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Lima
News…
Teacher
evaluations coming, much work to
prepare, implement
Story By Beth L. Jokinen
ELIDA
— While the coming teacher evaluation
system is state mandated, much of the work will be done at the local
level,
with decisions needed to be made by next summer.
About
40 area school officials, including board
members and superintendents, attended a training on the system
Thursday. Held
at Elida High School, the Allen County Educational Service Center did
the
training.
“The
landscape is changing, to say the very
least,” said county Superintendent Brian Rockhold. “When talking about
teacher
and principal evaluations, we are moving to a very high-stakes game.”
Ohio
House Bill 153 and the newly adopted
Senate Bill 316 calls for yearly teacher evaluations to start next
school year
if a school is getting federal Race to the Top funding. Those that are
not are
required to begin once their current teacher contracts expire. Allen
East,
Bluffton, Delphos, Elida and Spencerville schools in Allen County get
Race to
the Top funds.
All
public school boards must adopt a policy by
July 1, 2013. Community school are not required unless they get federal
Race to
the Top funding. The only outside money coming to districts to
implement the
evaluation system is Race to the Top dollars, which are largely
designated for
professional development.
“This
is a totally unfunded mandate, right?,”
said Bath school board member Rob McPheron. “We are in reduced budgets,
in
deficit spending and then they want us to spend more so we can go
father into
deficit spending.”
The
new system is based on two evaluation
components, both weighted at 50 percent: a rating of teacher
performance based
on observations and other factors, and a rating of student academic
growth. The
growth component looks at whether pupils are making at least a year’s
worth of
growth.
Teachers
will be deemed “ineffective,”
“developing,” “proficient” or “accomplished.” The state has said most
teachers
will be in the “proficient” category, and few in “accomplished.”
Read
the rest of this article at the Lima News
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