Dear Colleagues,
SLO post testing should be finishing up this week. What do you do with the results? After they are graded the results get put back into the same spreadsheet where you set your goals. If you used the spreadsheet document from me, then it will automatically calculate your Final SLO percentages exceeding your target and below target. Those percentages then determine your numerical rating. Tadaa! Now you can find out it you are a great teacher or not (if you believe in the validity of student measures determining teacher value).
How important is it for students to be in attendance? The state of Ohio automatically excludes data from students absent from school 45 times or more from your SLO. This seems pretty arbitrary to me. It is also unclear – if a student missed the morning of school, but comes in the afternoon it does not count as an absence. If you can justify that a student has missed some level of instruction that precludes that student from having mastered the material in your class, then you can exclude that student. To do this you just don’t put in a post-assessment score in the spreadsheet and it will calculate without that student. You should attach some short narrative explaining why the student was excluded. What percentage absence should this be? I believe since the state is not helpful then each teacher should be able to define this on his or her own. For instance, the state does not address classes that meet every other day, for a semester, or twice a week. Should they still be held to 45 days? At the high school several years ago, students automatically failed a class due to attendance if they were unexcused for 7 classes in a semester or 15 excused. That all changed because of legal issues, but is our standard different now?
After you have finished with grading, analyzing, and entering this SLO data it should be to your supervisor no later than April 30. If you are on a full OTES cycle this year, then this rating will magically mix with your performance rating from observation cycles to give you a final rating. If you were rated Accomplished last year and only had to have one observation cycle this year, then the Student Growth Measure will determine if you need to have a full OTES evaluation next year or not. If you ended up with a Student Growth Measure rating of average or higher the administration is not required to evaluate you next year. If you were rated Skilled last year you only got a 1 year pass.
Perhaps next week, next month, or later this summer the state will change all these rules – who knows? I don’t know about you, but I feel oh so accountable these days.
In Union,
Ari Klein
CHTU President