The Manhasset Board of Education unanimously adopted the Marshall Plan at last Thursday night’s meeting. Now, the teachers will be the ones getting graded through an Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR).
The APPR program, based on the Marshall Teacher Evaluation Rubric, is the evaluation of teachers through classroom observations. Supervisory staff including principals, assistant principals, coordinators, directors, and assistant directors, conduct frequent unannounced observations that are accompanied by constructive feedback. The program seeks to promote the improvement of instruction as well as student achievements.
Superintendent of Schools, Charles Cardillo explained, “We started ten summers ago with a district-wide team of administrators and teachers really looking to see what’s out there for us to embrace and adopt as we worked in conjunction. We had to negotiation by the nature and the language of the law of our APPR plan.” He continued, “We were fortunate in collaborating with the teachers where we ultimately had the outcome to have a very ambitious model.”
The teachers’ scores are based on a total of 100 points. New York State required subcomponents and point allocations for teachers’ scores. As summed up, a total of 40 points gets divided in half based on NYS test results and student growth, and local student achievement. (Information received from handout, under NYS Required Subcomponents and Point Allocation for Teachers’ APPR Scores)
Teachers are evaluated by staff through a Teacher Evaluation Rubric written by Kim Marshall. This rubric rates the teachers as highly effective, developing, and ineffective.
According to the domains of the Marshall Rubric, the 60 point grid is organized around six domains covering every aspect of a teacher’s job performance. This includes; “delivery of instruction (20 points), Classroom Management (15 points), planning and preparation for learning (10 points), professional responsibilities (5 points), family and community outreach (5 points), monitoring, assessment and follow-ups (5 points)”
According to the New York State Education Department’s NYS APPR Observation Regulations, “At least a majority (31) of the 60 points shall be based on multiple (at least 2) classroom observations by principal, or other trained administrator, at least one of which must be unannounced”. (http://www.engageny.org/resource/summary-of-revised-appr-provisions-2012-13-the-purple-memo)
Manhasset School district is taking the extra step by conducting more frequent observations. These teachers are observed 40 more times than New York State requires, and they are observed nearly 50 times over a 5-year-period.
In Manhasset teacher observations: The Marshall Model, as summed up, first year teachers receive 9 mini-observations, and one full period announced observation. Second year teachers received 9 mini observations, however, one full period is unannounced. Tenured teachers receive frequent, unannounced, mini-observations (target of 10). After an observation is conducted, a teacher is spoken to about their results with 24 hours, their best practices are recognized, intervention is put into place if needed, and their results of the observation are recorded in a system called T-Eval.
New York State law allows legal guardians of a student to request the final score for each teacher and building principal of their student for the current school year. In order to receive results, a request form must be completed. For more information visit www.questar.org/StaffDevelopment/appr-request.php.
