Teachers May Face Tougher Scrutiny

By Brandee A. Thomas, The Brunswick News, Ga.

Jul. 31–Some Glynn County school teachers may want to do a little homework themselves before heading back to their classrooms next month.

The school system will implement this coming school year a new teacher evaluation process that top administrators predict will shake up the status quo.

“I think this will radically change what we do in Glynn County for the better. It will have a dynamic impact on student achievement,” Charlotte Lawson, director of professional learning, said Wednesday during a board of education meeting for discussions only.

Already, Lawson is anticipating that some teachers will object.

Until the new school year, each teacher had been observed annually in the classroom by an administrator who then wrote an evaluation of his or her performance.

The new process will require the administrator to observe each teacher’s classroom multiple times a year and to write a final evaluation at the end of the year.

The new evaluation will have five parts, and a teacher who doesn’t score at least proficient on each section will be placed on a professional development plan for improvement.

“We’re going to have some teachers who say they were OK teachers for 20 years and don’t understand why they were placed on the professional development plan after this year’s evaluation,” Lawson said.

“Well, they may have been OK teachers for 20 years, but we don’t want OK teachers. We want them to be at least proficient, or exemplary.”

Teachers who fail to make the progress required by a professional development plan may find themselves removed from the classroom, administrators say.

“Teachers are going to be trained on the new evaluation during pre-planning (before school starts),” said Superintendent Michael Bull. “Administrators will go through the evaluation tool with each teacher and they will know what is expected of them up front.”

The idea behind the new evaluation is to improve education.

The purpose of the teacher evaluations is to “identify and reinforce effective teaching practices, identify areas where improvement is needed and identify teachers that don’t meet minimum standards.

“By (the end of the year) there won’t be any surprises about what the final evaluation will say because teachers will hear from administrators throughout the year,” Lawson said.

“At the end of each observation, some type of feedback must be provided to the teacher, indicating strengths and weaknesses that were observed.”

During the meeting Wednesday, board members also reviewed, but did not vote on, administrators’ proposed goals and objectives for the 2008 school year. Among them are tougher requirements for students to be promoted to the next grade level, assessments of how prepared high school juniors are for the state’s graduation test and promotion of the arts as part of education.

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