Talent Planning Process

Overview of Road Map 3 Steps

Please Note: Newly Identified Cohort B 24-25 LEAs are required to submit an ESSA Talent Plan for the 2024-25 school year. Currently Identified Cohort A 23-24 LEAs are not required to submit a new ESSA Talent Plan.

Submission Window: Initial submission deadline is March 30, 2025. ESC Talent Plan Leads will work with LEA staff to review the plan using success criteria and a proficiency rubric. Final submission deadline is May 30, 2025, in ISAM.

Submission Template

Download the template to be used for submission (updated 12/17/24)

Download ESSA Talent Plan Template

Template Exemplars

Download the exemplars to guide your planning (updated 12/17/24)

Download Exemplar 1 Download Exemplar 2

Submission Guidelines

Download the Submission Guidelines document

View Submission Guidelines

Step 1: Root Cause

Review Current Data and Conduct a Root Cause Analysis

This is the first step in the Roadmap—an overview of the three steps can be found here, with links to the resources for each step of the process.

Step 1: Review Current Data and Conduct a Root Cause Analysis

View Step 1 Guidance Download ESSA Talent Plan Template

This tool is designed to help district leaders strategically plan for the ESSA Talent Plan by revisiting their existing plan to determine its efficacy and reviewing current district data.

District leaders will begin this process by reviewing their previous plan, determining the success of specific, existing strategies, and referring to current district data. Types of district data will include all data that pertains to effective instruction including but not limited to: student achievement data, student demographics, teacher experience, and certification for out-of-field. Then, district leaders will engage in conducting a root cause analysis described here in Step 1.

The RCA process centers on data review to identify possible root causes of the student achievement gap. The protocol guides teams through a process of identifying the perceived reasons they think they are facing each talent access challenge and continuing to dive deeper until they believe they have reached the root causes that have resulted in their student achievement gaps. For example, are student populations who are growing academically at a slower pace than their peers doing so because they are more frequently taught by inexperienced or out-of-field teachers, or are they experiencing similar teachers as their peers? If so, what changes to hiring, teaching assignments, or master scheduling can the district make to rectify that difference? If these student populations are experiencing similar teachers, why are their teachers able to produce more growth in some student populations and less growth in others? What coaching and pedagogical support does the campus and district offer to teachers in these instances?

Step 1: Success Criteria

• Review and reflect on the current plan by using the guiding questions to see which strategies have been successful and have significantly eliminated the identified gaps.
• Provide a problem statement that is aligned to the findings in the gap analysis of current district data and focuses on the challenge of attracting, supporting, or retaining effective teachers in the highest-need campuses serving low-income and minority students.
• Provide root causes that are aligned to the problem statements as they relate to attracting, supporting, and retaining excellent teachers.
• Engage with stakeholders in your district, including teachers, parents/guardians, and students, to gather their perceptions on the successes and challenges of the prior year’s plan to inform the development of this year’s ESSA Talent Plan. This feedback could be gathered during PTA meetings, staff meetings, or via surveys sent to stakeholders.
• Completes tab 1 of the planning template.

View Success Criteria Document

Step 1: Implementation Tasks

Task 1: Review the current district ESSA Talent Plan to see which strategies have been successful and have significantly eliminated the identified gaps.

• Determine which strategies to continue implementing and to include in the new plan (Step 2 Select Strategies and Plan Implementation) and which strategies to discontinue.

Task 2: Analyze your data to determine the connection between student growth and teacher effectiveness. Determine if out-of-field or inexperienced teachers are teaching minority or low-income students at higher rates or if they are largely taught by the same teachers as other student populations.

• Districts also may choose to examine reasonable access at the campus level, by grade level, or by subject area. Determination of access gaps (inexperienced or out-of-field) would require district staff to link individual student data to individual teacher data. This additional effort is worthwhile if districts want to examine access as it relates to student outcomes within campuses. Campus, grade-level, and subject-area analyses would allow districts to examine whether gaps are more common in certain grades or subjects versus other grades or subjects.

Task 3: Conduct the Data Dive and Understanding Your Problems of Practice Activity

• This simple and straightforward activity often unearths useful new insights for informing policy and helps participants learn from others’ perspectives. By the end of the process, facilitators will gather the groups’ identified root causes and general comments to share with the district team, developing the strategies for the district plan.

