TEA News

Ninth Grade Continues to have the Highest Rate
Grade-Level Retention Rates Show Decline
The TEA says in its latest annual 2019-20 grade-level retention report that in the fall of the 2020-21 school year (the latest data available), a total of 86,981 (1.7 percent) Texas public school students who were enrolled in fall 2020 had been enrolled in the same grade during the prior (2019-20) school year.
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TEA Rule News

Adopted rule:
  • Financial aid application mandate (more info) — Specifying the requirements schools must follow in complying with the legislative mandate that students must complete and submit the standard free state or federal college financial aid application as a graduation requirement, starting with 12th graders this school year (unless opted out by the student’s parent, a school counselor or the student [if 18 or older or the student is an emancipated minor]).

    The TEA reported receiving numerous comments from parents, school counselors, school administrators and others complaining that the requirement will be too onerous and time consuming for schools, parents and students alike — and the mandate represented governmental overreach. Many asked that the requirement be scuttled altogether.

    The TEA overruled the objections by noting that the mandate is required by state law.

    The only change in the rule from the version originally proposed was the adoption of a Texas Association of School Boards suggestion that — in accordance with the applicable law — school counselors, in reporting to their school districts that a student has been opted out of the requirement, may not reveal the specifics of the “good cause” reason for opting the student out.

    Impetus for the law is rooted in the 2018 report of the Texas Commission on School Finance, which noted in its recommendation to the Legislature in 2019, that Texas students were leaving thousands of dollars in available college financial aid unused annually.


Proposed rules (comment by Nov. 22) — click here for more info:
  • Adding the indicators of a student’s enlistment in the National Guard and earning an associate’s degree in calculations to determine a school district’s eligibility for the College, Career, or Military Readiness (CCMR) Outcomes Bonus.

  • Adopting provisions of the 2021-22 Student Attendance Accounting Handbook.