Texas Student Data System (TSDS) upgrade to Ed-Fi 3.x

In order to improve system performance and better align with the national Ed-Fi data standard, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) will be upgrading the Texas Student Data System (TSDS). 
 

Background 
TSDS was first implemented in the 2013-2014 school year as a limited production release and officially deployed to all local educational agencies (LEAs) in 2016-2017. This data system was built to replace the legacy EDIT+ application for submitting Public Education Information Management System (PEIMS) data and to become one common data collection platform. TSDS has continued to expand and currently includes eight different data collections.

TSDS and the associated data collections were built upon the initial version of the Ed-Fi data standard. Those data standards are now more than two major versions behind the most recent Ed-Fi version. 

Starting in the 2021 –2022 school year, TEA has committed to upgrading to the Ed-Fi 3.x version over a multi-year project initiative. 

Impacts to Data Reporting 
This upgrade will significantly impact how LEAs load their data into TSDS and validate their data in TSDS. When TEA deploys this upgrade to production in the 2023 –2024 school year, LEAs will no longer submit their TSDS data in the Extensible Markup Language (XML) format. 

Student Information, Assessment, Human Resource, and Finance system vendors will be required to provide this data through application program interface (API) transactions based upon the Ed-Fi 3.x data standard. 

LEAs will continue to promote, validate, and verify their TSDS data submissions in the same manner they do currently. Those processes, applications, and reports are not expected to be impacted. Additionally, LEAs will continue to utilize the following: 

• TEA login (TEAL) for access and authentication
• Unique ID for management and assignment of student and staff ID
• Texas Web-Enabled Data Standards (TWEDS) for specification and guidance
• Existing PEIMS and TSDS Core applications for data promotion 
• Existing TSDS validation process
• Existing TSDS reports for verification

Timeline 
TEA has developed a staged approach for vendor implementation and involvement by LEAs who are interested in piloting the software or becoming an early adopter. TEA will offer both a pilot program and parallel submission to ensure vendor and LEA readiness as indicated in the high-level timeline below: 

Pilot Program: July 2021 – August 2022• New Texas Education Data Standards (TEDS) and documentation released.

• TSDS vendors can begin updating their systems and testing implementation. 
• LEAs can partner with their vendors to conduct end-to-end testing for specific collections.
   
  • Parallel Submission: August 2022 – August 2023
    •  All TSDS vendors are required to participate. 
    • Participating LEAs will submit both API transactions and XML submissions. 
    • LEAs will compare the API transactions against their official XML submissions. 
       
  • Go-Live: 2023 – 2024 School Year
    • All LEAs are required to submit API transactions for TSDS submissions.
    • XML data files will no longer be accepted.
       

Pilot Program
If you are interested in participating in the TSDS pilot program during the 2021 –2022 school year or in the parallel submission during the 2022 –2023 school year, please contact your source system vendors. 

TEA has provided frequent communication and guidance to TSDS vendors to inform them of their role and responsibilities to ensure system compatibility in the 2023 –2024 go-live year. 

Your vendor will determine whether and when to participate in the pilot program.

For Further Information 
TEA will continue with its current TSDS training model with Education Service Centers (ESCs). You can expect to receive training information and guidance from your ESC in the coming months.  

If you have questions, please contact TSDSDeployment@tea.texas.gov.