SB173 / SB99 Teacher Merit Award
Excellence in Education and Leadership Supplement

Resources

Surveys 

Either parent survey OR student survey is required.

Participating Teacher Merit Award LEAs

CSF welcomes the following LEAs to the Utah Teacher Merit Award Pilot Project
(updated 4-20-2025).  We look forward to engaging you over the 5-year pilot program implementation. 

SB173 photo

American Preparatory Academy
Beehive Science and Technology Academy
Channing Hall
East Hollywood High School
Entheos Academy
Esperanza Elementary Academy
Granite School District
InTech Collegiate Academy
Kane County School District
Lincoln Academy
Monticello Academy
Mountainville Academy
North Summit School District
Ogden Preparatory Academy
San Juan School District
St. George Academy
Uintah School District
Utah County Academy of Sciences
Valley Academy Charter
Walden School of Liberal Arts
Wallace Stegner Academy
Wasatch County School District
Wasatch Peak Academy

Forms

  • Registration closed - SB173 LEA Registration deadline was December 31, 2024 to participate in the TMA pilot.

FAQ (see TMA Guidebook for additional information)

Are the 25% of the teachers awarded 25% of the LEA or 25% of the state?

The 25% of teachers recognized and awarded in the Teacher Merit Award (TMA) program are identified within each participating Local Education Agency (LEA)—not across the state as a whole. Each LEA develops its own TMA identification system, calculates composite scores for its teachers using required criteria, and selects its own top 25% of eligible teachers to submit to the Center for the School of the Future (CSF).

This recognized each LEAs top 25% of teachers will receive a title award and a monetary award. But this award may be different than the title award that you identified (Recognized, Exemplary, and Master) in your LEA as all awardees across all participating LEAs will be reprocessed in the state TMA system. Though reprocessed no awardee sent forward by an approved and participating LEA will be excluded from a title or a monetary award.

Would a teacher be able to elect not to participate, if they are identified within the top 25%?

If an LEA elects to participate and identifies categories of teachers in its plan (e.g., elementary teachers and secondary teachers in state-assessed content areas), all teachers within the identified categories shall participate. Notwithstanding the foregoing, if a teacher is identified in the top 25% of the LEA’s participating categories and is notified by the LEA of the teacher’s TMA recognition, the teacher may, at that time, decline participation and reject the award. If a teacher declines, the LEA shall notify the Center for the School of the Future to remove the teacher’s name from the award list.

With respect to TMA, what portion of the academic year must a student be enrolled in a school for the student’s learning performance to be attributed to the instructional performance of a teacher?

A student’s learning performance may only be attributed to a teacher if the student was enrolled in the school for at least 60 calendar days during the academic year, in accordance with Utah Code § 53G-11-520 and Utah Administrative Rule R277-323-1(4).

With respect to TMA, how many days may a student be absent (whether excused or unexcused) and still have their learning performance attributed to a teacher?

A student’s learning performance may only be attributed to a teacher if the student was not absent for 10% or more of their enrolled instructional days. Additionally, the student must meet the minimum enrollment threshold of 60 calendar days. If a student is considered “chronically absent” under this standard, their performance data may not be used in teacher evaluation, as specified in Utah Code § 53G-11-520 and Utah Administrative Rule R277-323-3(6).

The TMA guidebook identified the ACT as one of the measures that could be used in an LEA’s TMA system. I see that it has been removed from the TMA guidebook. Why?

The ACT was removed as a measure from the TMA guidebook because it does not directly assess achievement or growth but rather serves as a measure of college readiness. Since the TMA system is designed to evaluate teacher effectiveness based on measurable student growth and achievement, the ACT did not align with these criteria. Additionally, attributing ACT performance to specific teachers is challenging, as multiple educators contribute to a student’s college preparedness over time. The decision to remove the ACT was made to ensure that all assessment measures used in the TMA system are as directly linked to teacher impact on student learning as possible​.

