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Principal Standards and Appraisal

Texas recognizes that school leadership is critical to the success of recruiting and retaining top teachers and fostering an environment where student learning flourishes. To that end, Senate Bill 1383, (outside source) (82nd Regular Legislative Session) was codified in Section 21.3541, (outside source) of the Texas Education Code. This statue directs TEA to accomplish the following initiatives:

  • establish and administer a comprehensive appraisal and professional development system for public school principals;
  • establish a consortium of nationally recognized experts on educational leadership and policy to help develop the system and make recommendations about the training, appraisal, professional development, and compensation of principals; and 
  • establish school leadership standards and a set of indicators of successful school leadership to align with such training, appraisal, and professional development.

TEA completed the new school leadership standards in 2013. A committee of education professionals developed a new principal evaluation system called T-PESS (Texas Principal Evaluation and Support System) during the spring and summer of 2014. The pilot years for T-PESS are the 2014-2015 and 2015-2016 school years. TEA commits that T-PESS will:

  • be used for continual improvement of instruction;
  • meaningfully differentiate performance using at least three performance levels;
  • use multiple valid measures in determining performance levels, including as a significant factor data on student growth for all students, and other measures of professional practice;
  • evaluate principals on a regular basis; 
  • provide clear, timely, and useful feedback, including feedback that identifies needs and guides professional development; and 
  • be used to inform personnel decisions.

A draft copy of the principal standards (PDF 79KB) was available before the final stakeholder meeting scheduled for October 18, 2013. TEA posted the standards for public comment from November 22nd, 2013 to December 23rd, 2013.

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