001Welcome. I'm Scott Lipton, director of strategic staffing and operations at the Texas Education Agency. Thank you for joining us for this overview and walkthrough of the PREP aotment financial planning tool. The goals of this webinar are to help you estimate what your school system is getting from the prep aotment and understand when you get it, the cost the statute requires school systems to cover and how to use the planning tool to model your school system spending and see the estimated net from the aotment before you commit to participating. You do not need to have the tool open right now. We will walk through it on the screen and then a download link will be shared at the end. What you will learn in this webinar. We will start with a brief overview of the prep
002programs and what they fund. Then we will review the financial planning tool and walk you through an example to help you learn how to estimate what you receive from the prep aotment and when you receive it for each of the three prep programs available. Now during the walkthrough we will refer to the statutes to help you understand the costs your school system is required to spend for each of the prep programs. And by the end of the walkthrough, you will understand how to use the net view tab in the financial planning tool to model your costs and see your estimated net from the aotment over the next 5 years. Finally, we will review next steps from today all the way until your first prep funding in October of 2026. Before we open the tool, let
003me give you a brief foundation on what prep is and how the funding works. This framing will help you understand everything you see in the tool. Texas faces persistent challenges in recruiting, preparing, and retaining teachers. The PREP program aotment was established to address all three of these challenges, not as a one-time grant, but as permanent formula funding through the foundation school program. PREP stands for preparing and retaining educators through partnership. The prep program aotment was established by House Bill 2 in the 89th Texas Legislature and signed into law in June 2025. It is codified in Texas Education Code sections 21.901 through 21.911 and section 48.157. This webinar walks you through a financial planning tool we have built to help your school system estimate what prep funding looks like and what it will take to implement.
004The most important thing to understand is that prep is formulaf funded through the foundation school program, not a competitive grant. Every school system that meets the program requirements and participates is entitled to the allotment. There is no pool of money that runs out. There is no scoring. You participate, you meet requirements, you receive the funding. That is why the financial planning tool exists. Because the funding is formula based, you can estimate your allotment, your required spending, any additional optional spending, and your net before you commit to participating through the verification of participation process in May of 2026. Teacher vacancies are among the most costly challenges a school system faces. When a classroom goes without a qualified teacher, student learning suffers and other teachers absorb the additional burden. Research consistently shows that teachers prepared locally through
005residency and grow your own pathways stay in their community significantly longer. PREP creates the funding infrastructure to build that local pipeline. Every eligible school system in Texas can access all of the PREP programs. The allotment formula is designed to direct more funding to school systems serving students with higher levels of economic need and to rural communities which are where the pipeline challenge is most acute. PREP funds five programs. The three available now in the 202627 school year are grow your own prep preservice residency and prep mentorship. These are the three we will focus on today. Grow your own provides $8,000 to $12,000 per pair professional employee with a cap of 40 employees per school system per year. Residency provides $24,000 to $36,000 per resident at the district level with a cap of 40 residents per
006year. For the 202627 school year, if your school system plans to exceed 40 residents, you can add up to 80 more residents at the traditional pre-ervice amount of $10,000 to $21,500 per additional resident per year. Mentorship provides $3,000 per beginning teacher with a cap of 40 per year. The ranges reflect the rural and high needs factor, a number between zero and four calculated from your campus student point values. The higher your factor, the more funding per participant. The tool estimates this for your school system automatically based on your school systems average. The actual calculations are based on campus specific student point values that will be used for the actual funding you will receive beginning in October 2026. Two more programs, traditional pre-ervice and alternative pre-ervice, will be available in lasso cycle 5 starting fall 2026
007and will be active for the 202728 school year. They are not part of today's walkthrough. These three programs work together as a pipeline. Grow your own recruits people already in your system. Residency prepares them for the classroom. Mentorship supports them through their first two years. You do not have to run all three programs, but running all three maximizes both your aotment and your pipeline. Now, we will walk through the tool before we follow our example school system through each program section. The prep aotment planning tool has six tabs. The start here tab is your navigation guide. There are three program tabs. Prep GIO, PREP pre-ervice residency, and PREP mentorship. These are where you enter your participation numbers and see your a lotment estimates. The net view tab is where you see your required costs prepopulated.
