Allen ISD board members voted last week to apply for a waiver from the Texas Education Agency that would allow it to hire uncertified teachers until 2029. The district is seeking this waiver in the wake of a 2025 state law mandating that all K-12 core educators be certified.
District officials say the waiver will give them more time to come into compliance with the state law while still filling all their teaching positions.
“We are always looking to hire the best, but we are seeing a decreased amount of certified applicants, especially late in the hiring season,” Lauren Cypert, director of human resources for Allen ISD, said at a school board workshop meeting on Jan. 5 where the issue was discussed.
In the 2024-25 school year, Allen ISD employed 64 teachers who don’t have a certification to teach in Texas, which is 4.9% of the district’s teachers. In neighboring districts, the percentage of uncertified teachers was 6.56% in Plano ISD and 2.59% in McKinney ISD.
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Cypert said the district’s plan is to reduce the number of uncertified teachers it employs by 1% each school year so that all Allen ISD teachers will be certified in the 2029-30 school year.
In fall 2024, the district launched the “Allen Act,” a program to help uncertified paraprofessionals employed by the district become certified. Allen ISD partnered with Indiana Wesleyan University and Teachworthy, an online Texas teacher certification program, and helped fund a bachelor’s degree and certification course for six employees in the first cohort. The program can take around two to three years, depending on how many college credit hours the employees had to begin with.
Allen ISD board trustee Bill Parker hailed the program as the right solution to the district’s hiring problem.
“By growing our own in house, there are things like knowing the culture,” Parker said, “that’s an intangible that you don’t necessarily get with every [certified teacher] you pull off the street and hire.”
Now that the board of trustees voted to approve the waiver, district staff will apply in February. In April, TEA will notify districts about whether their application was accepted.
Across the state, school districts have struggled to find qualified teachers. The percentage of uncertified teachers statewide jumped from 3.8% in the 2019-20 school year to 12% in 2024-25.
Superintendent Robin Bullock said that when she started at Allen ISD in 2013 as a human resources professional, the district would receive more than 150 applicants for kindergarten teaching positions and most of those applicants were certified teachers, many with more than five years of experience. Cypert said the district typically gets around 10-15 applicants when hiring for general education elementary school teachers and even fewer when hiring for more specialized subjects.
Bullock said the waiver would help Allen ISD adjust to new realities in education.
“That landscape has changed related to students coming out of traditional education programs … that’s why we started this ‘grow your own’ program,” Bullock said.
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