Westchester Putnam School Boards Association

1. Westchester Putnam School Boards Association Annual Professional Performance Reviews [APPR] From Macro to Micro: Implications For Governance The Journey from Albany to Local Boards of Education Presented by: Ms. Lisa Davis, Executive Director, Westchester Putnam School Boards Association Dr. Phyllis Glassman, Superintendent of Schools, Ossining Union Free School District Ms. Jackie O’Donnell, Director of Professional Development and Curriculum, Southern Westchester BOCES Dr. James Langlois, District Superintendent, Putnam Northern Westchester BOCES Pleasantville High School Library 22 September 2011

2. Ms. Lisa DavisExecutive DirectorWestchester Putnam School Boards Association

3. Dr. Phyllis GlassmanSuperintendent of Schools Ossining Union Free School District

4. APPR: What Is the Role of Boards of Education? • Above, Beyond, Before, After APPR • Thank You!! • Most Important Job! • Elected Officials • Entrusted with Children’s Lives and Futures • Ensuring Democracy • “24/7” Volunteers • APPR: Governance

5. How Can the Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR) Be Described “From 30,000 Feet”? • Concept • Excellent • From Goals to Standards to Implementation to Student Learning • Performance Appraisals to Support and Ensure Student Learning to High Standards and Student Growth Over Time • Clichés Overheard In the Field • “Motherhood and Apple Pie” • “The Devil Is In the Detail”

6. APPR: What Is Known and Unknown? • Question: Are Superintendents in Our Region Keeping Up to Date Regarding APPR? • Answer: Yes, Absolutely. Some Even Contribute to Statewide Committees and Task Forces! • Pivotal Questions • Are NYS Boards of Education and Superintendents Concerned About the Details, Uncertainties, and Mysteries of APPR Implementation? • Are There Legal Differences of Opinion? • Are Changes Possible in What We Know and Share Today? • Answers • Yes! • Yes! • Yes!

7. Can We Identify Context for APPR?Conceptual vs. Chronological • A Nation At Risk: 1983 • NYS • Excellence and Accountability Initiative • Regents Action Plan • Effective Schools Movement • International Comparisons • National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) • Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) • Education Reform Movements • Education Trust • No Child Left Behind Act: 2001 • The World Is Flat: 2005 • Regents Reform Agenda • Race To The Top: 2009 • Common Core Standards • Partnership for the Assessments of Readiness for College and Careers

8. What Is A Brief Synopsis of the History of APPR in New York State? • APPR Plan for Teachers • Commissioner of Education: Spring 2010 • Amendment to APPR • Four Categories of Teacher Performance • Ineffective, Developing, Effective, Highly Effective • NYS Legislature • Section 3012-C of Education Law: 1 July 2010 • Amended APPR Requirements: Regulations of the Commissioner [8 NYCRR 100.2] • New Stature 3012-C of the Education Law • Significantly Modified Teacher and Principal Evaluations • A Goal: Student Performance • Board of Regents • Composite Effectiveness Score • Student Performance: State and Local Assessment • Rubric

9. How Can We Capture the Essence of the Pathway? • Regents Reform Agenda • Improving Teaching and Learning • Increasing Opportunity for All Students to Graduate from High School Ready for College and Careers • Regents Advisory Task Force on Teacher and Principal Effectiveness: September 2010 • Teachers, Principals, Superintendents, School Boards, District and BOCES Officials, Plus… • Workgroups • Support: Research Advisors and Experts • Report and Recommendations to Board of Regents: April 2011 • Board of Regents Directed NYSED to Draft Regulations • Regulations: Grounded in NYS Teaching Standards and ISLLC Educational Leadership Policy Standards: ISLLC 2008 [Note: Memo from Dr. King to Board of Regents – 12 March 2011]

10. What Is the Relationship Between APPR and Teaching Standards?NYS Teaching Standards, January 2011 • NYSED Press Release: 28 January 2011 • Work Group: Input and Review from Field • 43 Individuals, 22 Stakeholder Groups • “The Standards are designed to be used throughout a teacher’s career -- …evaluation….” • Knowledge and Skills • Development of New Performance – Based Assessments • Basis for Rubrics…Identified or Developed and Use in the Annual Professional Performance Review Process • Benchmarks…Teacher Career Ladders and Professional Development

11. What Are the Standards?NYS Teaching Standards Adopted by Board of Regents • Knowledge of Students and Student Learning • Knowledge of Content and Instructional Planning • Instructional Practice • Learning Environment • Assessment for Student Learning • Professional Responsibilities and Collaboration • Professional Growth [Note: Elements and Performance Indicators]

12. Conceptually, How Do Assessments Connect APPR with the Teaching Standards?NYS Teaching StandardsStandard V: Assessment for Student Learning • “Teachers use multiple measures to assess and document student growth, evaluate instructional effectiveness, and modify instruction.” • Elements V.1, V.2, V.3, V.4, V.5, and Performance Indicators: Excerpts • “Measure and Document Student Learning” • “Formative Assessment to Inform Teaching and Learning” • “Summative Assessment to Measure and Record Student Achievement” • “Criteria By Which the Students Will Be Evaluated” • APPR • From Student to Teacher to Principal

13. What Are the Interstate School Leaders Licensure Consortium (ISLLC) Standards? • A School Administrator Is An Educational Leader Who Promotes the Success of All Students By: • Facilitating the Development, Articulation, Implementation, and Stewardship of a Vision of Learning That Is Shared and Supported by the School Community. • Advocating, Nurturing, and Sustaining a School Culture and Instructional Program Conducive to Student Learning and Staff Professional Growth. • Ensuring Management of the Organization, Operations and Resources for a Safe, Efficient, and Effective Environment. • Collaborating With Families and Community Members, Responding to Diverse Community Interests and Needs, and Mobilizing Community Resources. • Acting with Integrity, Fairness, and In An Ethical Manner. • Understanding, Responding to, and Influencing the Larger Political, Social, Economic, and Cultural Context.

