Dear Colleagues,
The Appraisal Review Committee (ARC) met yesterday and discussed several important evaluation related issues.
1. SLOs – we got a preview of the SLO form that teachers will be using this year. It should be much easier than last year as Ed Services is making use of google forms. Much of the form will already be filled. At the end you “submit” and the info goes to the correct place. A lot of work was done to try to save teachers time. Please do not use the old form as it will not have anywhere to go.
2. Improvement Plans – some teachers are on “improvement plans” from the state as a result of below average student growth measures on 2014-15 scores. The state did this and we cannot override it. What it means is that those teachers will have to have a conversation with their principal and look at areas they might want to change. The big question for me is if teachers are going to change something they do to try to get better test results or if they are going to change something because they want their students to learn more. The form is pretty straightforward in prompting for an area to improve, goal setting, plan of action, and assistance for professional development. By the way, if you log into your eTPES account you will get an alert that you need to do an improvement plan.
3. Tenure: If you are currently working on coursework that will make you eligible for tenure before the March 20 deadline then please let your evaluator know now.
CONTINUING CONTRACT: Teachers licensed before January 2011 must have been employed as a limited contract teacher in the district for 3 of the last 5 years and be properly licensed/certificated. Licensed after January 2011 a member will not be eligible until year 7. Must have earned at least 30 semester hours of graduate coursework from an accredited institution that has been submitted before March 20. If they had tenure somewhere else they will be eligible in 2 years.
4. Tier 1 vs OTES: We decided it made more sense for anyone who teaches children to go through OTES instead of tier 1. Last year teachers who had 6 or fewer students or did not see students at least half the day were evaluated using tier 1. This year, all will be OTES, except that the few folks in these situations will have their performance count for 100% of the evaluation instead of splitting between Student Growth and Performance. It will make it easier for administration to keep guidelines and deadlines lined up. Tier 1 will still apply to program specialists, counselors, psychologists, social workers, our therapists, and nurses (hope I didn’t miss anyone).
As always, trying to figure out what the state is asking teachers to do is like trying to ride an orca.
In Solidarity,
Ari Klein
CHTU President