Oceanside OKs evaluation systems

Part of New York State’s recent revamping of its educational standards includes an Annual Professional Performance Review for teachers and principals. At the last Board of Education meeting on June 19, Superintendent Dr. Herb Brown announced that the district had reached an agreement with the respective unions and had settled on review plans.

Under state law, school districts had to develop their own review plans (based on stringent state guidelines) and submit them to the state for review no later than July 1.

“Basically, the state set out parameters we had to follow, so we couldn’t totally do what we wanted,” said Brown. “If it’s not approved, we’d have to advise it and submit it again. So we’re hoping it’s approved.”

The evaluations for both teachers and principals are based on 100-point systems. A quarter of the points for teacher evaluations come straight from New York State and are based on student performance on standardized tests.

Each district is allowed to devise how 15 points will be scored, based on local tests. “We’re actually going to be doing it collaboratively, so the teachers can work together,” Brown said. He explained that all the teachers in one grade will work together and come up with a test for all the students in that grade. All the teachers will earn the same number of points based on how all the students in the grade perform on the test. “We think that’s a good idea — instead of teachers working against each other, they’ll work together to bring up the whole grade or the whole school,” said Brown. “So it gives the teachers a cooperative effort.”

The remaining 60 points are based on teacher evaluations. The state gave districts their choice of five different evaluations systems, and Oceanside chose one authored by Charlotte Danielson. Danielson’s review focuses on four areas: planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction and professional responsibilities — totaling 60 different elements that teachers are evaluated on.

The majority of the points (31) are based on classroom observations of teachers, which will be handled by principals, assistant principals and supervisors. “But the rest of it is based on what a teacher does for the rest of the year,” Brown said.

Based on their scores, teachers will be put into one of four categories: highly effective, effective, developing and ineffective. If a teacher is designated as developing or ineffective, they will work with their administrator in a Teacher Improvement Plan to help raise their score for the next year.

“Theoretically, if you’re a tenured teacher and you’re ‘ineffective’ two years in a row, the Board of Education can try to bring charges against you and get you fired,” said Brown. “They don’t have to — it’s up to the Board of Education.”

Principal evaluations will be similar to teacher evaluations, except they will be scored on how kids do in the whole school, rather than just a classroom. They will also be subject to evaluations, conducted by Brown and the assistant superintendents. “We won’t be going into a class to watch them teach, we’ll be going into the building to watch them be a principal,” said Brown.

Brown said that the effect of the new evaluations on students will be minimal.

“There might be some additional pretests in September, because the state wants us to show how much the kids have grown over the course of the year,” he said. “And it’s tough to show how much they’ve grown from a final test in June if you don’t give them a pretest in September.

“If you want to see how much the teacher has added to their education, you need a base,” he added.