Personnel

School Finance- Effective Immediately

Teacher Incentive Allotment- Effective 9/1/2026

• Adds an additional designation level of "acknowledged" for the teacher incentive allotment and provides from $3,000 to $9,000 for such a designation
• Separates nationally board certified teachers to their own designation and provides from $3,000 to $9,000 for such a designation
• Requires districts to redesignate teachers who hold national board certifications as nationally board certified by September 1, 2026
• Sets the high needs and rural factor for acknowledged and nationally board certified designated teachers at $1,500
• Increases allotment amounts for each existing designation level as follows:
  • $12,000 to a maximum of $36,000, up from $32, 000 for a master teacher
  • $9,000, up from $6,000, to a maximum of $25,000, up from $18,000, for an exemplary teacher
  • $5,000, up from $3,000, to a maximum of $15,000, up from $9,000, for a recognized teacher
• Increases the high needs and rural factor for each existing designation level as follows:
  • $6,000, up from $5,000, for a master teacher
  • $4,000, up from $3,000, for an exemplary teacher
  • $2,500, up from $1,500, for a recognized teacher
• Allows the commissioner to designate enhanced teacher incentive allotment systems in which principals and teachers are paid through a compensation system based on performance and increases the allotment amounts by 10% for such systems
• Enhanced systems must:
  • adopt a local designation system
  • include for principals a strategic evaluations system aligned with the district's teacher designation system
  • ensure substantially all teachers regardless of grade level or assignment are eligible to earn a designation
  • include a compensation system for classroom teachers that differentiates based on appraisals and does not include across-the-board pay increases except for periodic changes in the salaries schedule to adjust for significant inflation
  • implement a plan to place highly effective teachers at high needs campuses
• Requires the TEA to provide examples or models of local optional teacher designation systems, including systems that include special populations
• Requires the TEA to provide assistance in establishing partnerships between districts that request assistance and districts that have already implemented systems, assistance in applying the required standards, assistance in providing centralized support for the analysis of the results of assessments, and assistance facilitating effective communication on and promotion of local optional teacher designation systems
• Creates a local optional teacher designation system grant program to provide funds and technical assistance to expand implementation of the local optional teacher designation systems and increase the number of teachers eligible for a designation
• Requires the State Board for Educator Certification to review certifications issued by the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards to determine whether to reauthorize or revoke authorization for the nationally board certified teacher designation by December 31, 2026
• Requires the review to consider whether earning a certification would interfere with the teacher's ability to provide instruction in TEKS without using common core standards, phonics instruction, or instruction in accordance with the provisions prohibiting the inculcation of certain topics and whether the components and assessments align with instructional material standards
• If the SBEC takes no action by December 31, 2026, the authorization for a designation for national board certification is revoked
• Allows the SBEC to periodically review the certification after the initial review

Liability Insurance

• Requires the agency to contract with a third party to provide services for classroom teachers including assistance in understanding their rights, duties, and benefits and providing liability insurance to protect a teacher against liability to a third party based on conduct that the teacher allegedly engaged in during the course of the teacher's duties
• Prohibits providers with which the TEA contracts from engaging in political activities or advocating regarding public schools
• Authorizes teachers to have an amount dedicated from their salary to pay for the services provided

Teacher Pay

• Creates a permanent teacher retention allotment for educators with 3 or more years of experience who are employed by a school district and teach for an average of at least 4 hours per day in an academic instructional setting or CTE setting
• Provides an allotment to school districts as follows:
  • For districts with 5,000 or fewer students:
    • $4,000 per classroom teacher with 3 or 4 years experience
    • $8,000 per classroom teacher with 5 or more years experience
  • For districts with more than 5,000 students:
    • $2,500 per classroom teacher with 3 or 4 years experience
    • $5,000 per classroom teacher with 5 or more years experience
• Requires districts to use funds received under this allotment to increase the 2025-2026 salary of each teacher that generates the funding above the salary for the 2024-2025 school year, or to use the funding to increase teacher salaries generally within the compensation plan adopted for an enhanced teacher incentive allotment district
• For each year after 2025-2026, requires districts to use the funding to maintain the salary increases given in 2025-2026
• Makes salary increases from the allotment creditable for TRS

Support Staff Pay

• Creates a permanent support staff pay allotment to provide salary increases for teachers with less than 3 years of experience, counselors, librarians, nurses, teacher's assistants, custodians, food service staff, bus drivers, administrative staff, or other support staff
• Prohibits the allotment from being used for superintendents, assistant superintendents or equivalent roles, principals, assistant principals, or employees in a centralized supervisory role
• Provides an allotment to school districts in an amount of $45 per student in average daily attendance, except that average daily attendance is increased for districts with less than 5000 students
• Requires districts to use funds received under this allotment to increase the 2025-2026 salary of non-administrative staff above the salary for the 2024-2025 school year
• For each year after 2025-2026, requires districts to use the funding to maintain the salary increases given in 2025-2026
• Makes salary increases from the allotment creditable for TRS

