HB1416

Accelerated Instruction Requirements in Texas

Texas law requires all students who do not achieve approaches or higher on STAAR grades 3 through 8 or EOC assessments be provided accelerated instruction. These requirements, modified by House Bill 4545 of the 87th legislature and recently updated with the passage of House Bill 1416 in the 88th legislature, provide that qualifying students must be:

• Assigned a TIA designated teacher for the subsequent school year in the applicable subject area;

OR

• Provided supplemental instruction aligned with the research on high impact tutoring in the TEKS for the applicable grade levels and subject area in the following manner:

  • No less than 15 or 30 hours depending on student performance and is provided in the summer or at least once per week in the school year;

  • Limited to two subjects per year, prioritizing math and RLA;

  • Provided in a group of no more than four students, unless the parent or guardian of each student in the group authorizes a larger group;

  • Designed to assist the student in achieving satisfactory performance in the applicable grade level and subject area and includes effective instructional materials designed for supplemental instruction;

  • Provided by a person with training in the applicable instructional materials for the supplemental instruction and provided by one person for the entirety of their accelerated instruction.

Key Changes in Requirements from HB 1416

House Bill 1416 updated accelerated instruction requirements from House Bill 4545 by: 

• Removing the requirement for Accelerated Learning Committees while requiring Accelerated Education Plan after student fails to achieve approaches or higher on two consecutive assessments in the same subject area 

• Limiting tutoring to 2 subjects and no longer including optional assessment administrations

• Increasing student to tutor ratio from 3:1 to 4:1 ratio for tutoring group size  

• Reducing minimum hour requirement from 30 to 15 for some students* 

• Providing student to teacher ratio waivers for use of approved online curriculum (approvals available spring 2024) 

Additional details are available in the resources section below.

*HB 1416 requires TEA to define requirements for students requiring 30 hours of supplemental instruction through the rulemaking process. TEA will propose rules that will provide that students who fall into the "Low Does Not Meet" category of STAAR performance receive no less than 30 hours of supplemental instruction. The rules will also provide that students in third grade who do not approach grade level or higher will be required to receive 30 hours of supplemental instruction.