Some Texas school districts are finding great teachers without attending a job fair or making a single recruiting trip. They are literally finding their future teachers in their own classrooms.
They are avidly promoting the development of their classroom aides by encouraging them to go back to school to earn teaching degrees through the state’s Educational Aide Tuition Exemption program. Through the program, classroom aides that meet the specified household income requirements can attend college to earn a teaching degree with almost all of the costs paid for by the state.
For the aides that go through the program, earning a college degree often means achieving a life goal they once thought was out of reach. Districts that support the program and hire their former aides back as teachers get employees that know the district’s culture and have the classroom experience and the determination they need to succeed.
The College for All Texans Web Site 
lays out the qualifications aides must meet to participate in the program.
To earn the exemption, applicants must:
Applicants have to meet some fairly stringent income guidelines. They qualify for the program on the basis of their adjusted gross income (AGI), so a single, independent aide/student must earn less than $30,902 per year; a married, independent aide/student must have an AGI of less than $61,806 per year; and a dependent aide/student must have a combined student and family AGI of less than $61,806.
HR administrators note that under the above income rules, otherwise qualified aides who are married are most often ineligible for assistance. “If the goal is to advance great aides to become great teachers, that hinders the goal,” said Denton ISD HR Director Paul Smith.
Finally, applicants must meet the college or university’s academic requirements and enroll in courses leading to teacher certification.
Aides are taking advantage of the program. The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board notes that in the last fiscal year, 4,879 aides were recipients of the tuition exemption. So far in the current fiscal year, 2,392 aides have received tuition exemptions.
Promoting the tuition exemption program to aides has become something of a mission for Smith. Shortly after coming to Denton ISD from private industry in 1995, he learned about the program and began to encourage aides to pursue it, noting, “It’s a great opportunity to get qualified teachers into the classroom.”
At the start of each semester, Smith sends a flier on the program out to all classroom aides and encourages those who might be interested to do additional research to learn whether they would qualify. As soon as applications are available, he prints them off and has them ready and waiting for aides who come to his office with questions.
He doesn’t target specific aides but encourages all who have an interest to apply for the program. “I try to provide one-stop service to anyone who’s interested,” Smith said. “If some of them are reluctant, I’ll fill out the paperwork for them and get them to come to the office to sign it.”
Most aides have long since completed their high school studies and have doubts about their ability to do well in college and compete with younger students, but Smith says those fears are unfounded. “As adults, they have better study habits and take the work more seriously,” Smith noted. On top of that, most of the aides who go back to school have their own reasons for wanting to succeed. “Most of our employees in this program are single parents who are trying to better themselves,” Smith said.
Denton ISD also benefits from the fact that it is a college town and has some close relationships with people who can assist the district in making the program a success. Teresa Starrett, a former Denton ISD administrator, heads up a two-year associate’s degree in teaching program at North Central Texas College (NCTC). The NCTC program provides a helpful stepping stone for aides who want to earn their teaching certificates. It’s also useful to the district because it provides a simple way for aides to meet their “highly qualified” requirements under the No Child Left Behind Act.
He doesn’t confine his overtures about the benefits of the program to aides, either. He also talks the program up to the district’s principals, asking them to do whatever they can to help classroom aides on their campuses to successfully participate. For example, many of the college courses aides need to take are only offered during the school day. He encourages principals to allow aides some flexibility in their work schedules so they can use their lunch period to take a class.
Smith is extremely pleased with the results and it’s easy to see why. The district now employs 80 teachers who have successfully completed the program. Last year alone, Denton hired 27 program graduates as teachers. In any given year, 14 to 20 of Denton ISD’s classroom aides take college courses thanks to the program. “All of them are doing so well…” Smith said. “In my opinion, they’re some of our best teachers because they know where the rubber meets the road when they get into that classroom.”
“This program is important to us in terms of retention,” Smith said. “…When we hire them on as teachers, they stay in the district. We find it difficult to hire new teachers whose home is more than 75 to 100 miles away and have them stay for more than a few years.”
Smith summarizes his enthusiasm for the program this way: “I do this because I enjoy helping these employees. They make me feel that I am accomplishing something different from my regular HR duties.”
Tracey Wallace, Coppell ISD’s HR director, also uses the program and sings its praises. “This program serves as a great recruiting tool,” Wallace said. “It is also an opportunity to hire employees who are already familiar with our students, our community, and our school system.”
Wallace disseminates information to aides that stresses the tuition benefit. She gets the district’s principals involved by providing them with program information at regular administrators’ meetings and asking them to recommend employees from their campus who would benefit from the program. Aides are encouraged to pursue the program on a case-by-case basis.
Coppell ISD employs a handful of teachers who’ve gone through the program. The district supports the program because aides are knowledgeable of student needs, often have experience working in areas with critical shortages of teachers, and generally don’t make enough money to pay the cost of college tuition.
One impetus for this story was a plethora of news reports that said that funding for the aide tuition exemption program had been increased by the Legislature by close to 50 percent.
Senator Judith Zaffirini, a supporter of the program, says that there was no big funding increase. The program’s actual cost was always more than the Texas Legislature appropriated for the number of participating classroom aides. As a result, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board had to approach the Texas Education Agency (TEA) periodically to ask for additional funds to cover the costs. TEA provided the money from Foundation School Program funds.
Rather than continue to shuffle funds and not reflect the program’s true cost, the Legislative Budget Board put an appropriation in the budget that reflects the amount the state actually spends on tuition exemptions for aides ($14.4 million this biennium versus $9.7 million for the previous biennium). What looked like a dramatic funding increase was actually a matter of providing a clear picture of what is being spent.
Budgetary issues aside, Zaffirini believes that the program is a good one and said that aides that go to college to earn a teaching degree are great role models for the state’s students. “It is a remarkable lesson for students, especially [those] who have difficulty in school, to see an adult who is working and yet pursuing the dream of a university education,” Zaffirini said. “It’s not just the ability to balance work and school, but also the vision to pursue a dream.”