Early Childhood Allotment and PreK

• Provides an additional .01 weight for all K-3 students in average daily attendance for school districts
• Requires funding to be used to fund attendance of teachers at literacy and mathematics achievement academies and preK programs
• Requires the funding for the current early childhood allotment to first be allocated to ensure every district received full-day ADA funding for full-day preK programs and then for any remainder to be distributed on a proportional basis to school districts

Early Literacy Intervention Allotment

• Provides $250 per student who is required to receive reading intervention, except that students who generate the dyslexia allotment do not generate this allotment
• Caps the allotment at 10% of district enrollment for K-3

Facility Report (SB 12)

• Requires school district to report the following information to TEA for a report on facility usage:
  • the square footage of each district facility and acreage of the property on which it sits
  • total student capacity for each instructional facility
  • enrollment capacity and actual enrollment for each grade level at each campus and the total for each campus
  • whether a facility is used by one or more campuses and the campus identifier
  • what each facility is used for
  • whether each facility is leased or owned
• Requires the TEA to use the provided information to publish an annual report on district land and facilities

Charter Facilities Funding

• Increases the factor for charter facilities funding to $300 from $125
• Eliminates the $60 million cap for charter facilities funding and ties the cap as a weight on the basic allotment

Invalid Property Values

• Requires the commissioner to provide notice to school districts regarding the possible impact of the comptroller's finding that an appraisal district has an invalid local value
• The notice must include an estimate of the impact on the district's finances, and any right of recourse for the district

Guaranteed Yield Increment Adjustment & Tier II Guaranteed Yields

• Sets the golden penny yield at 0.02084 of the basic allotment and eliminates the provision that adjusts the yield based on property values
• Repeals the requirement for copper pennies to be compressed when the copper penny yield increases
• Creates an adjustment to increase the basic allotment using an amount of funding that is the difference between the cost of maintaining the golden penny yield at the 96th percentile of wealth per weighted student and the cost of maintaining the golden penny yield at the 0.02084 weight

Small and Midsized Allotment

• Increases the small allotment weight to .00046 from .0004
• Increases the midsized allotment weight to .00003 from .000025
• Increases the allotment weight for districts with less than 300 students that are the only district in their county to .0005 from .00047

Bilingual Allotment (SB 2185)

• Allows the TEA to require school districts to include additional information related to and classify the alternative language education methods used by the information in PEIMS
• Allows the TEA to provide funds at the same weights as the bilingual allotment to school districts using alternative language education methods, with an overall cap of $10 million per biennium
• Allows funds from the bilingual allotment to be used for teacher salaries related to providing bilingual education

School Safety Allotment (SB 260)

• Increases the school safety allotment to $20 per student in ADA, up from $10, and $33,540 per campus

Allotment for Basic Costs

• Creates an allotment of $106 per enrolled student to be used for:
  • transportation
  • hiring retired teachers
  • providing health insurance and employee benefits and paying payroll taxes
  • TRS contributions
  • utilities
  • property and casualty insurance

Regional Insurance Cost Differentials

• Provides additional funding to school districts located in a catastrophe area or certain coastal counties to offset differences in property and casualty insurance costs

Other Provisions

• Removes the requirement that a certain percentage of new funding after a basic allotment increase be spent on compensation of certain employees
• For districts that receive a reduction in their recapture because their actual tier 1 tax collections minus the required recapture is less than their entitlement, and subsequently are no longer subject to recapture, provides an amount of additional state aid equal to the lesser of the teacher retention allotment or the difference between the entitlement and the actual tier 1 tax collections
• Provides the Commissioner authority to resolve unintended consequences of finance changes
• Requires the commissioner to periodically throughout the year adjust school funding determinations to reflect current school year estimates of a district's enrollment and average daily attendance
• Removes the spending requirements for the compensatory education allotment

