Lake Dallas ISD updates board on Teacher Incentive Allotment; Phase 1 covers early grades and core high‑school courses

Deputy Superintendent Dr. Kelly O. Sullivan updated the Lake Dallas ISD Board of Trustees on the district’s progress toward implementing the Teacher Incentive Allotment (TIA), a state program established by HB 3 to provide additional teacher compensation tied to local designations approved by the Texas Education Agency (TEA).

Dr. O. Sullivan said the district submitted a local designation plan in April and was notified in August that the application had been accepted. “We started last fall on this TIA journey,” she told the board, describing Year 1 as pre‑application and Year 2 as the district’s current data‑capture year. She said roughly 40% of Lake Dallas teachers are included in Phase 1 of the plan.

Phase 1 covers teachers of pre‑K4, kindergarten through second grade, third through eighth grade courses, Algebra I and English I–II. The district will measure student growth with grade‑appropriate instruments: CLI for pre‑K4, MAP for elementary and middle grades, and STAR (including STAR ALT 2 where appropriate) for selected courses, Dr. O. Sullivan said. Lake Dallas ISD has partnered with Region 11 and Texas Tech for calibration and validity testing; Texas Tech will perform reliability checks before TEA conducts a holistic review.

Dr. O. Sullivan outlined the multi‑year timeline: Year 2 is data capture; Year 3 will be submission of teacher appraisal and student growth data to Texas Tech for validation and then to TEA for final review; Year 4 would be when TIA funds are distributed to teachers. She said compensation details would be communicated once designations are finalized and that this is expected to be shared in the spring (the transcript indicated “April or so of 2027” as the approximate timing).

Board members asked how districts achieve broader teacher participation and how teachers in electives, career and technical education (CTE) and the arts — who do not take STAR or similar standardized tests — will be evaluated. A board member asked specifically about the long‑term plan for those teachers. Dr. O. Sullivan said the TIA committee includes representatives from CTE, electives and the arts and is developing alternate measures such as student portfolios, learning‑objective assessments and other locally validated artifacts so those teachers can qualify.

The district also surveyed teachers as part of the process. Dr. O. Sullivan reported a teacher survey conducted by Texas Tech had nearly a 75% response rate and that about 60% of respondents were positive about TIA’s impact on recruitment and retention and confident they could earn a TIA designation.

What’s next: the district committee meets to consider expanding the application for Phase 2, drafting assessments for non‑tested subjects, and continuing calibration training; validated data will be submitted for TEA review according to the multi‑year schedule outlined by Dr. O. Sullivan.

The board did not take a formal vote on TIA at this meeting.