• What Is the Teacher Incentive Allotment?

    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 GPISD Participating in the Teacher Incentive Allotment?

    Galena Park ISD is dedicated to providing excellent public education to our communities for over 80 years, Galena Park ISD continues to employ highly qualified and passionate educators. In an effort to retain these exemplary educators, GPISD 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 Galena Park ISD.

    Galena Park ISD 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.  GPISD 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 GPISD 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 GPISD Board of Directors.  Strategies and goals by grade level and campus align to this policy as detailed in the campus improvement plans.

    We have seen wonderful advancements in technology and data processing that better align our methods to achieve our goals.  GPISD has always utilized nationally norm-referenced assessments in order to gauge student academic growth.  GPISD 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 GPISD 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 Jerid Link at jlink@galenaparkisd.com. Please be sure to reference TIA in the reference line of the email.

    Teacher Designations