008Enter any additional spending and see your estimated net from the allotment immediately. The reference tab has the statutory background if you want to trace any number back to the law. I want to name the design principle behind this tool before we go further. The program tabs tell you what you are getting. The net view tab tells you what it costs and what remains. We built the tool that way intentionally so your finance team can see those two questions answered in two separate places. When you open the tool, you land on the start here tab. This tab has no inputs. It is the map for your use of the financial planning tool. The five steps walk you through in order. The GIO tab, the residency tab, the mentorship tab, then the net view tab to see
009your full picture, and finally the reference if you need the statutory detail. You can skip any program tab that does not apply to your school system. The disclaimer at the bottom is important. This tool uses your school system average student point values to estimate your factor. Your final aotment will be calculated by TEA using current year data. Use this tool for planning purposes only. Your actual number comes from TEA through the foundation school program after you verify participation. Let me now show you the legend color and header system because it governs every program tab. The program colored columns are yours to fill in. These include the school system name, participant counts, and any other district inputs. Each program tab uses its own color so you always know which program section you are working on. Blue
010for grow your own, green for residency, and purple for mentorship. The gray columns calculate automatically from your inputs. Do not edit them. You shouldn't be able to, but if you accidentally overwrite a formula, close without saving and reopen from the original download. One feature worth knowing, hovering over column headers for a tool tip explains what goes in that column and what minimums apply. We recommend reading those the first time you use a new tab. All of your a lotment estimates from the program tabs feed automatically into the net view tab. You do not copy or transfer anything manually. The net view tab is designed around three questions your finance team needs to answer. What does the allotment cover? What are we required to spend? And what can we do with what remains? The tab has
011three sections, one for each program. In each section, the gray total allotment estimate column on the left links automatically from the program tab. That is your aotment estimate. The required cost columns to the right are where the design of this tab matters. There are no required costs for GIO. For residency, two of those columns come prepopulated. The residency salary column is prepopulated at $10,000 per resident and the host teacher stipen column is prepopulated at $2,000 per resident. These are statutory minimums. They are locked, so you cannot change those amounts. You can add more optional spending if you are planning above minimum compensation. There is a third required cost for residency that does not come from the aotment. The $10,000 salary match per resident. That is in its own column clearly labeled salary match. That is
012money your school system provides from its own budget, not from the prep aotment. The net view separates these so your finance team can see exactly which costs come from which source. For mentorship, the minimum stipen column is prepopulated based on your beginning teacher count. The minimum is $1,000 per mentor teacher. That pre-populated amount reflects a 1:1 ratio. If your school system uses a different ratio, you can adjust the count of mentors and the prepopulated minimum will recalculate. The remaining cost columns in each section are yours to fill in. tuition and fees, release time, coordinator costs, training, and any other permissible spending. The net from aotment column at the far right shows what remains after everything you have entered. That is your planning number. There there are also five-year total rows that show how the funding
013plays out over time and an all program section at the bottom. The reference tab is the last tab and the one you are least likely to need while filling out the tool. It is there for you when you if you want to understand how a number was derived or what the statutory regulations are behind each number. It has four sections. Terms and definitions explains every term in the tool including the statutory definitions for resident, beginning teacher, host teacher and mentor. How prep funding works explains the high needs and rural factor, how student point values work, and how the tool estimates your factor. The program funding formula section show the exact calculations for each program so you can trace any tool output back to the statute. And the success funding overview provides you with an explanation
014of how success funding works. You do not need this tab to use the tool, but when your superintendent or board asks how a number was calculated, this tab has the answer. We will next introduce our example school system. The best way to understand the tool is to follow one school system through all three programs. We're going to do that now with our madeup district, Texas ISD, a rural school system in central Texas. The example we are using, Texas ISD, is representative of many of the school systems we see in the prep aotment. A rural midsize school system with a meaningful economic need factor and a clear opportunity to build a local pop pipeline across all three programs. Your numbers will be different, but the logic of the tool is identical for every school system. Texas
