Northport District Submits Teacher Performance Review Plan to State

The of Education approved and submitted a negotiated teacher evaluation plan to the state on June 28 in advance of the July 1 deadline. The agreements are mandated under the revised teacher and principal evaluation law passed earlier this year. Districts without an approved plan in place by Jan. 17, 2013 risk losing state aid for the 2012-2013 school year.

According to a press release from the New York State Education Department, only 186 of the approximately 700 school districts in the state had submitted plans by July 6.

The Elwood School District also met the deadline, submitting their  on June 29.

Some details on the plan, which is based on a 100 point rating system, have been posted on the  United Teachers of Northport website. Twenty five points will be based on student growth on state assessments such as Regents exams. Another 15 points will be based on locally selected measures of student achievement. Teacher observations, consisting of two formal and four informal observations for probationary teachers, and one formal and one informal evaluation for tenured teachers, comprise 40 points. The remaining 20 points will be given to any teacher who participates in the training and peer observation process.

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The process varies slightly for teachers of subjects which do not have state assessments. In that case, 20 points will be based on Student Learning Objectives (SLOs) as comparable growth measures and 20 points on locally selected measures of student achievement. Local aspects of the plan were developed by the APPR (Annual Professional Performance
Review) Advisory Committee, which was comprised of equal numbers of teachers and administrators.

The evaluations will be based on the following scale: Highly Effective (91-100 points); Effective (75-90 points); Developing (65-74 points); Ineffective (0-64 points).

Principals are also included in the state’s new APPR. Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Matthew Nelson said a plan has been submitted as well which is comprised of ten different areas of leadership to determine a principal’s effectiveness.

According to the UTN website, the district has “committed to explaining the full plan, in detail, at the September Conference Day, and to providing training to teachers in the new rubric.”

Approval or rejection from the state should come by Sept. 1 for those districts which submitted their plans by the July 1 deadline. If a plan is rejected, it will need to be re-negotiated. 

For now, the district is moving forward and preparing to implement the plan by September. “Until the state says differently, we’re going to move forward with the APPR we’ve negotiated, “ Nelson said. “If changes have to be made, we’ll negotiate them later.”