State Waivers FAQ
Below is a list of frequently asked questions that may be of assistance related to the State
Waivers and the TEAL application process.
1. How do I apply for a state waiver for the district? Using the Texas Education Agency Login
(TEAL) Application, a district may submit a waiver application. If you do not have access to the
Waiver application, the waivers Editor or Superintendent may apply for access to the waivers
system.
To add the waivers application, when you log into TEAL:
• Select “My Application Accounts” from the self-service menu on the left-hand side
• Select “Request New Account…” and select the “Waivers” application
• You will want to complete the form and add access as District Editor or Superintendent,
as applicable. Please note that only the Superintendent of Record as indicated in
AskTED may be approved as superintendent for waivers. If you are not the
Superintendent, you may apply for Editor access.
Once your waiver access is approved, you will be able to use the TEAL link for Waivers to access
the application and submit it for review.
For more detailed instructions, see the appliable school year’s State Waivers Guidebook located
on the agency’s State Waivers webpage
.
2. Do state waivers require Board approval? Yes, all state waiver applications requested by the
district (excluding class size exceptions and bilingual education exceptions/ESL waivers) require
Board approval and the application must include the date the Board approved the waiver
request and the agenda from the meeting at which the request was approved. Additional
documentation may be requested for board approval information that cannot be verified by
agency staff.
3. How do I apply for the Educator Test limit waiver? Please see the Educator Testing webpage
(
https://tea.texas.gov/Texas_Educators/Certification/Educator_Testing/Test-
Limit_Waiver_Information/) for the test-limit waiver application and the associated FAQ
document to answer common questions. If you have additional questions, please submit a TEA
Help Desk ticket request at
https://helpdesk.tea.texas.gov/EducatorTestingandPreparationProgramsDetails/. Alternatively,
you may contact the Educator Testing department at 512-936-9039.
4. May our school district or charter school apply for and receive waivers (of any kind, including
staff development) such that the district or charter school has more than 4,200 minutes (or 10
days for charter schools that use days) waived? No. Your district or charter school must not
have more than 4,200 minutes (10 days for charter schools that use days) waived, unless
otherwise authorized by the commissioner. See Student Attendance Accounting Handbook
(SAAH) 3.8.2.
5. Is a Staff Development waiver available? Yes, the Staff Development Minutes Waiver provides
for a maximum of 2,100 total waiver minutes to use for professional development for districts
and charter schools that provide operational and instructional minutes. Each district and open-
enrollment charter school may choose how to apply their approved Staff Development Minutes
Waiver. For instance, schools may choose to offer early release, late start, all day staff
development, or a combination. However, the total waiver minutes for staff development shall
not exceed 2,100 minutes per year. This waiver is for staff development in place of student
instruction; therefore, the waiver minutes are only applicable to staff development provided
instead of student instruction during the school year. The Staff Development Minutes
Waiver may not be used prior to the first day of student instruction or after the last day of
student instruction.
On staff development days when students are in attendance part of the day, in order to receive
full ADA funding, the district or open-enrollment charter school must provide at least 120
minutes of student instruction. Instructional minutes are defined in the SAAH as the portion of
the school day in which instruction takes place along with other exceptions. In addition to the
120 minutes of student instruction, any staff development waiver minutes reported must reflect
actual staff development minutes provided.
The Staff Development Minutes waiver may be applied for only on an annual basis.
6. Can the public view district waivers? The Waivers Online Report
(https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/WaiversReports/Tea.WaiversReports.Web/
) allows anyone to
view the status of final district waivers by name, status, type and date. The report allows for
multiselect features. Once a report is generated, it can also be printed or exported to Excel.
7. How can I see the waivers that I have created for the district? In the Waivers application in
TEAL, any waiver applications that you are either working on or need to approve will be visible
in the “My Waivers” section. Click on the Waiver ID to view the application and take any action,
as necessary. To view all waivers for your district, click on the “Search Waivers” section. You can
also use the Search box to find a waiver.