Teacher Preparation & Training- Effective for the 2025-2026 School Year

Teacher Preparation and Certification

• For the 2026-2027 school year, prohibits districts from employing as teacher of record for a course in the foundation curriculum a person who does not hold an appropriate certificate
• Allows districts to submit a plan for approval by the commissioner that provides a reasonable timeline and strategy to comply with the certification requirement by the 2029-2030 school year and if approved allows the delay of implementation of the certification requirement until the 2029-2030 school year
• Prohibits districts from exempting themselves from certification requirements for classroom teachers of record for courses in the foundation curriculum or from notification to parents regarding uncertified teachers through a local innovation plan
• Allows districts that have a local innovation plan that allows the employment of uncertified teachers to employ such teachers through the 2026-2027 school year for courses other than reading language arts or mathematics in a grade level above 5
• Provides a teacher certification incentive of $1,000 per teacher who was hired in 2022-2023 or 2023-2024 as a first-year teacher, was uncertified on January 1, 2025 and becomes certified by the end of the 2026-2027 school year if the person remained continuously employed since they were hired
• Creates preparation pathways for teachers as follows:
  • traditional teacher preparation
    • this pathway includes an individual concurrently receiving an undergraduate and master's degree and a certification, is required to include substantial preservice practice, and must be provided synchronously except for components approved by the Board to be delivered asynchronously
  • teacher residency preparation
    • programs under this pathway must use research-based best practices for recruiting and admitting candidates, integrate coursework, classroom practice, formal observation and feedback, require a candidate to receive preservice practice in a classroom for at least one year, use multiple assessments to measure progress, and provide training synchronously unless the Board approves asynchronous training
  • alternative teacher preparation
    • requires two pathways for people who have previously earned a degree
    • one pathway must require the candidate to complete substantial preservice practice, which may include time spent as a paraprofessional, and provides training synchronously unless the Board approves an exemption
    • the other pathway must provide flexibility in how a candidate may demonstrate proficiency for certification
• Establishes four certificate types:
  • a standard certificate for a teacher who has completed traditional or alternative teacher preparation
  • an enhanced certificate for teachers that complete the teacher residency preparation route
  • an intern with preservice experience certificate, which expires after one year for a person who has not yet satisfied all requirements for a preservice alternative teacher preparation route, but has completed a sufficient number of preservice practice hours to serve as a teacher of record
  • an intern certificate, which expires after two years for a person who has not yet satisfied all requirements for an alternative teacher preparation route but has met SBEC requirements to serve as a teacher of record
• Allows SBEC to review an educator preparation program's curriculum at any time before or after approval or renewal of approval
• Requires educator preparation programs to comply with requirements related to not incorporating the inculcation of certain topics in course requirements for courses that are required for certification
• Requires the review of educator preparation programs annually and requires the review to include quality indicators that reflect effective program practices and measures that provide for the observation of program practices to ensure program quality
• Allows school districts to issue teaching permits and employe as a teacher of record a person who either holds a baccalaureate degree, has served at or been employed by the district as a paraprofessional for at least 180 days the prior calendar year and is currently enrolled and on track to earn a baccalaureate degree and receive a probationary certificate within 3 years of the date of the receipt of a teaching permit
• Requires school board approval to issue teaching permits
• Requires districts to use the model notification adopted by the TEA regarding uncertified teachers
• Requires the TEA to develop and make available instructional materials for use in educator prep programs and training for faculty in the program that are research-based, support the development of proficiency in the knowledge and skills needed according to SBEC, and allow for an educator to demonstrate the candidate's proficiency
• Requires districts to pay teachers with no experience who are certified more than teachers with no experience who are uncertified
• Requires districts to pay $1,000 to educator prep programs for teacher candidates with intern with preservice experience certificates for the teacher candidate's completion of a literacy achievement academy and $500 for completion of a math achievement academy

Preparing and Retaining Educators through Partnerships Program

• Requires the Commissioner to establish Preparing and Retaining Educators through Partnership Preservice Programs to enable qualified educator prep programs to partner with school districts to provide preservice practice opportunities in classrooms at the district
• Requires partnerships to allow teacher candidates to receive field-based experience and gradually increase the amount of time a teacher spends engaging in instructional responsibilities
• Requires teacher candidates to be paired with teachers who have completed a training program
• Requires school districts to ensure that a teacher candidate is mentored by a mentor teacher who has completed a mentorship program for the first two years the teacher candidate is a teacher of record
• For a partnership program that is to help prepare candidates for a standard certificate, including a traditional or alternative program, the school district must use money provided under the relevant allotment to pay at least $3,000 to the teacher candidate and at least $1,000 to the cooperating teacher
• For a residency partnership program, the school district must use money provided under the relevant allotment to pay at last $10,000 to the teacher candidate and at least $2,000 to the cooperating teacher
• Creates Grow Your Own Partnership Programs which must be designed to support high school students in completing career and technical education courses to prepare the students to be teachers or to support district employees who do not hold a teaching certificate in completing a bachelor's degree to enable the person to become a teacher
• Requires grow your own partnerships to provide opportunities for candidates to practice teaching and guidance and support as the student begins an undergraduate degree program, and for current district employees, provide release time to support degree completion, on-the-job training, and a job assignment that includes instructional support
• Requires grown your own partnerships to require employees who participate to earn a bachelor's degree and enroll in an educator prep program within three years of beginning participation
• Requires TEA to create a preparing and retaining educators through partnership mentorship program for classroom teachers with less than two years of experience which requires school districts to provide stipends for mentor teachers of at least $1,000 and requires mentor teachers to annually complete a training program
• Allows the Commissioner to adopt rules regarding these programs and review performance of partnership programs
• Provides an annual allotment per teacher participating for school districts participating in a program as follows:
  • $10,000 plus the high needs and rural factor multiplied by $2,000 for traditional or alternative preservice partnerships programs, with an initial payment of $4,000 and the remainder upon successful completion
  • $24,000 plus the high needs and rural factor multiplied by $2,000 for residency programs, with an initial payment of $12,000 and the remainder upon completion
  • $8,000 plus the high needs and rural factor multiplied by $1,000 for grow your own programs for district employees, with an initial payment of 50% of the money and the remainder upon the employee's successful completion of a bachelor's degree
  • $3,000 for each teacher being mentored under the mentorship program
  • Sets the high needs and rural factor at the lesser of the high needs and rural factor under the teacher incentive allotment or 4.0
• Provides an additional $2,000 per teacher who is a candidate for certification in bilingual education or special education
• Caps the number of teacher candidates who can qualify for an allotment
• Requires the Commissioner to pay $5,000 out of the district's allotment to an educator preparation program for each teacher candidate who receives a standard certificate and completes 1 year of employment
• Requires the Commissioner to pay $10,000 out of the district's allotment to an educator preparation program for each teacher candidate who receives an enhanced certificate and completes 1 year of employment
• Requires the Commissioner to pay $2,500 out of the district's allotment to an educator preparation program for each teacher candidate who receives an intern with preservice experience certificate
• Provides an allotment to an educator preparation program for teacher candidates completion literacy achievement academies of $1,000 and completion of math achievement academies of $500
• Repeals the existing residency program
• Repeals the existing mentor program allotment on September 1, 2026

