After a full year of planning and discussion, the Bronxville School has agreed upon an Annual Professional Performance Review plan as required by the state. The plan required negotiations with both teachers and administrators; unraveling a set of dense, complicated regulations; and a challenging deadline. The requirements themselves were only finalized after a prolonged period of legal wrangling and intervention by the Governor. Each public school district in the state is required to submit its
Annual Professional Performance Review plan by July 1 and fully
implement it in 2012-13.
The State requires each district to rate each teacher on a scale of 0-100, with 20 points based on state assessments, 20 points based on locally-determined assessments, and 60 points based on classroom observations and other measures. Total scores are classified into one of four rating categories: highly effective, effective, developing, or ineffective.
Bronxville's approach uses the state testing results for both state and local results.For the local component, Bronxville has developed school-wide standards of achievement for all students that apply collectively to all teachers covered by the law.. Advanced Placement and Regents tests are used at the High School. Special challenges arise in areas without any state tests, such as grades K-2, certain high school courses, and art, music, and physical education. In these areas the district will use either approved third-party assessments or locally designed student learning objectives. The infrastructure for these assessments needed to carry out this work entails time, training, and additional cost, notably for the purchase of additional assessments and the associated data entry and management. Test results comprise 40% of the total rating.
The remaining 60% derives from classroom observations and other measures. Danielson's Framework for Teaching, in place since 2006 and updated in 2011, is one of the models approved by the state, and Bronxville will continue to use it.The evaluation process has been revised to conform to the new regulations, including a second unannounced observation for all teachers covered by the law and additional evidence of effectiveness presented by the teacher (such as portfolios of student work, curriculum plans, or newsletters). The final evaluation encompasses planning and preparation, the classroom environment, instruction, and professional responsibilities. The ratings on twenty-two separate components are then converted to the sixty-point scale for each teacher covered by the law.
The District APPR also includes design of a teacher improvement plans and an appeals process as required by the law. The evaluation process for principals follows the same contours as the process for teachers: 20% based on state assessments, 20% on local measures of achievement, and 60% on other measures. Bronxville has selected the Multidimensional Principal Performance Rubric, one of the state-approved models. That rubric addresses principal performance in six domains: shared vision of learning; school culture and instructional program; safe, efficient, effective learning environment; community; integrity, fairness, ethics; and political, social, economic, and cultural context.
The state requirements and local approach will surely evolve with experience, and the adopted plan will be reviewed and revised as needed for 2013-14. Superintendent David Quattrone commented, "We continue to have concerns about the wisdom of using state achievement tests in this fashion and the false precision of reducing the complexities of teacher performance to a numerical scale. Yet we are doing our best to adapt to the new realities, reaffirm our higher aspirations for students that are not captured by standardized tests, and protect teachers' ability to innovate and try new approaches outside the context of performance appraisal."
