As authorized by the Springlake-Earth Board of Trustees, the communications committee met on October 7 and 15 for the purpose of finalizing a proposal on Local District Performance Appraisal: Evaluation of Teachers as allowed in HB 1440, ammendment 21.352(c) of chapter 21.203 in the Education Code: revising local district policy for annual teacher evaluation.
Members of the committee included Dr. Bigham, Mr. Vaughn, Mr. Conkin, Mrs. Parish, Mrs. Bigham, Mrs. Bills, Mrs. Lewis, Mrs. Lostroh, Mr. Mayfield, and Mr. Been.
This committee recommends the following policy concerning Performance Appraisal: Evaluation of Teachers:
In addition to the minimum standard in the amendment 21.352(c) which states:
Except as otherwise provided by this subsection, appraisals must be done at least once during each school year. A teacher may be appraised less frequently if the teacher agrees in writing and the teacher's most recent evaluation rated the teacher as at least Proficient, or the equivalent, and did not identify any area of deficiency. A teacher who is appraised less frequently than annually must be appraised at least once during each period of five school years.
the communications commitee recommends the following:
- The new schedule will be district-wide.
- In addition to the minimum eligibility requirements established in HB 1440, the following were added to the criteria:
- be on an educator term contract
- be SBEC certified
- new (beginning) teachers would be evaluated every year of their probationary (3 years) contract
- new employees to the district would be evaluated the first year and if all conditions are met, then they will enter the 5 year cycle of appraisals
- employee must have received a proficient rating with no areas of deficiency of below expectations in any criteria of the domains for 1 year
- the district will evaluate teachers every fifth year unless it is a reduction in force year in which everyone will be appraised
- that during any school year when a complete appraisal under the PDAS is not scheduled, either the teacher or the principal may require that an appraisal be conducted by providing written notice to the other party
- that the district will develop an alternative review process in the years in which an appraisal is not required
- use the Teacher Self Report (TSR) as the Alternative Performance Review Instrument for the annual review of all teachers who are in the five-year cycle but not up for appraisal
- all teachers will continue to do the TSR regardless of where they are in the appraisal process/cycle
- select 5 years as the cycle for appraisals
- the alternative annual review process shall produce a written document to be presented to the teacher, signed by the teacher and supervisor, and maintained in the personnel file
- the regular PDAS procedures and requirements shall not apply to the alternative annual review process.