Other Provisions

• Repeals the prohibition on passing costs associated with rehiring retirees onto the rehired retiree

Personnel- Effective for the 2025-2026 School Year

• Allows districts to post vacancies for certified or licensed staff for five days instead of ten
• Requires teacher, counselor, and librarian daily rates for the purposes of salary reductions for unpaid leave to be calculated as the total annual salary divided by the number of expected work days for the school year
• Requies SBEC to waive certification exam fees and application fees for individuals seeking special education or bilingual certifications
• Requires SBEC to allow individuals who are retaking the bilingual target language proficiency exam to retake only the sections of the test that include the domains on which the person failed and to allow the person to demonstrate language proficiency through fewer components, including eliminating a component that requires the preparation of a lesson plan
• Prohibits sanctions on the certificate of a teacher for late resignation related to serious illness or health condition of the teacher or a close family member, the teacher's relocation due to their spouse or partner's employment changes, a significant change in the needs of the teacher's family that requires relocation or to forego employment, or if the teacher reasonably believes they have permission to resign late
• Allows the Commissioner to dismiss a hearing if the teacher who made the initial request for a hearing requests the dismissal, the school district withdraws the proposed decision giving rise to the hearing, or if the teacher and school district reach a settlement agreement
• Requires districts to allow staff not to use paid leave during FMLA leave for preganancy, birth, or adoption of a child
• Requires TEA to develop training and provide technical assistance related to strategic compensation, staffing, and scheduling for teachers, programs to encourage high school students and others in the community tot become teachers, and programs or strategies to establish clear and attainable behavior expectations for students
• Requires TEA to collect information to address teacher retention and recruitment
• Requires school districts to provide notice of grievances filed against an employee to that employee and sufficient opportunity for that employee to submit written response
• Requires administrators or threat assessment teams to, as soon as safe and practicable after receiving a threat, notify the teaching staff who may be directly affected by a threat notice of the threat, the nature of the threat, and any other pertinent details to ensure student and staff safety
• Makes children of classroom teachers eligible for free preK offered in the district in which the teacher works
• Requires the commissioner to adopt procedures that establish crisis prevention and intervention training requirements for school district personnel including who is required to take the training, the minimum frequency of the training, and provisions for allowing the training to be combined with or substituted for other training

Classroom Management (HB 6)

• Allows teachers to remove students from their class if they repeatedly interfere with the teacher's ability to communicate effectively with the students or with their classmates' ability to learn, if the student demonstrates behavior that is unruly, disruptive, or abusive toward another person, or if the student engages in bullying
• Eliminates the requirement that a teacher document the behavior prior to removal
• Requires the teacher, the campus behavior coordinator, or an administrator to notify the parent of the student's removal
• Requires written consent of the teacher or a return to class plan to return a student to the teacher's classroom
• Allows the student to appeal the removal to the school's placement review committee or the threat assessment team

Special Education- Effective for the 2025-2026 School Year (SB 568)