Does the center have a minimum survey return rate in mind for parent survey results of teacher performances, for those results to be included in the calculation for a teacher to be identified in an LEAs top 25% of participating teachers?

Yes, 20% is the minimum survey response rate. K-12 educational surveys typically see response rates in the range of 20% to 50%. Depending on the survey's purpose (parent, teacher, or student surveys), response rates can fluctuate. Digital surveys often have lower response rates, especially if they are not incentivized or if they don't offer easy access. Paper surveys, on the other hand, sometimes have slightly higher response rates but can still struggle to engage a large portion of the parent population. Some factors that can impact response rates include:
  • Survey length and complexity: Shorter, simpler surveys tend to get higher responses.
  • Incentives: Offering rewards or entry into a raffle can boost participation.
  • School or district communication: How the survey is promoted, and the perceived importance of the survey can influence responses.
  • Demographics of the community: In areas with high engagement and community involvement, response rates can be higher.

Are LEA Specific Licensed Teachers and APPEL Teachers eligible to participate or just Professional Licensed Teachers?

All teachers are eligible who have a Utah teaching license. If they are enroute to licensure, they would not be eligible.

Can a part-time teacher participate in the Utah TMA system?

Yes, if the teacher possesses a current license and is assigned a class or students.

Will a TMA recognized part-time teacher receive a full monetary award or a partial award?

The TMA pilot will provide part-time teachers with a full award.

Does a part-time teacher count as a full-time teacher in an LEA TMA system?

The amount of FTE consumed by a part-time teacher is to be added to other FTEs and is not to exceed 25% of the LEAs total FTEs. For example, if an LEA had 100 FTE teachers and two of the 100 are part time, with one .60 FTE and the other .40 FTE, then the LEA would select its top 25 teachers, and in this case, because there are two part-timers, by adding their FTEs summing to 1.0 FTE then in actuality there are 26 teachers selected in the LEA’s TMA system versus 25.

May LEAs work together in developing their LEA TMA systems?

Yes, for traditional school districts and charter schools, they may work with each other to develop their plans, but they must submit their plans independent from one another, even if their plans are highly similar. This noted, SB173 clarifies that LEAs that are part of a regional service region may develop a single plan that applies to each LEA and may submit one plan.

If a secondary teacher is full-time, and a portion of their courses are state assessed, and others are not, which of the teacher's courses should be considered in the LEA's TMA system?

If the LEA-TMA system’s design includes teachers in state-tested areas, and untested areas, then all the teacher’s courses should be included in determining if the teacher is in the LEAs top 25%. If the system only includes state assessed content areas, then the courses taught by the teacher that are state assessed would be considered when determining if they are in the LEAs top 25%. 

As our district is looking at participating in this process, we are wanting to ensure that every teacher would be able to participate in this program. Before we go down this road to get a plan approved, I am wondering if we are allowed to use a districtwide assessment to determine overall effectiveness. Let me break this down. Our district is in improvement, particularly for literacy. Our strategic plan has identified a key area that we are focusing on as a district. As part of this process, our district will be emphasizing that every teacher is a literacy teacher--there are requirements that will be in place for every teacher to be supporting students in reading and writing, K-12. As our measure, we will use the NWEA in reading that we administer three times a year to determine our achievement and growth. Since every teacher will be seen as a literacy teacher, every teacher would potentially be eligible if their students are meeting and exceeding these goals. Is this something that this bill would support? Or are we required to use student achievement and growth measures in the teacher's specific content areas? Our argument is that since we are training and requiring all teachers to support literacy, this measure would reflect the efforts of all teachers who work with our students (i.e., special education teachers, ML teachers, performing arts teachers, etc.). What would be the concern that your team would have in supporting a proposal such as this?

Thank you for reaching out. We applaud the innovative discussions that underlie the proposed use of NWEA as a common district wide assessment to represent the quality of student learning in reading comprehension and written expression. Also, if we understood your email, students’ reading and writing results would ascribe to all district teachers given your current initiative for all teachers to present simultaneously as content area and reading and writing teachers. Let us know if we’ve interpreted your proposal correctly.

