"We are at the early stages of this approach," Quattrone said. "We haven't even gone through a complete cycle yet, so it is difficult to know its impact and what we might want to change. The challenges of implementation have been daunting. For example, the number of required teacher observations doubled this year, making it difficult to meet deadlines. Anecdotally, principals report that with the new categories of effectiveness, their discussions with teachers have focused more on ratings and less on improvement strategies.
"This year," he continued, "we wanted to make sure that the establishment of formal Student Learning Objectives did not detract from teachers' willingness to innovate. I think we have been largely successful on that score, but we still need to work on how to make sure these objectives and their measures are well understood and meaningful to the faculty." He added that a new assessment put into place at the Elementary School, the NWEA MAP, is providing teachers with useful information about student growth and their learning needs.
"It is not clear how the state model is helping a district that already has ample evidence that students are college ready," he said, "but as we move into next year we will examine what's going on around the state and identify opportunities to improve."
Quattrone will ask the Board to endorse renewal of the APPR plan at the July reorganization meeting.