015ISD is a rural school system in central Texas with approximately 3500 students. Its rural high needs factor is 2.8 and this automatically populates when you select your school system in the tools lookup table. A factor of 2.8 8 means Texas ISD serves campuses where the average student point value reflects significant economic need which acts as a multiplier earning it a higher aotment per participant than a lower factor school system. For this walkthrough, Texas ISD is running all three programs. Three pair professional employees participate in the grow your own program. Five residents, including one bilingual candidate, participate in the residency program, and eight beginning teachers are participating in the mentorship program. We will follow these numbers through each program tab, then bring everything together in the net view tab. Keep in mind, this is a demonstration
016example. The tool estimates your school systems specific aotment based on your factor and your participant counts. Hello, my name is Ruth Yet and I will be walking you through the grow your own program and the prep aotment tool GIO tab. GIO can really be thought of as that first stage of the teacher pipeline. It supports pair of professionals and other school system employees in completing their bachelor's degree and enrolling in an approved EP while staying employed. For rural and high need school systems especially, people are most likely to stay and teach in the community that they are often working in already. Grow your own helps to create that pathway. The prep go program funding can be used for prep GYO implementation at the school systems discretion. Such uses may include tuition and fees for the
017employees bachelor's degree, release time for coursework while the employee is employed, wraparound and transition supports, and high school education and training implementation. As named in statute, the school system must provide the employee with an instructional support role that makes up at least 25% of the employees school day so that they can continue supporting students while pursuing their degree. The school system must also pair the employee with a cooperating teacher throughout the program. An important note required within statute. School systems that participate in prep gio must also participate in a prep pres-ervice program. In this cycle that is referring to the prep pre-ervice residency program. So if you wish to participate in prep gio, you must also participate in prep preservice residency. The allotment splits into two parts with two different triggers. The first part is
018the initial school system allotment estimate, $16,200, which is 50% of the total. This funding is triggered when each employee begins the program. The second part is the success-based funding estimate or the remaining $16,200. This has a two-part trigger. The employee must earn their bachelor's degree and enroll in an approved educator preparation program. Both conditions are required and must happen within the 3 years of program start. 100% of the GIO allotment goes directly to the school system. At a factor of 2.8, each employee generates $10,800 in total allotment. The annual cap, as a reminder, is 40 employees per school system per year. For required costs, the GIO statute specifies what the allotment can be spent on, including tuition, fees, and release time, but does not set a dollar minimum. Your actual costs depend on the institutions
019your employees attend. We will be modeling that in the net view tab. Here is the prep gyo tab with Texas ISD entered. Select your school system from the drop down in the school system column. Your rural high needs multiplier is factored automatically. For GIO, you enter your estimated count of participants for each cohort year and your estimated count of participants completing in each subsequent year. For Texas ISD, we have entered three for the year 2026 to 2027. The allotment estimates table in the middle calculates automatically. This includes the boost from the rural high needs multiplier as well as success funding with the assumption that all GIO candidates complete the requirements for a bachelor's degree and enroll in an EP within 3 years after starting the GIO program. The year-over-year table at the bottom is important
020for your finance team. It shows the distribution of initial and success-based payments across school years based on when your employees complete their degrees. If all three complete in year 2, you see the full success payment in year 2. If they complete on different timelines, the table spreads those payments accordingly. This is the cash flow picture your budget team needs. Hello, my name is Josh Jones. I'm the director of educator preparation, field support and operations here at the Texas Education Agency. I will walk you through the prep pre-ervice residency program and the residency tab. Residency is the second stage of the pipeline, the program with the largest aotment of the three available in cycle 4. For our example, Texas ISD, there are five residents and $114,000 in estimated aotment across two years. The prep pre-ervice residency
021is a year-long clinical experience. The resident co-ees alongside a host teacher with gradual release of instructional responsibility across the year. They are not a student teacher in the traditional sense. They are in the classroom every day progressing from observation through co-eing to leading instruction under the host teachers guidance. The resident is not the teacher of record during the residency year. They are a learner supported by both the host teacher and the educator preparation program completing certification coursework simultaneously with their clinical practice. This program requires a formal partnership agreement with TEA approved EPSPs. The EP is responsible for the candidates's coursework program curriculum and meeting SPEC chapter 228 requirements for the Texas teacher residency preparation route. When the resident completes the year and meets all requirements, they earn an enhanced standard certificate. A new certificate type
