Certified teachers may qualify for more pay

The Texas Teacher Incentive Allotment is a program that would enable the top teachers within the district to earn a higher salary. The program gives designations to highly effective teachers, and holds three levels of designation. The levels are Recognized, Exemplary, and Master. Designations are awarded to teachers through the district’s local system or by achieving National Board Certification. Once a teacher is designated, they may generate an annual allotment for their school district based on their location of employment. The state of Texas requires at least 90% of the annual funds to be given directly to the teacher, with the remaining money going to the district of employment.

The amount awarded to the designated teacher will vary by school district, depending on the district’s spending plan and local needs.

While the Texas Education Agency (TEA) does not place restrictions on which teaching assignments are eligible for designations, each district holds their own unique needs and a district implementing a designation system may choose to start with certain campuses, subjects, or grade levels as they deem appropriate.

The process of building and implementing a designation system can take up to approximately three school years, Breckenridge ISD Superintendent Bryan Allen said during the regular scheduled school board meeting Monday, Dec. 12.

“This is going to be a multiyear process to get it fully implemented. We’re in the very beginning stages this year,” Allen said. “(...) It was set up by the legislature in 2019, right before COVID. (...) We didn’t feel like we had the capacity at that time, with some turnover in staff and the pandemic to get it going at that time, but we decided that we wanted to make a commitment to get it going this year. We feel like we’ve got some traction and headed in a good direction.”

Prairie Freeman, Chief Academic Officer for BISD, stated a committee has been put together for the Incentive Allotment program.

“We have put a committee together and we’ll start meeting in January,” Freeman advised. “We’ll start the application process, which is the rest of this year. Next year is data collection, where we’ll look at our application and make sure we’re collecting accurate pieces of data that match it. The third year will be the compensation year.”

Teachers can qualify in three different areas, based on their results of their observations and student growth. A Recognized level teacher averages about $7,000 in additional pay, with an Exemplary level earning an average of an additional $14,000. A Master Teacher, considered “best of the best” being in the top 3% of educators in Texas can earn up to an additional $25,000 a year.

“It’s going to be really hard to qualify for that very highest level there, but it’s going to be a great incentive for our people to work towards,” Allen said. “So aside from going through our process and whatnot, if a teacher wanted to go become Nationally Board Certified (...) they automatically qualify at the Recognized level. So if you go through that process to become Nationally Board Certified, then you automatically get qualified as a Recognized teacher, and that stays with you for five years. (...) It goes from district to district. If you qualify here, there’s nothing to prevent you from going to another district. But if we hired another teacher from another district, who was already designated, then they would still be able to earn that here in Breckenridge.”

According to the TEA website, if a teacher moves districts prior to the end of February, and works a creditable year of service within a new district, the new district will be awarded the funds. If the teacher leaves after February in the school year, the previous district will receive the money. Designated teachers are encouraged to contact their individual district prior to moving in order to determine which school will receive the funds.