For Texas SPED directors.
The TEA Commissioner recently published the New Intensity of Services Funding Model rubric. While prior funding models used an instructional-arrangement formula, this new model determines an intensity tier for each student through twenty factors across five domains, and up to two service groups based on related services and 1:1 support.
The shift.
HB 2 (Article 4) carries the same special-education funding overhaul as SB 568. Both replace the prior instructional-arrangement formula with two stacked allotments — an intensity-tier allotment under TEC §48.102 and a service-group allotment under §48.1021. The old formula keyed funding to a placement code (resource room, self-contained, homebound). The new formula is anchored to the IEP itself — the services, staffing, equipment, and 1:1 time it specifies. The Commissioner's framework, published April 2026, is the rubric districts apply.
The framework rates each student's level of support across five domains: Curriculum & Instruction, Behavior, Communication, Independent Functioning, and Personal Care/Health. Each domain has four factors — what type, frequency, and nature of services are required; whether specialized provider credentials are required; whether a specific provider-to-student ratio is required; whether specific equipment or technology is required. Each factor is rated on a four-level scale: None, Minimum, Moderate, Significant. The IEP is the anchor for every rating — the rater reads the IEP and rates each factor based on what the IEP documents.
Within a domain, the domain score is the highest rating across that domain's four factors. A domain with one factor at Significant and three at None still scores Significant — one significant support is enough to make the whole domain significant.
The five domain scores combine into one of eight intensity tiers. Most students land on Tiers 2 through 5 by the standard ladder, summing the domain scores — total ≤ 1 = Tier 1, ≤ 4 = Tier 2, ≤ 7 = Tier 3, ≤ 10 = Tier 4, ≤ 15 = Tier 5. Tier 1 and Tiers 6–8 are reached differently.
Tiers 6 and 7 require specific configurations of the domain scores, not just a high sum. Tier 7 requires all five domains to score Significant. Tier 6 requires four domains at Significant and one at Moderate. These are gates: a student with a high total but the wrong pattern of domain scores does not reach Tier 6 or 7 by the ladder alone.
Three overrides short-circuit the tier calculation entirely:
Even when an override applies, the framework asks raters to still rate each factor and score each domain — the rating data feeds master scheduling, staffing, and reintegration planning, even where it doesn't drive the tier.
A student can also qualify for up to two service groups in addition to the tier. The framework defines five service groups in total — three based on related-services minutes, two based on dedicated 1:1 staffing — and a student can qualify for at most one from each set.
Groups 1, 2, and 3 are mutually exclusive on related-services minutes per six-week period:
Minutes are summed across all related services, not counted per service. A student receiving PT, OT, and speech as related services has one combined six-week total that determines Group 1, 2, or 3.
Groups 4 and 5 are mutually exclusive on dedicated 1:1 provider-to-student staffing as a percentage of the instructional day:
1:1 means dedicated provider time, not setting time. This is a common misread the framework specifically defines against. Groups 4 and 5 measure time during which a provider is exclusively assigned to a single student — a 1:1 paraprofessional, a behavior tech assigned to one student, a nurse providing continuous medical support. A student in a self-contained classroom 80% of the day does not automatically qualify for Group 5 — the time is about dedicated staffing, not about where the student is.
A student can qualify for at most one group from the related-services-minutes set (1, 2, or 3) and at most one from the 1:1-staffing set (4 or 5). Either, both, or neither may apply. So a student carries up to three labels: one tier, plus zero or one of {1, 2, 3}, plus zero or one of {4, 5}.
Per the TEA TAA letter dated April 16, 2026, the 2026–27 school year is a hybrid year. Districts continue reporting the legacy instructional-arrangement code and the new tier-plus-service-group-plus-minutes-per-day data, for every special-education student, throughout the year.
April 16, 2026
TAA letter published; framework PDF and the TEA funding tool released.
August 14, 2026 (optional)
Districts may submit early student-level tier and service-group data via secure ShareFile to help TEA produce statewide attendance projections for the Legislative Budget Board. TEA is targeting at least 15% of the statewide SPED population. Early-mover signal, not a hard deadline.
First day of 2026–27
Effective date of TEC §48.102 (amended) and §48.1021. Tier and service-group data must be set for every special-education student.
October 8, 2026
First PEIMS submission (1st Six-Weeks Attendance) carrying the new tier, service group, and minutes-per-day fields for at least 50% of the district's special-education students. The submission itself is routine PEIMS reporting; what's new is the additional fields — and that the May 28 update split the population across two submissions rather than requiring all students at once.
December 3, 2026
Second PEIMS submission (2nd Six-Weeks Attendance). The remaining special-education students — those not carried in the October 8 submission — must have their tier, service-group, and minutes-per-day data reported here. (Per the May 28, 2026 funding update.)
2026–27 ongoing
When an IEP revision changes services, minutes, or 1:1 staffing, the determination revises with it: prior values end-date, new values begin-date.
September 2027
Settle-up. Final 2026–27 tier weights and service-group dollar amounts are determined by TEA based on PEIMS Summer Submission data. Actual 2026–27 funding is reconciled at this point.
2027–28 school year
Pure service-intensity funding. Instructional arrangement codes are discontinued. The 2026–27 funding floor is gone.
The 2026–27 funding floor under TEC §48.1022(b) means no district receives less than the prior instructional-arrangement formula would have paid that year. A $250M statewide top-up sits above the floor, allocated through the new tier-and-service-group structure. Districts have visibility into their distribution across tiers and service groups today; final dollar weights are set at September 2027 settle-up, so dollar projections aren't yet possible.
What we built.
Populating the determination for every student.
Every special-education student needs a tier and service-group classification built from the IEP in place at the start of the year, and the data has to be reported on TEA's sequence: the August 14 voluntary submission, then at least 50% of students at the October 8 PEIMS submission and the remainder at the December 3 submission. Accord populates a draft determination at IEP import and routes the case manager through a wizard that surfaces the relevant IEP content and the rubric in the same window — no toggling between pop-ups, no copying between tabs — to produce the tier-and-group classification with the framework's own wording for each rating.
Keeping the determination current as IEPs revise.
When an ARD revision changes services, minutes, or 1:1 staffing, the determination revises with it. Accord re-runs the wizard and the approval workflow against the revised IEP, end-dating the prior values and begin-dating the new ones. PEIMS picks up the change at the next six-week submission, and the district view across tiers and service groups updates as the underlying IEPs shift.
Accord brings Texas funding determination, service tracking, and goal tracking together.