022established specifically for residency completers. A current list of approved EPS is available on the prep web page and will be in the prep guide book publishing in April. For Texas ISD, five residents generate $114,000 in total estimated aotment across two years. Let me walk you through both what you receive and what the statute requires you to do with it. First, what you receive and when. The initial district aotment estimate in year 1 is $60,000. That is $12,000 per resident, a flat amount set by statute that does not vary by factor. This flows when residents begin the program. The trigger is program start, not completion. The successbased funding in year two is $54,000. Four standard residents generate $10,400 each, and the one bilingual candidate generates $12,400, which includes the $2,000 bilingual bonus. The trigger for success
023funding is the resident earning their enhanced standard certificate. Second, what the statute requires and from what which source. This is a two column picture. From the allotment, you must spend at least $10,000 on the resident's salary and at least $2,000 on the host teacher stipend per resident from your school system's own funds or other sources. You must provide a $10,000 salary match per resident. That match does not come from the prep aotment. It is a separate obligation. Third, the EP share. The educator preparation program receives $10,000 per resident after each resident completes their first year of teaching as a teacher of record following certification. That $10,000 is taken from your gross aotment, which is why your net per resident is 22,400 rather than the full 32,400. The net view tab shows this clearly. We have
024entered five in the estimated count of residents column and one in the estimated count of special education and bilingual candidates column. The bilingual candidate is included in the five resident total. The one in the bilingual column tells the tool to apply the $2,000 bonus to that candidate's success-based funding. The calculated aotment estimates table below populates automatically. The year-over-year table shows the 2-year distribution of $60,000 initial in year 1, $54,000 successbased in year 2, totaling $114,000. For school systems planning for more than 40 residents, there is a separate prep pre-ervice residency greater than 40 tab. For districts that have more than 40 residents, this tab provides estimates for up to 80 additional residents at the traditional pre-ervice rate per statute. >> I'm Ricky Harrell, deputy director for teacher mentorship. I'll walk you through the prep mentorship
025program and the mentorship tab. Mentorship is the third stage of the pipeline and it's how school systems supports beginning teachers through their first two years as teachers of record so that they stay in the profession and stay in your buildings. For our example, Texas ISD, there are eight beginning teachers and $24,000 in the annual prep mentorship program allotment. Structured mentoring in the first two years is one of the strongest predictors of whether a beginning teacher stays in the profession. That's the premise behind the prep mentorship program and why the program requires that mentoring be formal, documented, and intentional, not just a casual check-in. The program has three core requirements. First, a minimum of 12 hours of mentoring per semester between the mentor and each assigned beginning teacher. Second, the mentors complete the Texas mentorship training
026or TMT established by TEA every 3 years. And this program is also in compliance with the mentoring program standards in Texas education code section 21458. Additionally, returning mentors must engage in school system provided mentoring annually in the years between participating in the Texas mentorship training. The prep mentorship program and the Texas mentorship training are designed to work together. PREP provides the funding and TMT provides the training framework. Mentorship is the simplest funding structure of the three programs. Eight beginning teachers at $3,000 each equals $24,000 for Texas ISD. That's the full prep mentorship allotment for Texas ISD. Unlike GIO and residency, the mentorship allotment has no high needs factor, no success trigger, and no split funding between years. The full amount flows to the school system each year for each qualifying beginning teacher. There is one
027statutoily required cost from the allotment. At least $1,000 per mentor teacher is given to the mentor teacher as their stipen that is set by Texas Education Code section 21907C. Also in the new uh Texas administrative code rule for the prep mentorship program that will become effective in May of 2026. Mentor teachers can be assigned different ratios of beginning teachers based on their main role. For example, a mentor who is a full-time teacher of record may only be assigned up to two beginning teachers to mentor. Whereas a full-time mentor whose only role is to mentor may be assigned up to 15 beginning teachers. In this example with Texas ISD, they set their mentoring ratio to a one:1 ratio with eight mentors and eight beginning teachers, which makes the minimum stipened total $8,000, leaving $16,000 in the
028allotment for release time for the mentor and beginning teacher to meet during the school day for mentoring. Texas mentorship training costs, additional mentoring or strategic staffing training, program coordination, and or additional mentor stipens. The net view tab prepopulates the minimum stipend based on your beginning teacher count. You'll see that when we walk through the net view, you can increase the stipend above the minimum amount, but you cannot go below it. The annual cap is 40 beginning teachers per school system per year for prep mentorship program allotment funding. Here's the simplified prep mentorship tab for Texas ISD. like the residency tab. Notice what this tab shows. Your allotment estimate only. Costs are not here. The program tab answers one question. What is your allotment? We have entered eight in the estimated count of beginning teachers column