• Provides that a student receiving special education services can earn the distinguished level of achievement under the foundation high school program
• Clarifies that TEA is responsible for developing and revising a comprehensive system to ensure statewide and local compliance with federal and state laws related to special education, including through rulemaking, technical assistance, training, and ensuring appropriately trained teachers are in every special education classroom
• Requires school districts to annually discuss in a board meeting the performance of students receiving special education services, based on indicators adopted by the TEA
• Requires the Health and Human Services Commission to develop and provide materials regarding educational residential placement options for children who may qualify for placement in a state supported living center to the TEA and requires the TEA to provide the information to school districts
• Requires school districts to provide the information provided by the TEA to parents in ARD committee meetings where residential placement is discussed
• Beginning with the 2026-2027 school year, requires the commissioner to set minimum standards for and develop and update a list of approved facilities that school districts may contract with for services in a residential or day placement program
• Beginning with the 2026-2027 school year, requires contracts between school districts and residential or day placement programs to be approved by the commissioner
• Requires TEA monitoring of school district special education programs to include a comprehensive cyclical process and a targeted risk-based process
• Allows TEA to require a school district to obtain specialized technical assistance for a documented noncompliance issue or if a need is indicated by the data
• Provides the TEA more flexibility in imposing interventions and sanctions on school districts that are not in compliance with the IDEA
• Expands the noneducational community-based support program to provide grants to students placed in a residential program or a day placement program if the student is at risk of being placed in a residential program
• Requires school districts to notify parents of students eligible for the grants of the availability and designate an employee to assist the parent in accessing the grant
• Beginning with the 2026-2027 school year, adjusts the funding weight for a hospital-bound student to align with the new tiers of intensity of services
• Requires a school district to provide a video camera in any classroom or setting primarily used for delivery special education services to students who spend on average less than 50% of an instructional day in a general education classroom or setting on receipt of a written request from a parent
• Creates a waitlist of the parent-directed supplemental services grant program for students receiving special education services
• Guarantees autonomy in religious values and educational content for providers under the parent-directed supplemental services program
• Requires districts to submit evaluations of services for students who are deaf or hard of hearing to the TEA
• Requires school districts to regularly assess, using a commissioner-approved assessment tool, language acquisition of each child eight years old or younger who is deaf or hard of hearing and report those results to the Commissioner
• Exempts recapture-paying districts from paying for a share of the Texas School for the Blind and Visually Impaired or Texas School for the Deaf
• Beginning in the 2026-2027 school year, revises the special education funding weights to be based on intensity of services rather than instructional arrangement as follows:
  • requires the commissioner to define eight tiers of intensity of services including one tier specifically for students in a residential placement and one tier for students only receiving speech therapy
  • requires the commissioner to consider the type, frequency, and nature of services, the required certifications and licensures to serve the students, any relevant provider to student ratios, and any equipment or technology required in defining the tiers
  • increases funding for extended school year programs to be the full amount of the basic allotment multiplied by the weight and removes the funding cap for ESY programs
  • requires the commissioner to submit to the legislature proposed weights for the tiers by December 1 of each even-numbered year
  • requires the commissioner to establish four service groups to provide funding to school districts based on the number of students in each group
  • requires the commissioner to consider the type, frequency, and nature of services, the required certifications and licensures to serve the students, any relevant provider to student ratios, and any equipment or technology required in defining the groups
  • requires 55% of funding from the service groups allotment to be spent on special education programs
  • requires the commissioner to submit to the legislature proposed allotments for the groups by December 1 of each even-numbered year
• For the 2026-2027 school year, the commissioner has the authority to determine the weights and allotments providing that the total amount of special education funding for school districts increases by $250 million over what it would have been under current law
• Beginning in the 2026-2027 school year, makes students receiving accommodations for dyslexia eligible to generate the dyslexia allotment
• Increases the CCMR outcomes bonus for students in a special education program to $4,000
• Increases special education transportation allotment to the general education transportation allotment plus $0.13, which equals $1.13 for the 2025-2026 and 2026-2027 school year
• Provides an allotment of $1,000 per child for whom a district conducts a full individual and initial evaluation for special education eligibility
• Provides an allotment for a qualifying day placement program established by an ESC, school distinct or charter school as follows:
  • $250,000 for the first year
  • $150,000, if at least three students are enrolled plus $100,000 per year of operation after the first year, for every year after the first year
• Makes a program qualifying if it complies with commissioner rules, offers services to students enrolled at any school district in the county, and has been designated by the agency for service in the county as increasing the availability of day service placement in the county
• Limits qualifying programs to one per county per year
• Provides an allotment of $6,925 per student for each student enrolled in a regional day school program for the deaf to the program administrator or fiscal agent
• Repeals the provision excluding time to provide information and seek consent for additional exams or tests for the evaluation of a child's need for special education services from the 60 day timeline to complete an evaluation
• Repeals the provision that if a parent does not give consent to additional examination within 20 days of receiving information regarding the test and how it will be used the consent is considered denied

Curriculum & Instruction- Effective for the 2025-2026 School Year

Math and Literacy Academies

• Removes teachers who teach 7th or 8th grade reading from required literacy achievement academies
• Requires school districts to provide stipends to K-3 classroom teachers who complete literacy achievement academies, and any classroom teacher who completes a mathematics achievements academy, outside of work time at the direction of the district, unless the teacher attends the academy through an educator prep program, from the funds provided and allows districts to provide stipends to other classroom teachers if funds are available
• Requires the TEA to evaluate the effectiveness of literacy and mathematics achievement academies
• Requires the commissioner to develop reading and mathematics intervention academies for teachers or other professionals who provide reading intervention to students
• Requires all classroom teachers that provide math instruction in grades K-3 and elementary principals, assistant principals, math instructional coaches, and math interventionists to attend a math achievement academy by the 2030-2031 school year

