Teachers and administrators are slated to get pink slips over the next week as the culmination of a new approach to evaluating how they do their jobs.
Schools Superintendent Reginald Mayo made that announcement in an interview Monday evening after a special meeting of the school board.
Mayo said the district should make a decision on terminations resulting from new evaluation systems by the school board meeting scheduled for next Monday.
“We’re hoping we can wrap that up this week,” Mayo said.
The firings come at the end of the inaugural year of a new way of grading teachers, principals and assistant principals based largely on student test scores as part of the city’s sweeping school reform drive. Staff at the district’s central office are being graded in a new way, too.
Based on their performance this year against goals they set for themselves, teachers, administrators and central office staff will be graded on a scale of 1 to 5, from “needs improvement” to “exemplary”; the ratings should be finalized in the next month, according to school reform czar Garth Harries.
Melissa Bailey Photo
Mayo (pictured) said he didn’t have an estimate of how many people will get fired. Other jobs remain in the balance: Depending on how many terminations and resignations there are, other staffers may face layoffs in order to close an $8 million gap in the current fiscal year budget.
Teachers’ grades are based on classroom observations as well as goals they set for student performance, which in most cases means standardized tests. Teachers were put on alert in November that they were on track to receive the highest or lowest rating.
At the time, 62 teachers learned they in danger of getting a 1, which means they’d risk losing their jobs if they didn’t improve by the end of the year. Struggling teachers then were given extra supports and classroom visits in attempt to get them back on track. In mid-year interviews with their principals such as this one at Brennan/Rogers school, they reported back on their progress. Many have improved enough to hang onto their jobs.
Now that test results are back from the state, all 1,600 teachers will learn their final grades.
Mayo said over the next week, the district will determine whether those struggling staffers improved enough to keep their jobs, or whether they’ll be terminated. The new system, which makes it easier for the district to fire its unionized workforce, was made possible by a landmark teachers contract. Teachers overwhelmingly endorsed the change: In a survey last year, they said they want to see truly bad teachers fired, not protected.
Validating The “Validators”
Teachers union President Dave Cicarella said the teacher evaluation process has been “so far, so good.”
Cicarella outlined a number of factors he’ll be looking at to determine whether the terminations are fair: “Are there in fact tenured teachers who are up for termination? Was the process followed with fidelity?”
Teachers who are up for termination, those who landed in the “needs improvement” category last fall, were required to have three formal classroom observations, according to the union contract. Three times, an instructional manager (a principal or assistant principal) was supposed to visit the struggling teacher’s classroom, along with an outside validator whom the union and school district agreed upon.
In the classroom, the principal and validator were supposed to prepare separate reports. Cicarella said the union will look at those reports to see whether there’s “a big disconnect” — which could be a red flag.
Cicarella said he’ll also look at whether teachers met the student learning goals they set at the beginning of the year. “Did the teacher meet those goals?”
And Cicarella will look at whether there is top-to-bottom accountability in each school.
“In every case, we want to also look at the building: Is the building conducive to learning? Are there impediments to learning? Is the principal a good instructional leader?”
The Bosses, Too
Administrators went through a parallel process throughout the year; they will be graded based on key competencies and performance goals, acording to their new union contract.
The district also revamped the process for evaluating central office staff in a way that mirrors that of teachers and administrators. Harries said the new central office evaluation system was still being developed over the course of the year; it had to “catch up” to the other evaluation methods. Evaluators used a variety of new and older forms, but have sought to bring the process in line with the new approach, which focuses on leadership competencies and performance-based goals.
The superintendent will eventually be graded in a similar way, too. That process is still underway: The school board formed a subcommittee to create a new tool to rate his performance based on student test scores; the subcommittee has yet to report back with a final product.
Since the new evaluation system rolled out, some struggling evaluees have opted to resign instead of face termination, said Harries. Those who are fired will get a termination hearing at which they’ll have the chance to make their case if they want to keep working for the district.
Layoffs Hang In Balance
Resignation notices for 16 teachers were approved at Monday’s school board meeting; Harries said most are not related to the new teacher evaluations.
How many people leave the district through attrition, and how many get fired, will determine the number of layoffs the district needs to make to close an $8 million budget hole in the current fiscal year.
Mayo said the district has found some ways to close that gap by cutting non-personnel costs.
In July, Mayo reported there would be up to 150 layoffs before the summer’s end.
On Monday, he said the district is “doing very, very well” in closing the gap through attrition and other cost-cutting moves. The number of layoffs will be “nowhere near the 150 jobs we had talked about,” he said.
The new teacher evaluation is almost as subjective as the last program. I think it's interesting that the only people touting its success are those who are not evaluated by it. Of course, given its subjectivity, not many teachers are willing to go on the record as to its efficacy.