8. What support is required for a Low Attendance waiver? For a day when school was held but
attendance was at least 10 percentage points below the overall average attendance rate for
your district (or the applicable campus) for the prior year because of inclement weather-
related* or health or safety issues, your district may apply for a waiver to have the day excluded
from ADA and FSP funding calculations. (*Unusually cold or hot weather, alone, does not
constitute an inclement weather-related issue.)
Your district must include the following items in its application:
• the reason and documentation for the low attendance (see question 9 for more
information);
• documentation of the low attendance rate for the day (ADA report from district’s Student
Information System); and
• the prior year’s PEIMS attendance report (PDM3-130-001), showing the overall average
attendance rate for the year, for the district or applicable campus.
o For a district or campus with multiple tracks, the overall average attendance rate for
all tracks must be used
.
o F
or a new campus or a campus that existed as two separate campuses the prior year,
the overall entire prior year average attendance rate for the district as a whole must
be used.
o For a new charter school in its first year of operation, the overall attendance rate for
the current year must be used.
(S
tudent Attendance Accounting Handbook, 3.8.1.3 Low-Attendance Day Waivers)
9. What documentation is required for support as it relates to the reason for a missed and/or low
attendance day? Documentation should be specific to the local conditions that support the
request. This could be emails from the city or service providers, state/city declarations, news
articles, social media posts, reports, etc. related to issues that resulted in closure or low
attendance.
More specific to health, documentation should include the information LEA staff relied upon to
conclude that the closure or low attendance was directly attributed to health reasons. This could
be information from parents (a summary of notes, documented phone calls, etc. indicating
absence due to health along with their relative volume), reports from campus nurse/office staff
that indicate the absences were due to health, news articles, and/or reports from local health
authorities or a statement from campus/district administration that provides an account of the
circumstances as they relate to the health issue that resulted in low attendance. Documentation
should show that the reason for closure or low attendance was specifically due to a health
reason and not simply assumed because no other explanation was available. All student
identifiable information should be redacted.
10. Our district has multiple low attendance or missed school days we plan to apply for waivers
for. Do I have to do a separate waiver for each campus and or day missed day? For low
attendance and missed school days, you may enter multiple district or campus days and multiple
campuses on the same low attendance or missed school day waiver application. Following the
entry of the campus detail, select “Save Campus” to add the information to the LEA Summary
section of the waiver. To enter additional information, follow the same process to continue to
save individual dates/campuses to the LEA summary as needed.
11. What type of waiver application do I use if I don’t see an application specific to the area I wish
to apply for? If there is not a specific waiver application related to your request, please select the
“Other” application for completion.
12. Are there any TEC sections that may not be waived? Yes, please refer to TEC §7.056(e) for the
list of statutory requirements from which a district or campus may not receive an exemption or
waiver.
13. When can I apply for a missed school day waiver after the district is closed for a weather,
health or safety issue? Once a district has Board approval, it may apply for the missed school
day waiver. Please note that prior to approval of a missed school day waiver for the district, the
first two missed days must have been made up, either using additional built in minutes, bad
weather make up days, or by adding additional minutes into the school year. See the Student
Attendance Accounting Handbook, 3.8.1.1 Makeup Days and 3.8.2 Closure for Bad Weather or
Other Issues of Health or Safety for more information.
https://tea.texas.gov/Finance_and_Grants/Financial_Compliance/Student__Attendance_Accou
nting_Handbook/
14. I entered my information and saved, but the waiver is still showing draft – why? For a District
Editor, at the end of the waiver application you will find a “Complete & Route” button. This will
route the application to your Superintendent for review and approval. For a District
Superintendent, at the end of the waiver application you will find a “Review and Submit” button.
When your application is ready, this button takes you to the review and submit details page.
This page displays the information as entered and is read only. If you need to make any
adjustments, select the “Return to Edit” button to take you back to the prior view. If the
application is complete and ready for submission, select the “Submit to TEA” button. The waiver
is then sent to TEA, and the original waiver creator and superintendent will receive a
confirmation email. You may view and print a read only version of the submitted waiver by
selecting the application within “Search Waivers.”
