Embed Texas HB 4545 in Your MTSS To Streamline Documentation

If you’re a Texas school district leader, you know you need to enable implementation of Texas House Bill 4545. But you may worry about how to ensure staff capacity, adopt efficient tools, and leverage the most effective process.

To address pandemic learning loss, the Texas legislature passed HB 4545, establishing tutoring requirements to catch up public education students who did not meet grade-level expectations on standardized tests.

Meeting the requirements of the bill can feel like a monumental task. But through our experience supporting educators in Texas, we’ve seen that leaning into MTSS (multi-tiered system of supports) helps districts simplify implementing HB 4545 by streamlining documentation. Read on or watch the video below to find out how.

Molly and Kevin discuss embedding House Bill 4545 into MTSS practices

Get Free Templates for Your MTSS Team

House Bill 4545 Requirements for School Districts

Let’s begin by grounding ourselves in the House Bill 4545 basics. The Texas legislature passed HB 4545 in the state's 87th legislative session. The bill went into effect in the 2021-2022 school year, and compliance is now enforced as of the 2022-2023 school year.

The bill provides support for students who either did not pass the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) test in grades 3, 5, or 8, or their STAAR end-of-course assessments (EOC). It aims to ensure those students reach grade level and are prepared to succeed on STAAR tests.

HB 4545 mandates 30 hours of accelerated instruction for these students who have not been assigned to a teacher who is designated a certified master, exemplary, or recognized teacher via the Teacher Incentive Allotment.

Key instruction requirements for HB 4545:

Tutoring delivers Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS)-aligned instruction
Accelerated instruction is organized by an Accelerated Learning Committee (ALC)
Tutoring is delivered 1:1 or in a small group no larger than three
Districts must report on these tutoring hours to the state

Why Embed HB 4545 Accelerated Instruction Into Your MTSS

Meeting all the HB 4545 requirements can feel daunting. To avoid having to create entirely new systems from scratch, lean into your existing MTSS practices.

Through your MTSS you can:

Efficiently identify, plan for, and track all students meeting state requirements for accelerated instruction
Accelerate learning so students are prepared to succeed in STAAR testing
Optimize time spent with students to address both catch-up growth and annual growth
Make documentation and reporting as efficient as possible for educators

When you align HB 4545 with your MTSS, you also help to ensure you give students the support they need to simultaneously catch up while also staying on track for annual growth.

Questions to ask when implementing HB 4545:

Do we have a fast way to identify students who qualify for accelerated instruction?
How can we track which students still need Accelerated Learning Committee meetings?
Are there opportunities to adjust scheduling and create capacity for intervention time?
How can we ease the burden of data entry and enable collaboration for educators?
How can we monitor students who are fulfilling HB 4545 through teacher assignment?

Create a Unified Vision for House Bill 4545 and MTSS

How can districts lean on MTSS practices to orchestrate a concerted effort to address catch-up growth and annual growth in unison? Districts should embed HB 4545 into an MTSS in three phases:

Align data and tools
Establish practices
Implement plan

Let’s look at what each of these phases entails.

Align data and tools

If you’re leading HB 4545 implementation, set your district up for success by identifying data sources across academics, attendance, behavior, and positive character traits. Then curate a menu cataloging suggested research-backed intervention strategies by content area and grade level. You will also need a plan to effectively communicate expectations for documenting student supports.

Establish practices

With the data and tools in place to form a solid foundation, move to establishing practices to fulfill HB 4545. Practices will include analyzing data, understanding HB 4545 implementation, and forming Accelerated Learning Committees.

Implement plan

Finally, with supports and practices aligned, your district can implement the plan using centralized tools, monitor progress at regular intervals to track implementation, and make adjustments based on that progress.

Bring HB 4545 to Life in Panorama Student Success

Panorama helps districts leverage the power of MTSS to implement HB 4545. Our Intervention Tracking for MTSS helps educators better serve every student by centralizing data and tools in one unified platform.

In Panorama Student Success, quickly filter from multiple sources to identify students who need support through MTSS or require accelerated instruction education plan for House Bill 4545 based on STAAR results.

Use Panorama Student Success to implement HB 4545

Use Panorama Student Success to identify students for HB 4545

Log Tier 1, 2, and 3 intervention plans and indicate which should be associated with HB 4545. By tagging a plan to Accelerated Instruction and the appropriate subject area, you can easily track toward students’ 30 hours of supplemental instruction for HB 4545.

We’ve seen our Texas partners leaning into MTSS practices to help make implementation more manageable. We hope that you’ve gained a new perspective on aligning data, tools, and processes that build educators’ capacity to focus on what they do best: drive student support and learning.

Download How Panorama Helps Districts Implement HB 4545 [PDF]