We see a couple issues in relationship to the SB173 – Teacher Merit Award Program.  

First, the value-added growth scores to be determined for all teachers participating in an LEA’s pilot program will be computed using Acadience, RISE, and Aspire data. Common use of these data will be necessary in the stage 2 state TMA system to ensure teachers from the 55 pilot LEAs can be compared on a common metric. This is especially important because 55-75% of the overall system is attached to academic achievement and growth. NWEA could be used in your LEA-TMA if you can determine “value added growth.” If so, you could use it to make selection of your top 25%, but then the value-added growth data based on Acadience, RISE, and Aspire would be used in stage 2  (State TMA) for district teachers, which may place your teachers at a disadvantage in terms of being among the top 5% of teachers as NWEA may select for a different group of teachers. Let us know if you have questions here.

Second, you asked, “…or are we required to use student achievement and growth measures in the teacher's specific content areas?” We believe that you should be using achievement and growth measures which directly assess student learning in the primary content areas taught. We certainly see your argument, but we believe the bill seeks to honor individual teachers for the excellence of the learning they produce in the focal content area of their teaching. We don’t believe the bill is designed to address the ancillary learning that accrues to a science teacher from a hybridized approach of teaching science, reading, and writing, where most of the reading and writing achievement and growth ascribe to an English language arts teacher’s instruction. Also, implementation of this bill requires CSF to flesh out various procedures and processes to enable its implementation, while staying true to bill language. In this regard, recognizing that secondary teachers at times are asked to teach outside their content and area of licensure, we believe it best that teacher performance in terms of student academic achievement and growth be assessed in their respective licensed content area. In this example, the science teacher’s performance should be evaluated based on learning of science versus other content areas, such as reading and writing.

Third, you may remember the roster verification process that will be used in relationship to the academic achievement and growth criteria. This process will require teachers to first identify that a student is being taught by them, the amount of time they are teaching the student in a particular content area, and levels of attendance in this class/content area. We presume a science teacher would need to identify the portion of time in their course focused on science and the portion focused on reading and writing. We recognize that successful students in science must read and write, but we presume that instruction addressing these skill areas would be minimal in a science class while instruction in science would be substantial. The proportion of time teaching science versus reading and writing may be very difficult for teachers to determine.

Can an LEA submit more than 25% of our teachers as top performing?

LEAs are to submit only their top 25% of teachers and should do so in categories--Master (top 5%), Examplary (top 6-10%), and Recognized (top 11-25%). See pages 9, 10, & 18.

Can licensed teachers and teachers of record working in non-state assessed content areas participate in the Teacher Merit Award program?

Yes, the bill indicates that all licensed teachers currently assigned to a classroom are candidates for particiation in the program. However, participating LEAs may choose to propose a merit award program that initially focuses on content area teachers for which state assessments are available. The Office of the Legislative Auditor General completed a review of high-performing merit award systems in the U.S. and recommended that LEAs be allowed to phase in over time their merit awards system to recognize all licensed teachers. See pages 15, 21, 22, & 23.

Can a teacher merit awardee take their financial award with them to another school or district?

Yes, Teacher Merit Awards follow them to their new school. However, if an awardee moves from a high poverty school to a low poverty school, their merit award is reduced by half. If a merit award teacher moves to a high poverty school, their merit award is doubled. See page 20.

Does a merit award teacher need to be redesignated each year to continue receiving their monetary award?

No, for the pilot, there will be a single designation and teachers will recieve the merit award for three consecutive years, or until the pilot concludes. See page 20.

Can an LEA survey its teachers and allow only those that want to participate?

Yes, an LEA can survey all of its teachers to determine if they support the LEA in participating in the SB173 Teacher Merit Award program. This said, if the LEA elects to participate and it identifies categories of teachers (e.g., elementary and secondary teachers in state assessed content areas) in their plan then all teachers within those categories must participate. See page 3.