15. I (superintendent) submitted a waiver application the agency for review, but I did not receive
a confirmation email – why? At the end of the waiver application you will find a “Review and
Submit” button. When selected, this button takes you to the review and submit details page.
This page displays the information as entered and is read only. The “Submit to TEA” button must
then be pushed in order for the application to be routed to agency staff. Only after both of these
actions are taken will the application be routed to the agency and a confirmation email be sent.
After submission, the “My Waivers” page will load and a “Success/Waiver application submitted
successfully” message will appear.
16. The application does not allow enough characters within the questions for all of my
information. What can I do? You may upload an attachment in the “LEA Attachments” section
to include any additional information that may be needed or helpful for the waiver request.
17. Can I save a waiver that I am working on to complete at a later time? Yes, using the “Save”
button at the bottom of the application, you can save the waiver you are working on. If the
application has saved, you will see a Success message in green at the top of the application.
18. How do I cancel a waiver application? If you need to cancel an application you were working
on, select the “Cancel Application” button at the bottom of the application. You will get a
popup message confirming the cancellation request. If you want to continue and cancel the
waiver, select OK, or Cancel if you want to save the application and end the cancellation
process. Once canceled, the waiver will be removed from “My Waivers” and will be viewable as
a canceled waiver within “Search Waivers”.
19. What does a “Partial-Approval” of a waiver mean? This means that all of the items in the
request were not approved as submitted but were approved in some form. For a multi-year
request, this could mean that the waiver was requested for multiple years (2 or 3 years) but was
approved for less (1 or 2 years). Additionally, for a waiver request for multiple days or
campuses, it would be that only a portion of all of the days or campuses requested was
approved. By viewing a particular waiver in the “Search Waivers” section, you can view which
portions of the waiver were approved or denied in creating a partial approval.
20. My waiver was returned to me by the agency. Why? In the instance that a waiver request is
missing information or needs corrections, the agency will reassign it to the district (the status of
the waiver will be “reassigned to LEA”). Refer to the TEA Comments section of the waiver to
review agency notes that indicate what information and/or corrections are needed. After
making the edits, the district may resubmit the request to the agency for review.
21. I got an email stating that my waiver application was denied. How do I find out why? In the
Waivers application in TEAL, click on the “Search Waivers” section. Click on the Waiver ID to
view the application. Refer to the “TEA Comments” section for applicable information.
22. Why is a requested year unavailable to me on a multi-year waiver application? If a year is
grayed out and cannot be selected, the district has already been approved for this waiver type
for that particular year. You may view the waivers you are currently approved for by using the
“Search Waivers” section or the waivers online report on the State Waivers webpage ( or at
https://tealprod.tea.state.tx.us/WaiversReports/Tea.WaiversReports.Web/
)
23. Can a district assign a paraprofessional to a classroom that exceeds the maximum class size in
lieu of submitting a class size exception request? A district may assign a paraprofessional to
assist in any classroom, however this cannot be done in lieu of submitting a class size exception
request for a class that exceeds the class size limit. The maximum class size limit in TEC §25.112
is not a ratio of students to teachers/adults; it is a limit based solely on the size of the class. If a
PreK through 4th grade class exceeds this limit, regardless of how many adults are in the room,
an exception request is required.
24. I have already submitted a maximum class size exception request. There are new sections of
prekindergarten through 4
th
grade classes in my district that now exceed the maximum class
size established in TEC §25.112. Do I need to submit a new waiver request for these sections?
Yes. A new waiver request must be submitted each time newly identified sections of
prekindergarten through 4
th
grade classes exceed the maximum class size limit. Class size
exception requests are not required during the last 12 weeks of the district’s school year or any
12-week period of the school year selected by the district, in the case of a district whose
average daily attendance is adjusted under TEC Section 48.005(c).
25. Can an individual candidate for certification apply directly for a teacher certification waiver?
The state teacher certification waiver is a credential that must be initiated by an employing
school district interested in hiring a qualified individual. Candidates for certification cannot
pursue a teacher certification waiver on their own. Any district in Texas has the option to pursue
temporary credentials if interested in doing so. You may contact the human resources
department of a district of interest to explore options and receive further guidance on the
process.
