The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has released correspondence to inform school systems that Alternative Education Accountability (AEA) for 2026 A-F Accountability Ratings opened on March 5. The application will close at 5 pm on Tuesday, March 17, 2026. The application is available through the Texas Education Agency Login (TEAL).
In order for a campus to be identified for AEA in 2026, it must meet all of the following criteria:
- Meet either the current-year or prior-year TSDS PEIMS 75 percent at-risk criterion.
- Have at least 90 percent of students enrolled in grades 6–12, as verified through the 2025-26 TSDS PEIMS Fall Snapshot Submission.
- Be identified as offering alternative instruction in AskTED.
- Provide education services targeted to dropout prevention and recovery of students with enrollment consisting of at least 60 percent of the students 16 years of age or older as of September 1, 2025.
Campuses that meet the criteria have been preregistered as dropout recovery schools (DRS). The preregistered campuses in each district will be available in the Texas Education Agency Login (TEAL) Accountability application on March 5, 2026. Districts may choose to remove a preregistered campus from AEA by submitting an AEA rescission form via TEAL Accountability. No action is required if a campus within your district is preregistered as a DRS and you wish to keep it registered for AEA.
If a registered Alternative Education Campus (AEC) does not meet the 75% at-risk enrollment criterion in the current year, it remains registered for AEA if the AEC met the at-risk enrollment criterion in the prior year. Alternative campuses that meet all AEA criteria, with the exception of the 60 percent at age 16 criterion, must submit a DRS application during the AEA registration window in order to be identified.
The 2026 final AEA campus list will be available in April.
The full correspondence from TEA can be found here.
