House Bill 2 | Effective: See below |
House Author: Buckley et al. | House Committee: Public Education |
Senate Sponsor: Creighton et al. | Senate Committee: Education K-16 |
House Bill 2 is an omnibus bill relating to public education and public school finance that amends the Education Code, Government Code, Labor Code, and Tax Code to make the following changes, among others. The bill's provisions take effect June 20, 2025, except as otherwise provided.
Article 1 of House Bill 2 relates to teacher compensation and does the following:
- revises provisions relating to local optional teacher designation systems by establishing an acknowledged designation and a nationally board certified designation, expanding the type of assistance the Texas Education Agency (TEA) must provide regarding these systems, and providing for the designation of enhanced teacher incentive allotment systems;
- provides for a local optional teacher designation system grant program to expand the implementation of those systems and to increase the number of classroom teachers eligible for a designation;
- effective September 1, 2026, revises the teacher incentive allotment to increase the allotment payments and account for the new teacher designation levels;
- requires TEA to contract with a third party to provide classroom teachers with assistance in understanding their rights, duties, and benefits and with liability insurance;
- effective September 1, 2025, creates a teacher retention allotment and a support staff retention allotment for use in increasing salaries as provided by the bill;
- effective September 1, 2025, entitles a public school district that is subject to recapture but owes no recapture due to the collections-related recapture adjustment to receive certain additional state aid; and
- repeals provisions dedicating a certain percentage of any basic allotment increase to salary increases for certain district employees.
Article 2 of House Bill 2 relates to educator preparation and teacher rights and does the following:
- prohibits a district from employing an uncertified teacher of record for a course in the foundation curriculum but provides a limited, temporary exception for a district that has adopted a local innovation plan and also authorizes the commissioner of education to allow for the delayed implementation of the prohibition by certain districts;
- establishes a teacher certification incentive;
- sets out provisions establishing the types of teaching certificates and requirements for a traditional teacher preparation route, a teacher residency preparation route, and certain alternative teacher preparation routes;
- revises provisions relating to approval and renewal of educator preparation programs;
- extends eligibility for a school district teaching permit to certain persons currently enrolled in a postsecondary program;
- requires the commissioner to develop and make available instructional materials for use in educator preparation programs and training for faculty responsible for preparing educator candidates;
- establishes requirements for districts to differentiate compensation for beginning teachers based on their certification status and type;
- removes the expiration date of provisions relating to teacher achievement academies for literacy and mathematics and provides for an educator preparation program to receive a payment for completion of such an academy by certain teachers enrolled in the program;
- repeals provisions establishing the Texas Teacher Residency Program and establishes instead the Preparing and Retaining Educators through Partnership (PREP) Programs, which include the following:
- the PREP Traditional Preservice Program, the PREP Residency Preservice Program, and the PREP Alternative Preservice Program, which enable qualified educator preparation programs to form partnerships with districts and charter schools for purposes of providing preservice practice opportunities for teacher candidates;
- the PREP Grow Your Own Partnership Program, which enables qualified institutions of higher education and educator preparation programs to form partnerships with districts or charter schools to establish innovative staffing pipelines to ensure the availability of high-quality classroom teachers; and
- the PREP Mentorship Program through which participating districts or charter schools implement a mentoring program for classroom teachers who have less than two years of teaching experience; and
- effective September 1, 2026, establishes a PREP Program allotment and an allotment for completion of teacher literacy or mathematics achievement academies and repeals the existing mentor program allotment.
Article 3 of House Bill 2 relates to the rights of public school educators and does the following:
- changes the deadline by which a district must provide notice to current district employees of a vacant position for which a certificate or license is required;
- provides for the waiver of bilingual and special education examination and certification fees;
- provides for an opportunity to retake failed portions of the bilingual target language proficiency test for teacher certification;
- specifies certain reasons for which a teacher may resign from a contract position after the resignation deadline without the consent of the district board of trustees;
- requires that classroom teachers be given the option to elect not to take their paid personal leave concurrently with unpaid FMLA leave for an absence due to pregnancy or the birth or adoption of a child;
- requires TEA to provide certain teacher quality assistance to districts and charter schools and to collect data to address teacher retention and recruitment;
- requires that a teacher or other district employee against whom a complaint is filed be given notice of the complaint and an opportunity to submit a written response;
- expands the grounds on which a teacher may remove a student from class, requires parental notification of such a removal, conditions the return of the student to class without the teacher's consent on the holding of a conference in which the teacher has been provided an opportunity to participate and the creation of a return to class plan, and authorizes a student to appeal their removal; and
- requires notice of a threat made against a campus to be provided to affected teaching staff.