029for school year 2627. The total district allotment estimate column calculates automatically. 8 * 3,000 = $24,000. The required mentor stipend is not entered here. It is prepopulated in the net view tab based on your beginning teacher count. That design is intentional. The program tab shows you your allotment cleanly and the net view tab shows you your costs and net. We'll walk through that now. The net view tab is where your financial planning happens. This tab is organized to answer three questions for your school system. What are we getting? What are we required to spend and from where? And what do I have left to work with? Let me walk through each program section for Texas ISD. For districts with more than 40 candidates participating in the residency program during the 202627 school year, your data
030from the greater than 40 students tab will appear here as well, but at a slightly lower rate. The mentorship section is prepopulated. the dis the total district allotment estimate and the minimum stipen based on your beginning teacher count at the statutory minimum of $1,000 per mentor for Texas ISD at eight beginning teachers with a 1:1 ratio that prepopulates at $8,000 the remaining columns release time Texas mentorship training costs and other costs such as additional stipens or other program related cost are yours to fill in the net from aotment shows what remains after all costs you have entered for Texas ISD at the minimum stipen the net is $16,000 available for lease time training and coordination the 5-year total row at the bottom of the tab section shows the cumulative picture across the planning horizon for
031all of your programs take a moment with this tab before you commit to participating enter your real cost estimates change your participant counts to see how it responds this is the planning tool working as designed. You model your specific situation and see your net from the aotment immediately. Here is the full a lotment picture for Texas ISD running all three programs. For grow your own, there's $32,400 for three paraprofessionals. In the residency, $114,000 across two years for five residents. in the mentorship program, $24,000 annually with eight beginning teachers. The total estimated prep aotment for Texas ISD is $117,400. That is the allotment before costs. When you go to the net view tab and enter your plan spending, the net will reflect your specific implementation choices. The allotment is the ceiling. Your net depends on how
032you run the programs. The allotment picture grows in year two, bringing the total estimated initial allotment across all three programs to $170,400. Year two brings the successbased funding for residency and grow your own completers on top of the new cohort's initial payments. This is why your budget planning should cover both years, not just year one. The net view tab shows you both years side by side. Your finance team can build the full picture before you commit. The year one aotment is meaningful, but the program builds value over time as residents complete, earn their certificates, and begin teaching. That is the design of the funding structure. The prep a lotment financial planning tool is available now on the prep website. Download it and follow the five steps from the start here tab. Here is how I
033suggest you use it. Start with your school system selection. Then go to each program tab you are considering and enter your estimated participant counts to see your aotment. You open the net view tab. Look at the prepopulated required cost firsts. Next, enter your additional plan spending. Watch the net from aotment column respond. Change your participant counts to see how different scenarios affect your net. That modeling process, not just the allotment number, is what this tool is built for. Share it with your superintendent, your CFO, your EP partner, your ESC coordinator. There are no wrong answers in the planning tool. It is a planning resource. Finally, there are five steps between today and your first prep aotment funding. Right now, download the tool and model your scenario. Use the net view tab to see your estimated
034aotment, your required costs, and your net. Adjust your participant counts to find the right scale for your school system. In April of 2026, the prep guide book will be published and the verification of participation form preview will be available. The guide book is the comprehensive reference for your program requirements, timelines, and implementation guidance for your school system and for education preparation programs. In May of 2026, the verification of participation window opens. This is where you formally confirm your participation. Completing the verification of participation is what makes you eligible to receive the allotment. In June of 2026, you submit your participant data through ECOS, the educator certification online system. TEA will provide training and guidance on the ECOS submission before that window opens. In October of 2026, you receive your first prep aotment funding. This is
035the target date for the first payments and the fixed point around which the entire implementation timeline is built. Thank you for joining this walkthrough of the prep financial planning tool. The prep team is here to support you through every step. Reach us through the prep support page at tea.t texas.gov. We will have office hours and additional webinars as the verification of participation window approaches. On behalf of the Texas Education Agency Talent Pathways Division, we thank you.