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Tips on How Texas Districts Can Navigate PEIMS and TSDS Reporting Challenges (Part 1)

by iSphere on December 4, 2025 in Blog, PEIMS

As Texas school districts confront rapid shifts in state reporting requirements, many are struggling to keep pace with the Texas Education Agency’s (TEA’s) move toward the transactional data demands of the TSDS EdFi 4.0 data standards upgrade.

To better understand where districts are feeling the strain and how they can adapt, we spoke with Marie Miller, a seasoned pro, who has first-hand experience overcoming PEIMS and TSDS reporting challenges.

She sheds light on the most significant gaps, the human challenges created by the new EdFi standard, and the practical steps schools can take to strengthen their reporting processes and safeguard critical funding.

Key Takeaways

Texas districts are facing growing PEIMS and TSDS reporting challenges as TEA transitions to the current EdFi 4.0 Data Standards.
Increased complexity and volume of submissions mandated by the state government is putting additional constraints on vendors and staff.
Staffing turnover amid rapid changes to state data standards are creating gaps that make timely and accurate reporting more difficult.
Some data errors are hard to correct in a transactional environment, making early data reviews and consistfent processes essential.
ESC Regional service center and vendor trainings are critical tools for helping new and existing PEIMS coordinators stay compliant.
Mentorship can provide critical support for new PEIMS professionals.
Cross-team communication (especially with business, HR, and finance) is vital to ensure all departments understand their role in PEIMS reporting.
Regular audits and reasonableness checks can uncover major funding opportunities that districts might otherwise miss.
Starting data review early in the school year helps districts identify issues, correct system errors, and avoid costly mistakes in December submissions.

A Conversation with Marie Miller, PEIMS and TSDS Expert

iSphere: Where do you see the largest gaps between the district-level data collection processes and TEA’s expectations?

Marie Miller: For Texas school districts, the largest gaps stem from keeping up with increasing submission requirements which ultimately are placed squarely on the desks of their PEIMS staff.

Every year, TEA makes changes to the data standards, but what has become challenging in the last few years are the actual submission processes, the number and frequency of the submissions, and the turnover rate for experienced PEIMS coordinators.

In the past, school districts would submit flat files or XML files. We had four main submissions throughout the year:

Fall Submission
Midyear Submission
Summer Submission
Extended Year Submission

This has now tripled to more than ten submissions which includes both PEIMS and CORE submissions (containing specific subsets of the student data collection). The PEIMS team also typically administers the Unique ID and Enrollment Tracking processes which run daily or weekly throughout the year, requiring training of the campus staff and often, “tech support” for these mandatory processes.

The new standard requires the systems to process near real-time transactional data, on enrollment, withdrawals, attendance, schedules, special programs, and other data points every day. The vendors write the code used by the systems, but sometimes the coding process runs into bugs, delays or other issues. And it can be difficult for them to keep up with the rate of change as well.

On the surface, transactional data sounds awesome because of the ability to view near real-time data. The shared goal to increase compliance with the EdFi standards, updated with key measures, improved system performance and better visibility of district data should ultimately be a positive goal.

The challenge is having enough time to learn the new processes, learn the new data requirements, wait for the vendors to complete coding and testing, release, and update systems. Once the school year starts, it moves so quickly into submission time that the learning curve and the functionality of the submissions can seem very rushed.

iSphere: Are education vendors helping school districts to meet evolving reporting and data standards?

MM: Yes, absolutely. The coding is complex. All of the ERP, SIS, and education solution vendors are working hard to keep up with the evolving requirements for PEIMS and TSDS. Certainly, some have done better than others in meeting the requirements of transactional data, but it’s not universal and if a vendor is lagging, then that can snowball into delays in the submissions.

One of the software vendors I spoke to in November said they were still trying to program for some of the most recent legislative changes, and the Fall PEIMS deadline is just a few weeks away. This puts pressure and stress on everyone involved.

iSphere: What about school districts themselves? How are they adjusting to the change?

MM: For one, we see a lot of turnover. Many new PEIMS coordinators are struggling to keep up – learning to “build the plane in the air”. For us “seasoned” PEIMS coordinators, looking at the future submission calendar and relentless changes to requirements can be the catalyst for choosing retirement.

Another challenge is the perception and staffing placement of the PEIMS coordinator between districts. In some districts, this job is categorized as a clerical role and the salary schedule offered is not up to par with the complex work. In other districts, the role is a professional role but sometimes, the responsibilities still outweigh the human capacity of the work. The PEIMS coordinator role has transformed into a job requiring high demands in professional, analytical, technical, and project management skills.