Attendance Projections for the 2021–2022 and 2022-2023 School Years

The Attendance Projections subsystem in the online Foundation School Program (FSP) System will open on October 15, 2020. Attendance projections are estimates of student average daily attendance (ADA) or full-time equivalent (FTE) counts by program or instructional setting. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) develops these attendance projections and will provide them to the Texas Legislature by March 1, 2021. The Legislature then uses these projections to determine the cost of public education for the next biennium (school years 2021–2022 and 2022–2023). Please note that TEA’s projections do not reflect any potential impact that Covid-19 could have on future enrollment and/or attendance. Because of this, districts are strongly urged to consider adjusting their own enrollment forecasts for the upcoming biennium if they believe that Covid-19 could have an impact beyond the 2020-2021 school year. Please review TEA’s projections and submit the requested district projections by midnight on December 14, 2020. 

Failure to submit the required attendance projections data by December 14 will result in TEA using its own ADA and FTE estimates as part of the appropriations process for state aid calculations during the next biennium. 

For cashflow purposes, the payments made to your school district during the upcoming biennium will also be based on final attendance projections submitted to the Legislature. These student counts will eventually be shown in the Legislative Payment Estimate (LPE) column of the Summary of Finances (SOF) and are not subject to revision. Final earnings will, however, be based on actual student attendance submitted to TEA at the conclusion of a school year. 

Typically, the Attendance Projections subsystem collects data for the upcoming biennium. However, this year’s data collection includes estimates for Additional Days School Year (ADSY) for the 2020–2021 school year, as well as for the next biennium. Your ADSY estimates should be calculated as follows: 

(Number of Participating Pre-K through 5th grade students x Estimated Percent of Attendance x Number of ADSY days ÷ 180) ÷ 2 

Please note: This submission impacts the 2021–2022 and 2022–2023 Financial Integrity Rating System of Texas (FIRST) Ratings. FIRST Indicator 15 measures the difference of the district’s attendance projections compared to the actual ADA reported to TEA. It also measures if a district certified its projections. Please contact Yolanda Walker at (512) 463-0947, David Marx at (512) 463-2945, or email financialaccountability@tea.texas.gov if you have additional questions regarding FIRST. 

The FSP System requires that a designated district approver, usually the superintendent, submit the attendance projections data to the TEA. The FSP System is an application within the Texas Education Agency Login (TEAL). If you already have a TEAL account but do not have access to the FSP System, please apply for access by clicking the My Application Accounts button found in the upper-left corner of the Self-Service menu in TEAL. If you already have access to the FSP System, please check that you have the appropriate role assigned for submitting the data. You will need to select either the role of pupil projections user or district approver (usually the superintendent). 

If you are not the superintendent or district approver: Your district’s Service Account Manager must approve all requests for access to the FSP System and modifications to access via the TEAL. (Note that Service Account Manager is a role within the TEAL system. Each employing organization must have at least one employee with a Service Account Manager status.) If you have submitted a request for access or a request to modify access and it has not been granted, please consult with your superintendent or district approver or check with your district’s Service Account Manager to check the status of the request before contacting the TEA. For more information on the FSP System, including information on applying for specific roles in the system, please see the TEA FSP System web page. For more information on the Attendance Projections subsystem in the FSP System, please see the TEA Attendance Projections web page. For help with accessing the FSP System or submitting attendance projections data, please contact Namrata Parikh at ADAprojections@tea.texas.gov or at 512-463-6220. 

Sincerely, 

Al McKenzie 
Director, Forecasting and Fiscal Analysis