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Alamo Heights details districtwide Teacher Incentive Allotment pathway for every teacher
Summary
District staff told the board the Alamo Heights plan adapts state Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA) rules to create pathways for all teachers, including non‑tested subjects, and estimated implementation costs and timeline.
Dr. Jenny Walker, presenting to the Alamo Heights Independent School District Board of Trustees on May 14, outlined the district’s implementation of the state Teacher Incentive Allotment program and how the district is creating pathways for every teacher to qualify.
The plan matters because most Texas districts limit TIA to STAAR‑tested grades; Alamo Heights said it built assessment pathways for pre‑K through career and technical education and performing arts so "everyone, all of our social studies, everybody has a pathway forward," Walker said.
Walker told trustees that TIA requires two components for designation: a classroom observation (the district uses the ALMO IITAR observation tool called T Test) and a measure of student growth. She described three designation levels — recognized, exemplary and master — and said the district uses a mix of national tests and 68 locally validated assessments so non‑tested subjects (band, world languages, CTE, behavior support, etc.) can count. Walker said the district spent about $87,000 a year on assessments, of which roughly $60,000 were assessments already in use, and called the total investment "probably about a $100,000 investment."
Walker described staffing and operational impacts: moving from a three‑year waiver to evaluating every teacher raised the number of observations per administrator from about seven or eight to roughly 19–20. She described the full observation process — preconference, observation, write‑up, postconference and a summative — and said each evaluation now takes three to five hours.
On student growth, Walker said the district set local growth norms this year with consultant support and will refine those norms as successive cohorts take the tests. She emphasized standards are high: "These growth expectations are high and I have 0 apologies for that," Walker said. She reported preliminary gains in median national percentile ranks for science, reading and math compared with last year and said that districtwide focus on growth is producing stronger achievement figures in spring assessments.
Walker described next steps and timing: staff will finish testing in May, clean and link rosters in June, send data to a consultant in July to set growth targets, provide principals with reports in August, distribute individual teacher reports in September for verification, submit data to TEA and Texas Tech in October for validation, and expect final designations in March with payout the following spring.
Board members asked for clarifications about differing sample sizes shown in slides (Walker explained that subject slides covered different grade ranges, e.g., science begins in fourth grade, reading third through English II, and math K–Algebra II). Walker also described safeguards: at least 25% of some assessments must be scored by someone other than the homeroom teacher, and teachers sign integrity oaths at the start and end of the year.
The board received the presentation; there was no formal vote recorded on policy changes during the meeting.
