Colonial creates its own evaluations
The Colonial School District has created its own alternative to the state's much-maligned teacher evaluation system, and the district teachers union has voted to support it.
The statewide evaluation system most public schools use is highly controversial and many teachers don't trust it. By creating a system with input from its teachers, the district hopes it can hold teachers accountable and help them improve in a way educators themselves find fair.
School districts can create their own evaluation system as long as it meets state and federal standards.
"Ultimately it is an evaluation system, and there has to be accountability for our educators," said Pete Leida, director of schools for the district. "But our focus from day one has been making this about growth as much as possible. We want a system that will give our teachers more frequent observations and real feedback they can use."
The Colonial Education Association union's members voted on the proposal and approved it 275-240.
"We're giving this a shot because this is an alternative to [the old system], said CEA President Stephanie Ingram. "I think what people are thinking is: this could be something better. At least with Colonial, we actually get to have some say in what happens."
The statewide Delaware Performance Appraisal System II is widely distrusted by teachers because it includes scores on standardized tests, among other concerns. Almost no teachers have been rated ineffective under the system, and administrators have complained that the process is overly bureaucratic and time-consuming.
"DPAS-II just wasn't working for us," Leida said. "Our folks were telling us that they weren't getting enough value out of it for it to be worth all the time that was being spent on it."
The biggest difference between Colonial's new system and the state's, Leida says, is the number of observations. While teachers got only one, maybe two observations in their DPAS-II evaluations, the new system will include more.
Novice teachers will get formally rated twice, but will have a minimum of six classroom observations. Experienced teachers will get only one formal rating, but will get a minimum of four classroom walkthroughs.
The walkthroughs could be conducted by principals, but they also might be conducted by other staff, like instructional coaches or teacher-leaders in the school.
The goal of having more observations is to give teachers more "bite-sized" advice on where and how they can improve. Having only one or two means the evaluator has to give the teacher a sweeping review of their entire performance, which can be difficult to digest into usable advice.
The system also has fewer performance standards on which teachers are judged, Leida said which should streamline the process for administrators.
The part of the state's system that uses test scores, known as "Component Five," remains in place. State and federal rules require evaluation systems to have some measure of "student performance."
Leida said the district may consider tinkering with Component Five in the future.
Colonial, like the rest of the state's school system, has some breathing room when it comes to test scores. Delaware temporarily removed test scores from evaluations because it switched to the new Smarter Balanced Assessment for the first time last year.
Leida says the district's first year using the new system will be a "test run." Schools won't use the evaluations to make hiring decisions.
That's good because some teachers have concerns that need to be addressed, Ingram said.
Some, for example, aren't yet confident the rubrics evaluators will use can be consistently applied. Others want to make sure those doing the evaluating have enough classroom experience and expertise in the content areas the teacher serves.
"Everyone values good, honest, coaching," Ingram said.
Delaware law has for more than a decade allowed districts or charter schools to create their own evaluation systems, as long as those systems fit collective bargaining agreements and are as "rigorous" as the state's system.
Colonial is the first traditional school district to attempt to create its own system.
Starting two years ago, some charter schools began using their own systems. At the moment, there are 13 charters using one of four different alternative models.
"Over the last several years, we've talked a lot as a state about having teachers at the table," said Christopher Ruszkowski, chief of the state's Teacher and Leader Effectiveness Unit that developed DPAS-II. "What Colonial did was a real testament to teacher voice in terms of how many teachers were engaged."
Contact Matthew Albright at malbright@delawareonline.com, (302) 324-2428 or on Twitter @TNJ_malbright.