Report Card: Teacher Evaluation Plan Set for Review

This article was posted by Barbara Heins. It was reported and written by Sue Rogers.

When the Greenwich Board of Education meets later this week at Riverside School the meeting will begin with an annual recognition of the 2013 Greenwich Public Schools Distinguished Teachers.

The Distinguished Teachers Awards Committee (DTAC) is a nonprofit organization established in 1984 to recognize and celebrate excellence among the dedicated teaching staff of the district.

Each year, this committee, comprised of some 20 volunteer representatives from the Board of Education, Greenwich Organization of School Administrators, Greenwich Educational Association, the Greenwich PTA Council and community member - reviews the nominations and makes the difficult decisions in selecting the honorees.

And after honoring its teachers, the board will review of its options regarding the State of Connecticut’s System for Educator Evaluation and Development (SEED). Per the State Department of Education (SDE), districts must notify the SDE as to “whether they wish to select the state model, SEED, for teacher and administrator evaluation, hybrid model or a district-designed alternative.” While the state insists that “all alternative models must align to the Connecticut Guidelines for Educator Evaluation (Core Requirements), they have directed that “districts that are adopting a district-designed alternative or a hybrid version of SEED must submit their complete proposal by Monday, April 15, 2013.”

Per the district’s Monitoring Report: Management of Human Resources E-050, which was first presented at the board March 7 work session, the issue of the  new state teacher evaluation system, can be "viewed as an unfunded mandate."

Back in early March, Director of Human Resources Bob Lichtenfeld and Deputy Superintendent Ellen Flanagan revealed that the SDE may consider the possibility of evaluating a “staggered implementation of one-third of classroom teachers.” Additionally, Greenwich is trying to get the district’s current teacher evaluation plan, TEPL, or some variation of it, approved by the SDE as an alternate.

TEPL is a process designed to demonstrate how well teachers are doing and how they may improve their practices Cathy Delehanty, president of the Greenwich Education Association (GEA) said, "It was imperative for the state to take the position that requires every district to create/implement a rigorous evaluation process."

However, Delehanty, who represents approximately 860 full-time employees in the district, sees fault lines in the plan. She was critical of "the short time line, inflexibility in process, and not funding the implementation and training of a new plan is problematic."

The exploration of options or variations within the plan would be optimal Delehanty believes. "Extending the time-line and modifying how it is implemented is the best answer," she says. "The pilot program needs to be reviewed and determine the necessary modifications to the SEED plan to help districts as they develop their plan. It is the hope that these modifications will align more with TEPL."

The board will meet at 7 p.m. at Riverside School.