Article 4 of House Bill 2 relates to special education and makes the same changes that are described in the summary of Senate Bill 568, 89th Legislature, Regular Session, 2025.
Article 5 of House Bill 2 relates to measures to support early childhood education and does the following:
- revises provisions relating to the literacy and mathematics achievement academy stipend for teachers and provides for TEA evaluation of such academies;
- requires the commissioner to develop and make available reading intervention academies and mathematics interventionist academies for teachers or other relevant professionals;
- revises and sets out requirements regarding the adoption and use of early literacy and numeracy tests, dyslexia screening, early literacy intervention, and training in mathematics for kindergarten through third grade;
- requires the development of an adaptive vocabulary assessment pilot program;
- extends eligibility for a tuition-free prekindergarten class to children of public school teachers employed by the district offering the class;
- sets out provisions relating to prekindergarten partnerships and revises the required qualifications of a teacher for a prekindergarten class provided by an entity with which a district contracts to provide a high quality prekindergarten program;
- requires reporting of certain data regarding students identified as having a vision disorder or other vision problem requiring vision care;
- effective September 1, 2028, revises the criteria that must be met to qualify for a resource campus designation;
- requires TEA to engage in efforts to meet the demand from districts and charter schools that request assistance in adopting and using the open education resource instructional material support program for the 2024-2025 or 2025-2026 school year;
- effective September 1, 2025, revises provisions relating to the incentive for additional instructional days and the early education allotment, establishes an incentive for additional instructional days for reading intervention and an early literacy intervention allotment, and provides for the distribution of certain early education allotment money for purposes of full-day prekindergarten;
- establishes a grant program to provide certain planning support to districts and charter schools regarding the incentive funding for additional instructional days; and
- establishes a first through third grade supplementary supports grant program to help improve student reading proficiency and, effective September 1, 2026, sets out provisions relating to funding for these grants.
Article 6 of House Bill 2 relates to college, career, and military readiness and generally makes the same changes that are described in the summary of House Bill 120, 89th Legislature, Regular Session, 2025. However, there are certain minor differences in the provisions relating to the annual training for school counselors regarding postsecondary education information and the notice regarding military-related training programs, and House Bill 2 does not include the requirement for a district's college, career, and military readiness plan to include certain annual goals for student completion and graduate outcomes.
Article 7 of House Bill 2 relates to public education and public school finance and does the following effective September 1, 2025:
- provides for automatic increases to the basic allotment through use of a new guaranteed yield increment adjustment, which is set at $55 for the 2026-2027 biennium;
- increases the small and mid-sized district allotment and the school safety allotment;
- establishes an allotment for basic costs;
- revises the guaranteed yield for a district's golden pennies;
- revises provisions regarding the bilingual education allotment to provide funding for alternative language education methods using a dual language immersion/one-way or two-way program model and to allow the allotment to be used for teacher salaries;
- repeals a limitation on the use of compensatory education allotment funds;
- revises provisions regarding state funding for charter schools;
- establishes reporting requirements for districts and TEA regarding district facility usage;
- requires TEA to approve high-impact tutoring providers for purposes of providing accelerated or supplemental instruction;
- expands the requirements for procedures regarding the use of restraint and time-out with respect to a student with a disability receiving special education services;
- grants the commissioner certain authority to resolve unintended consequences relating to public school finance;
- sets out requirements for notice to districts regarding recourse for invalid property values;
- requires the commissioner, periodically throughout the school year, to adjust certain school finance determinations to reflect current school year estimates of a district's enrollment and average daily attendance; and
- provides for additional state aid for regional insurance cost differentials and additional state aid to ensure funding of retention allotments.