Early Childhood Assessments

• Requires the commissioner to adopt a single reading assessment that a school district must use within 60 days of the beginning of Kindergarten to assess a student's foundational literacy skills
• Allows, but does not require, the commissioner to approve up to two alternative reading assessments
• Requires school districts to report in the results in a public board meeting and provide the results to parents within the earlier of 20 school days or 30 calendar days after the results are available
• Requires the commissioner to adopt a list of assessment to be used by school districts for assessing foundational literacy and numeracy skills in grades K-3
• Requires the reading assessment to be capable of screening for dyslexia
• Requires districts to administer an assessment on the list at the middle and end of the year in Kindergarten, beginning, middle and end of year for fiesta nd second grade, and beginning and middle of the year for third grade
• Requires school districts to report in the results to the TEA and in a public board meeting, and provide the results to parents within the earlier of 20 school days or 30 calendar days after the results are available
• Allows parents to opt out of administration of the assessments

Early Literacy Intervention

• Requires school district to provide reading intervention to a student whose results on two consecutive reading assessments indicate the student is at risk of not achieving satisfactory performance in foundational literacy
• The intervention must include targeted instruction in areas of identified need provided using effective instructional materials, provided by a person with training in reading intervention, as practicable provided by the same person throughout the entire intervention instruction, and meet any other requirements adopted by the commissioner
• Requires reading intervention to be provided until the student is no longer at risk or the student reaches the fourth grade
• Prohibits a student receiving intervention from being removed from instruction in the foundation or enrichment curriculum, recess, or PE
• Requires the TEA to approve an automated, computerized, or other augmented method for providing reading intervention
• Allows parents to opt out of the required intervention

Tutoring- Effective for the 2026-2027 School Year

• Requires the Commissioner to create a program to improve student proficiency in reading by providing grants through which a student's parent may purchase tutoring services for a student at or below third grade who requires reading intervention or a student who is required to receive accelerated instruction as a results of third grade performance
• Provides grants of $400 per student
• Beginning with the 2030-2031 school year, requires the funding for the grant to be paid by school districts for any student who fails the third grade reading assessment and was enrolled in the district from Kindergarten through third grade, except that for a student eligible for special education, half the grant is paid by the school district
• Requires the agency to approve to provide tutoring services classroom teachers who are designated under the Teacher Incentive Allotment and submit their name to the TEA
• Requires school districts to provide notice of a student's eligibility for a grant

PreKindergarten- Effective for the 2027-2028 School Year

• Requires the commissioner to designated at least four entities as "prekindergarten partnership intermediaries" to develop partnerships between school districts and private preK providers
• Requires districts to receive an official determination from a preK partnership intermediary that the providers that submitted proposals for a preK partnership with the district are unable to serve the district's students prior to the district constructing, repurposing, leasing, or issuing bonds to provide required preK classes
• Requires districts to pay at least 85% of the funding received by the district for students enrolled in preK being provided by a private provider to the private provider
• Prohibits districts from offering a preK program on a tuition basis unless the district has received an official determination from a preK partnership intermediary that no private providers meet the qualifications to serve the students

Resource Campuses

• Allows districts that are rated D or F for 3 years over a 10 year period to be designated a resource campus, instead of only F campuses for 4 years
• Requires resource campuses to ensure that at least 50% of teachers at the campus in the foundation curriculum hold a designation under Teacher Incentive Allotment, but allows the campus to employ teachers 2 years of experience for the foundation curriculum and with less than two years of experience for other courses
• Requires middle school resource campuses to operate for additional instructional days

Open Education Resource Instructional Materials

• Requires TEA to assist school districts with implementation of open education resource instructional materials for the 2024-2025 and 2025-2026 school years
• Allows districts to apply funds received to offset the payment of costs regardless of whether the cost was incurred prior to receiving the funds
• Allows the Commissioner to market the development and availability of open education resource instructional materials

Additional Days School Year

• Allows funding for additional instructional days to begin for instructional days beyond 175 instead of 180
• Allows the additional days to include middle school
• Increases funding for additional days by 50% for districts that offer at least 200 full days of instruction
• Provides separate funding for districts that are not eligible for funding under the Additional Days School Year program that provide at least 30 days of half-day instruction for required reading intervention

Other Provisions

• Provides funding for grants to assist in planning implementation of an additional days school year program
• Requires the TEA to develop and implement an adaptive vocabulary assessment pilot program to assess vocabulary development in K-3 students
• Requires school districts to provide notice to parents of students with dyslexia of the Talking Book Program administered by the Texas State Library and Archives Commission
• Requires the TEA to approve high-impact tutoring providers for providing accelerated instruction and allows districts to use outcomes-based contracts with such providers

CCMR (HB 120)

