the total allotment among the eight teachers is close to $500,000 and will be distributed over a five-year period.
“This probably means as much to us administrators and educational leaders as it does to the teachers because we know they are the heartbeat of our district in delivering education,” Tremont said.
“I was very shocked,” said Beatriz Chavanne, a fifth-grade math teacher at Kissam. “I was not expecting this at all… but it is good to be recognized for the hard work the kids do.”
Chavanne applies fun and educational techniques to keep her students engaged in the classroom, particularly by working in groups.
“Kids may not always be able to open up or come to me, but they’re likely to do so with their peers,” she said.
According to TEA’s website, to be eligible to receive a designation, a teacher must be on an eligible campus and meet the following criteria:
Hold an eligible certificate (Standard, Professional, and Provisional).
Have a valid SBEC certificate.
Classroom Teacher (Chapter 233)
Reading Specialist (Chapter 239)
Legacy Master Teacher
Be coded as 087 (Teacher) in the Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) and compensated as a teacher.
Must be coded as a teacher for 100% of the instructional day for at least 90 days OR
Must be coded as a teacher for 50-99% of the instructional day for at least 180 days
National Board-Certified Teachers will automatically receive a Recognized Designation.
For districts to be approved for a Local Designation System, they must undergo a multi-year application process, starting with system development and an application that must pass statutory and regulatory requirements, followed by a full year of implementation to capture teacher performance data.
Districts then submit their data to be corroborated by Texas Tech University and reviewed by TEA for full system approval.
Since 2019, TIA has allocated $138.7 million in additional funding to school systems across Texas.