Task 4: Collect feedback and complete closing

Download Step 1 Task Resources Document View Root Cause Analysis Step By Step

Step 2: Select Strategies

Select Strategies and Plan for Implementation

This is the second step in the Roadmap—an overview of the three steps can be found here, with links to the resources for each step of the process.

Step 2: Select Strategies and Plan for Implementation

View Step 2 Guidance Download Talent Plan Template

The resources in Step 2: Select Strategies and Plan for Implementation will support district teams as they use the results of the data review and root cause analysis (Step 1) process to identify strategies that address district reasonable access gaps. This tool guides districts through the process of developing and prioritizing strategies and activities most likely to address the root causes identified in Step 1.

In Step 1: Review Current Data and Conduct Root Cause Analysis (RCA), your district team worked with stakeholders to define the root causes of your district’s student achievement gaps and organize them into categories and focus areas. As a next step, districts need to think about strategies that may eliminate gaps in student access to excellent teachers by identifying actions that directly link to each category. Then, districts will begin to plan for the implementation of their selected strategies.

These strategies and supporting activities must:

• Address system-level root causes,
• Build institutional knowledge and leadership capacity to support strategies,
• Be based on best practices or research
• Align to the District Commitments in the Effective Schools Framework (Lever 1,2,5)
• Be measurable (defined by data or metrics that can be analyzed),
• Be viable in your district’s specific context, and
• Have a single owner who is a district leader and who is ultimately responsible for implementation of the strategies.

Step 2: Success Criteria

• Select strategies that are directly aligned to the root cause analysis.
• Continue implementing strategies that were on track from the previous plan
• Select strategies that are measurable, evidence-based, and aligned to the district commitments in Lever 1, 2, or 5 of the Effective Schools Framework.
• Select benchmarks that are directly aligned to the selected strategies, viable within district’s specific context, and are measurable.
• Share with stakeholders in your district, including teachers, parents/guardians, and students, the selected strategies to improve outcomes to ensure stakeholder buy-in. These could take place during PTA meetings and staff meetings. You could also consider sending a letter to stakeholders to share the strategies and their intended outcomes to improve student outcomes.
• Completes tab 2 of the ESSA Talent Plan template.

View Success Criteria Document

Step 2: Implementation Tasks

Task 1: Inventory Current Practice: Perform a high-level inventory of current programs and policies

Task 2: Review the Research: Scan recommended strategies related to each category of the root causes.

Task 3: Build Consensus: Select strategies that are aligned to root causes, evidence-based, measurable, and viable.

Download Step 2 Task Resources Document

Step 3: Monitor Progress

Step 3: Monitor Progress & Fidelity of Implementation

View Step 3 Guidance Download ESSA Talent Plan Template

In the third and final step in the Texas Talent Access Roadmap, districts finalize their plan). This tool walks districts through the process of identifying key benchmarks and establishing a process to track the progress of implementation of strategies identified in Step 2: Selecting Strategies. To do this, the team will create a progress monitoring plan. This plan has a simple yet important purpose: to let districts know if their plans are being implemented as planned and are helping them achieve their talent access goals.

In this section, you will use the information generated from earlier activities, data review and analysis (Step 2), and selecting strategies to develop a progress monitoring plan. You will use the results from this process to reflect and improve your plan on an ongoing basis.

Step 3: Success Criteria

• Conduct a detailed formative progress check multiple times throughout the year (at least three) with the progress monitoring team.
• Use or develop a progress tracking sheet that indicates the student achievement gap and the benchmarks that are directly aligned to each strategy (see sample in Step 3 guidance document, Progress Monitoring Planning Template).
• Communicate the progress of the plan implementation to stakeholders. This could include sharing updates in district and school newsletters, at school meetings and functions, and as an agenda item at PTA meetings.
• Completes tab 3 of the ESSA Talent Plan template.

View Success Criteria Document

Step 3: Implementation Tasks

Task 1: Develop a progress monitoring plan

• Use or develop a progress tracking sheet that indicates the student achievement gap and the benchmarks that are directly aligned to each strategy.

Task 2: Monitor progress and fidelity of implementation

• Discuss in detail the following to guide the formative progress check during the progress monitoring team meeting:
  • How is the strategy supporting your goal to eliminate each identified gap?
  • Currently, is there a need to refine, improve, or adjust to ensure that implementation of each strategy will achieve the desired outcome?

Download Step 3 Task Resources Document