I must admit that all of the changes from NYSED have left my head spinning. Our APPR Committee, including five teachers and three administrators, has worked hard since the beginning of July to make sense of it all and to make collaborative decisions about what’s best for us here at RCS. The APPR Plan is on the website as a series of links and files, under District. If interested, please take some time to read the documents and follow the links.
As administrators, we have much to learn about the Danielson 2011 Teacher’s Rubric and our role as lead evaluators. In fairness, we believe teachers deserve professional development in the use of the tool with which they’re about to be evaluated. On October 31, our next Superintendent’s Conference Day, teachers will have half a day for their Professional Learning Communities (PLCs) and half a day of professional development on the Rubric– Understanding the Framework, the four levels of performance and one aspect of one Domain–Student Engagement. As an Admin Team we will be working with a lead expert directly from the Danielson group 3-5 additional days during this year. One of the things I’m most interested in is the coaching day, when the Danielson trainer works with us to visit classrooms and then talks with us about how we talk about teaching with our teachers.
The Danielson Rubric has four domains, the last of which is entitled Professional Responsibilities. Under the new State Regs, and agreed to in our APPR Committee meetings, we will have 40 points of the teacher’s Composite Score based on multiple evaluations on the first three domains. The fourth domain will be based on a Professional Portfolio worth 20 points of the Composite Score. (Remember that the other parts are 20% for State Assessments and 20% for Locally Selected Assessments.)
And speaking of Locally Selected Assessments, we’ve selected iReady. We are meeting with the sales representative next Thursday to negotiate a price and to get these assessments into place as soon as possible. Why the rush? I want our teachers to have their preliminary diagnostic assessments done as early in the school year as possible.
I remain, as always, optimistic that the changes the new regulations have mandated will help us to improve learning for all of our students.