No. Once a teacher is awarded a designation and the district receives notice of payment, the Teacher Incentive Allotment stipend will be awarded at the end of the school year in which the teacher worked as a TIA Designated teacher. In other words, a teacher is paid based on the year working with the designation in place.

A Dual Language teacher is responsible for student instruction in both English and Spanish, making growth in both languages an essential measure of instructional impact. Because both languages are core to the Dual Language instructional model, student outcome data must align to the language of instruction to remain valid and equitable in non-STAAR tested grade levels. Measuring growth in only one language would not fully reflect the teacher’s effectiveness or the intent of the TIA system. FISD teachers do receive a stipend for Dual Language instruction.

Yes, the new application will include these content/course areas. However, inclusion of courses will be contingent upon application approval.

For the 2025–26 school year, no changes will be made, as BOY testing has already been administered. Looking ahead, the district can review the exercises to ensure they are equitably achievable for demonstrating growth. The FitnessGram calculation will not be modified, as the assessment is aligned to the FitnessGram scaling guide based on age and exercise.

We can look into this and determine how an estimate may be provided prior to distribution of the check to employees. This will depend on how early the state releases the final allotment amounts for each designation level.

For 2027, Master teachers will be allowed to re-designate at the Master level in the 4th year. This gives 2 years to work towards designation, and it avoids potential time without an active designation. Therefore, A lower score in year 4 will NOT lower their current Master designation.

We are following similar procedures for how the state considers the A-F accountability data for STAAR academic growth. The state establishes the levels after the completion of the school year. While there may be a bigger raw score range for English I, the state does still set the following same levels for each STAAR test.