Professional Pathways for Teachers

Professional Pathways for Teachers (PPfT) is a collaboration between Austin Independent School District, Education Austin, and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) to design a Human Capital System that blends appraisal, compensation, leadership pathways and professional development.

The Professional Pathways for Teachers creates a new system in which teachers can choose a pathway that best suits their needs and aspirations while valuing high-quality teaching and professional development. A working group of teachers, principals, administrators, and Education Austin has developed a system to address these needs, and to find the best fit for Austin ISD. The PPfT Appraisal system will go district-wide in the 16-17 school year while the PPfT compensation system will be phased in over 4 years.

PPfT only applies to teachers; a teacher is defined as directly instructing students 50% or more of the instructional day and whose title is teacher in the HR system.

Austin ISD has created a compensation framework that gives teachers ownership of their careers and salary. The AISD compensation system is about teacher ownership, teacher choice, and teacher development. Teachers will be able to engage in personalized and collaborative professional development and be rewarded for their high quality teaching. The entire PPfT system is about empowering and developing teachers.

PPfT will also create leadership opportunities for teachers that will allow them to stay in the classroom and improve their practice without tying it to a specific role. The pathways will allow teachers to pursue areas of interest to become leaders on their campus and throughout the district. When a teacher completes a specific leadership pathway, they would be credentialed in that area, and they will be able to pursue multiple leadership pathways credentials over their career.

The compensation framework is a base-building system meaning it provides permanent pay increases to the employee’s regular salary. This new system will not impact current stipends.

The framework builds the base through a point system. Teachers will earn professional points each year. Points are cumulative and determine the amount of the base increase. Teachers can earn points from four elements: Service, Appraisal, Professional Development Unit, and Leadership Pathways.

*Professional Development Units and Leadership Pathways will not be available until the 2017-2018 school year. Information on Enhanced Compensation Campuses can be found below.

As teachers earn points, they will become eligible for base increases based on the table below. Teachers will enter the system with 0 points, and for the 16-17 school year can earn 1 point at the end of the year for their service and points for their evaluation score. Teachers will earn increases when the point amount is earned at the end of the school year, and the increase will be applied to the paycheck in August of the following year. For example, once a teacher earns 5 points, the teacher will receive a $500 increase to the base salary. Once the teacher earns an additional 5 points for a total of 10 points, the teacher will earn another $750 increase. The next increase would come at 20 points. The amount associated with the points is only earned once but the base increase is permanent.

Enhanced Compensation Campuses are defined as the top 25% of campuses at the elementary, middle, and high school levels with the highest instructional services index, which takes into account the percentage of economically disadvantaged students, percentage of students served in Bilingual/ESL programs, and the percentage of students served with special education programs. Multi-year improvement required campuses who are not in the top 25% will also be considered for enhanced compensation.

Below is the list of campuses for the 2016-2017 school year.

All teachers new to AISD will automatically be enrolled in the PPfT Compensation System.

For the 2016-2017 school year, current AISD teachers will be able to sign-up to enroll in the new compensation system. 300 current teachers will be able to enter the system and will be selected based on number of years in AISD. Those selected will enter the system at their current base salary. The opt-in period will be open from May 1-May 20th, and teachers will be notified by May 25th of their status. Teachers who sign-up after the May 20th deadline will not be considered for the new system.

There will be a four year phase-in process that will allow current AISD teachers to opt-in to the PPfT compensation system. All teachers will be in the system by 2019-2020.

Please click the button below to sign-up to be eligible to enter the system for the 2016-2017 school year.

There will be two face to face information sessions you may attend for additional information and to answer any questions.

May 9th - 5:30-6:30 at Travis High School Cafeteria

May 11th - 5:00-6:00 at Baker Center

Feel free to contact the Office of Educator Quality for more information about PPfT Compensation.

Email: PPFT@austinisd.org
Website: http://www.austinisd.org/ppft
Phone: 512-414-9562