Gov. Greg Abbott said Monday that $40 million is going to 411 Texas school systems through a new state program meant to recruit, prepare and hold on to teachers, and Gunter ISD is among the districts taking part.
The money flows through the Preparing and Retaining Educators through Partnerships allotment, known as PREP, which lawmakers created in House Bill 2 in 2025. The governor's office did not list amounts by district in its announcement and pointed readers to the Texas Education Agency for the full list of participants.
What the state's table shows
TEA's PREP page counts participants by school system for the 2026-27 school year, based on records entered in the state's educator certification system as of Sept. 11. Gunter ISD shows four participants, all in PREP Mentorship. The district is marked as not taking part in the program's other two current options, a paid teacher residency and a Grow Your Own track for current employees.
Tioga ISD is the only other Grayson County district in the table, and it shows zero participants, which TEA says means a district has signed up but has not entered anyone yet. Sherman, Denison, Howe, Van Alstyne and the county's other districts do not appear. Statewide, the table counts 8,260 participants, 5,607 of them in mentorship.
How the mentorship money works
Under TEA's PREP guidebook, updated Oct. 23, a district receives $3,000 a year for each first- or second-year classroom teacher who is being mentored, for up to 40 beginning teachers a year. The money is generated by the new teachers, not the mentors.
