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.

Teachers 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.

Why Is ACA Participating in the Teacher Incentive Allotment?

As a service-oriented non-profit providing an excellent public education to the communities we serve for over 20 years, Arlington Classics Academy continues to employ highly qualified and passionate educators. In an effort to retain these exemplary educators, ACA designs compensation that rewards efforts toward our mission and vision. We work to build career opportunities within our organization for staff while valuing diversity and encouraging honest, productive communication and feedback.  The Teacher Incentive Allotment is another tool to improve teacher compensation packages that align to the mission and vision of Arlington Classics Academy.

Since 1999, Arlington Classics Academy has been challenging the status quo by providing an instructional path for students that does not limit knowledge acquisition to a grade level or age grouping.  ACA desires for students to demonstrate academic growth that is measurable and reasonable for students of all performance levels above and beyond the minimum standards.  This personalized style of learning is critical for students to remain engaged and continue their love of learning throughout their lifetime.

The Teacher Incentive Allotment allows ACA to reward teachers whose practices ensure that students grow, as we often say, "at least a year's worth in a year's time or more" as designated in the Student Outcomes adopted by the ACA Board of Directors.  Strategies and goals by grade level and campus align to this ends policy as detailed in the campus improvement plans.

As ACA has evolved since first operating in 1999, we have seen wonderful advancements in technology and data processing that better aligns our methods to achieve our goals.  ACA has always utilized nationally norm-referenced assessments in order to gauge student academic growth.  ACA currently uses the NWEA MAP assessment to accomplish this, though our previous tool was the ITBS (Iowa Test of Basic Skills).  The ITBS is a good assessment and provided a wealth of information to parents about student performance, but the data processing lagged and prevented teachers from making informed and innovative decisions about student learning needs in a timely manner. The NWEA MAP assessment gives timely feedback for teachers to use the data to design instruction based on a student's personalized needs multiple times each year.  Additionally, the growing support of inter-related resources based on student RIT scores strengthens teachers' ability to design engaging and meaningful instruction for students as well as assist parents in supporting the learning at home. 

The Teacher Incentive Allotment rewards teachers for the student growth measures that ACA has been championing for decades.  Through TIA, teachers will earn a status of recognized, exemplary, or master teacher and a correlating financial incentive based on the work of the stakeholder committee and final adoption of the program by the Board of Directors.

You can remain informed about the work of the committee by visiting this page often.  You may also provide feedback regarding the development of this program by emailing Craig Sims at csims@acaedu.net. Please be sure to reference TIA in the reference line of the email.