• Adds the goals that students will have skills and credentials necessary to enter the workforce and be ready for post secondary coursework without remediation, upon graduation to the state academic goals
• Requires the TEA to post information regarding high school students disaggregated by district, high school, and annual cohort for the past 10 cohorts for school boards, superintendents, and counselors, including:
  • the number and percentage of students who enroll in a postsecondary degree, certificate, or other credentialing program, including the number who persist for 1 year and the number who complete the program
  • employment status, occupation, industry, wage, and county of employment and residence
  • for students who did not graduate, the highest grade level completed and whether the student has earned a high school equivalency certificate
• Requires the TEA to use the data to create a quantifiable state goal for career readiness and update the goal at least every five years with the first update in the 2028-2029 school year
• Requires the College, Career, and Military Readiness plans adopted by school boards to include:
  • an annual goal for each CCMR indicator
  • specific annual goals for student completion of postsecondary credentials while in high school
  • annual goals for graduates at one, three, and five years post graduation including rate of enrollment in postsecondary institutions, percentage who do not require remediation, and rate of persistence for the first two years, rate of completion of postsecondary degrees or certificates, and wages earned
• Requires school districts to submit an annual report on CCMR performance to TEA and the LBB
• Requires school boards to approve the annual CCMR plan and for the report to be posted online for 2 weeks prior to the vote
• Makes students who would be eligible for free participation in a dual credit program under the Financial Aid for Swift Transfer (FAST) program but for their graduation from high school eligible if they are enrolled at a P-TECH campus in a course of study offered under the P-TECH program
• Designates JROTC programs as CTE programs
• Allows students to receive two certification exam subsidies
• Provides subsidies for teachers that pass certification exams related to career and technology education instead of just cybersecurity
• Requires TEA to reimburse school districts for costs paid for fingerprinting or criminal history record information review related to certification exams
• Requires school districts to provide parents of students enrolled in JROTC with information about any early registration or scholarship programs available to students in military training programs, including the option for the parent to consent to the district sharing information with a public institution of higher education for the purpose of learning about such opportunities
• Allows districts that were participating in the Rural Pathway Excellence Partnership (R-PEP) Program to continue participating regardless of the number of students at the district, but caps funds at 110% of the funds provided in the year immediately before the district exceeded 1,600 students
• Caps grants for assisting in the planning and establishment of R-PEP programs at $5 million annually
• Requires counselors to include information about career readiness and workforce training opportunities and a link to the My Texas Future website, with information on creating a profile, in the information regarding the importance of postsecondary education provided to students each year of high school
• Requires counselors to include information about opportunities to complete career training and obtain a postsecondary credential while in enrolled at the high school, including costs, completion rates, and average wages of completers, and the outcomes of graduates at the campus in the information provided to students and parents each year of high school
• Requires TEA to provide a training for school counselors on trends identified in the data related to high school student outcomes
• Allows students during the spring semester of their junior year or during their senior year to take a nationally recognized career readiness assessment approved by the commissioner at state cost
• Makes students who are enrolled in a P-TECH program eligible for funding under the Foundation School Program even if they have graduated from high school
• Allows districts to provide advising support related to successful completion of a certificate or degree program to students who have graduated in the first two years after graduation
• Increases the per-student in average daily attendance funding for P-TECH programs to $150, up from $50
• Increases the cap on R-PEP outcomes bonuses funding to $20 million from $5 million
• Allows funding from the New Instructional Facilities Allotment to be used for a renovated portion of an instructional facility being used for the first time to provide high-cost and undersubscribed CTE programs as determined by the Commissioner
• Increases the cap on the New Instructional Facilities Allotment to $150 million from $100 million
• Provides reimbursement to districts for up to two certification exams per student including costs for fingerprinting or criminal history record review
• Caps certification exam reimbursements at $20 million per year and $500,000 per year for fingerprinting and criminal history record review
• Requires the Texas Workforce Commission to include information related to wage, industry, occupational field, full-time and part-time status, county of primary employment, and remote work status in information reported by the Commission
• Repeals the requirement that the TEA prioritize partnerships with entities that have at least two years' experience managing college and career pathways for the R-PEP program

• Changes the name of "Licensed Specialist in School Psychology" to "School Psychologist"

• Allows school districts that opted to no longer participate in TRS health insurance to elect to rejoin TRS, even if it is prior to the fifth anniversary of the decision to no longer participate, by providing written notice by December 31, 2025 of the district's choice to participate beginning with the plan year that starts September 1, 2026
• Requires TRS to impose a risk stabilization fee on the premiums of a district that rejoins early
• Requires districts that rejoin to remain in TRS until the plan year that begins September 1, 2031

• Prohibits school district administrators, including principals, superintendents, and other staff with significant administrative duties relating to the operation of a district, campus, or program from receiving any financial benefit for the performance of personal services for a business entity that conducts or solicits business with the school district or another school district, charter school, or region service center
• Allows administrators other than superintendents and assistant superintendents to receive a financial benefit for personal services for an education business that provides services to the district related to the curriculum or administration of the district or for another school district, charter school, or ESC, if the school board approves the contract between the administrator and other entity and determines it will not harm the district, will not be a conflict of interest, and the duties are performed solely on the administrator's personal time
• Creates a civil penalty of $10,000 per violation for an administrator who violates the prohibition

• Requires the clerk of a court to notify the State Board of Educator Certification of the conviction or deferred adjudication of an educator for improper relationship with a student or distribution of harmful material or any equivalent law in another state
• Requires principals to report to the superintendent within 48 hours if the principal becomes aware of evidence the educator abused or otherwise committed an unlawful act with a student or minor, was involved in or solicited a romantic or sexual relationship with a student or minor, engaged in inappropriate communications with a student or minor, or failed to maintain appropriate boundaries with a student or minor, as defined by the Board
• Requires superintendents to report to the Board within 48 hours of becoming aware of the above evidence and when an educator is terminated and there is evidence of the above
• Requires the TEA to develop an internet portal for reports to the Board
• Applies the same reporting requirements to non-educator employees and service providers except that reports are made to the TEA for non-educators and service providers
• Requires the TEA to place educators for whom the Board places a notice of investigation on their public certification record in the do not hire registry and indicate that they are under investigation for alleged misconduct
• Requires people applying for employment with a school to submit consent for release of the person's employment records and a pre-service affidavit disclosing whether the person has ever been investigated for the conduct for which a report must be made within 48 hours, has ever been included in the do not hire registry, has ever been or is currently employed by a service provider for a school, or has ever been terminated, discharged, or resigned in lieu of being terminated from a school
• Requires a person who answers affirmatively on the pre-service affidavit to include all relevant information about the situation
• Requires districts to fire employees if it is determined they failed to disclose the required information
• Allows the Board to revoke the certification of an administrator who employed a person knowing the person failed to disclose the required information
• Requires the TEA to make a preliminary determination, within 30 days of receiving a report, regarding whether a notice of alleged misconduct should be placed on an educator's public certification records or if the non-educator should be placed on the registry with an indication that the person is under investigation for alleged misconduct
• Prohibits the Board from accepting the surrender of a certificate while the Board is investigating the educator for the misconduct that requires a report within 48 hours
• Requires school districts to terminate a person listed on the do not hire registry
• Requires superintendents to annually certify to the commissioner that the school district has complied with the educator misconduct and do not hire registry provisions
• Allows the TEA to temporarily include in the do not hire registry people whose continued employment at a school poses a continuing and imminent threat to the public welfare, or if a person is arrested for an offense which triggers a notice from a court clerk, without notice or hearing if proceedings at the State Office of Administrative Hearings are initiated simultaneously and a hearing is held within 17 days of the temporary inclusion to determine whether probable cause exists to keep the person in the registry
• Requires the TEA to refer any misconduct to law enforcement that has not already been referred
• Requires the TEA to review investigations regarding sexual misconduct conducted by school districts to ensure that the investigations are conducted using appropriate investigatory protocols
• Prohibits the issuance of certificates or permits for a conviction or deferred adjudication of an offense triggering registration as a sex offender, improper relationship with a student, distributing harmful material, public indecency, a felony offense involving school property, conviction for a title 5 felony, or an out of state crime that is equivalent
• Allows the Board to temporarily suspend an educator's certificate by a majority vote determining that the educator's continued certification constitutes an imminent threat to the public welfare, or if a person is arrested for an offense which triggers a notice from a court clerk, without notice or hearing if proceedings at the State Office of Administrative Hearings are initiated simultaneously and a hearing is held within 17 days of the temporary inclusion to determine whether probable cause exists to suspend the certificate
• Requires the TEA to post online a quarterly report on educator, employee, and service provider misconduct including the number of reports of alleged misconduct categorized by certification status, the number of preliminary reviews that resulted in a formal investigation categorized disposition, the number of formal investigations categorized by disposition, the number of individuals sanctioned or placed on the registry following a formal investigation
• Applies reporting requirements to private schools
• Adds improper relationship between educator and student to the definition of abuse
• Requires reports of child abuse or neglect to be made within 24 hours
• Requires reports of child abuse made to law enforcement agencies to be made to law enforcement agencies other than school district police departments
• Repeals the provision that allows superintendents to complete investigations of misconduct prior to reporting and not report if the investigation found the allegations were false

• Prohibits the infringement on the right of a school employee to engage in religious speech on prayer except when necessary to further a compelling state interest and narrowly tailored using the least restrictive means to achieve that interest

• Makes it a first degree felony punishable by life in prison to display, or cause to be displayed, in a school library, visual material that contains a visual depiction of a child engaging in sexual conduct if the person knows or should have known that the depiction is of a child
• Makes it a second degree felony punishable by at least 10 years in prison to display, or cause to be displayed, in a school library, visual material that contains a visual depiction of a computer-generated child engaging in sexual conduct if the person knows or should have known that the depiction appeared to be of a child or believes that the depiction is of an actual child