14. What Is the Phase In Schedule? • APPR Adoption: 1 September 2011 • APPR Posting on Web Sites: 10 September 2011 • 2011-2012 • Classroom Teachers: “4-8” • Common Branch Subjects • ELA and Math • Principals: “4-8” Buildings • 20% Growth on State Assessments or Comparable Measures • 2012-2013 • All Classroom Teachers and Principals • 20% Growth on State Assessments or Comparable Measures • Upon Regents Adoption of Value Added Model • 25% Growth on State Assessments or Comparable Measures

15. What Did Dr. John B. King Suggest About Implementation? “As we shift to the work of implementation, our focus remains leveraging evaluations to drive improved teaching and learning.” ~ NYSED Press Release, 16 May 2011

16. What Should Board Trustees Know About NYSED’s APPR Summer Training? • Network Teams • Evidence – Based Teacher Evaluation: 2 Days • Teacher Evaluation Roadmap • Select Teacher Practice Rubric: (40-60 Points) • Consideration: Select Additional Measures of Teacher Practice: (Up to 20 Points) • Select “Local” Measure: (20 Points) [State Approved, State Test, Locally Developed] • Additional Local Decisions • Training Plans • Evaluators • Certification of Lead Evaluators • Teacher Improvement Plans • Appeals Procedure

17. What Are a Few Key Issues That Raise Questions? • “Teacher of Record” • Scoring, Ratings, Points • Appeals Process • Negotiated vs. Regulated • TIPs and PIPs • Timelines • Districts’ Capacity for Implementation • To Attain the Lofty Goals • To Address the Practicalities • Outcome of NYSUT Lawsuit • Plus!

18. What Will Implementation “Look Like”? • Multifaceted • One Component • Highly Effective • Effective • Developing • Ineffective • One Hundred Points • Teacher Improvement Plans: TIPs • Principal Improvement Plans: PIPs • Plus…!

19. At the State Level, What Will Assist In Implementation of New System? • Work Groups • Metrics • Teacher and Principal Training/Implementation • Non-Tested Subjects and Local Assessments [Note: Memo from Dr. King to Board of Regents – 12 May 2011]

20. Obvious Yet Essential Questions: APPR • Where Are We Now? • Where Do We Need To Go? • How Will We Get There? • Unique District Cultures • How Will We All: • Maintain a Laser Like Focus on Our Children? • Remain True to District Values and Principles? • Retain Local Control?

21. Ms. Jackie O’DonnellDirector of Professional Development and CurriculumSouthern Westchester BOCES

22. Mission/Vision/Values/Goals • What is our work, why are we here? • What do we dream we can become? • How will we behave together? • What are the steps we will take?

23. Regents Reform Agenda vs. RTTT • Race to the Top is a funding source to support the implementation of the Regents Reform Agenda • Regents Reform Agenda includes a vision for improving student achievement

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25. Vision Statement • The Pleasantville Union Free School District believes that all students are unique and can be educated in a manner consistent with their abilities, learning styles, individual interests and talents. Our purpose is to provide all students with the means to acquire skills, knowledge and values enabling them to be healthy, competent, contributing and responsible members of society. To affect the future in a positive way, we accept the challenge and embrace the responsibility of providing an excellent education so that all students may attain their potential.

26. Great Leaders and Teachers • New York State will…. • Provide teachers and principals with clinically rich preparation and certify them based on clinical skills and results.

27. 1. New York State Teaching Standards and Leadership Standards 2. Evidence-based observation 3. Application and use of Student Growth Percentile and VA Growth Model data 4. Application and use of the State-approved teacher or principal rubrics 5. Application and use of any assessment tools used to evaluate teachers and principals 6. Application and use of State-approved locally selected measures of student achievement 7. Use of the Statewide Instructional Reporting System 8. Scoring methodology used to evaluate teachers and principals 9. Specific considerations in evaluating teachers and principals of ELLs and students with disabilities

28. Objectives for the first turn key training • Administrators will identify both completed work and next steps for implementing teacher evaluation as outlined in the Regents Reform Agenda • Administrators will identify the quality indicators of effective teachers and teaching which are embedded in NYS Teaching Standards • Administrators will articulate 21st Century Skills

29. Administrators will explain the nuances between the levels of skill in the Evaluation Rubrics (Ineffective, Developing, Effective, Highly Effective) Administrators will define fair, reliable and valid in relation to lesson observation and rubric use Administrators will differentiate between evidence and opinion in relation to lesson observation and rubric use

30. Administrators will identify the role of bias in relation to observation and evaluation

31. New York State Teaching Standards Standard 7 Professional Growth Developed by TLS, Inc. NYSUT Rubrics 31

32. Priorities of the Frameworks • Cognitive Engagement • “Effective” = students must be cognitivelyengaged • “Highly Effective” = cognition, meta-cognition, and student ownership of their learning • Constructivist Learning • Effective and Highly Effective practice must have evidence of learning experiences designed to facilitate students’ construction of knowledge • 21st Century Skills • Effective and Highly Effective practice must plan for and have evidence of application of college career-readiness skills and dispositions 32 Developed by TLS, Inc. NYSUT Rubrics 32

33. What does 2011 - 2012 hold for us????

34. Staying focused on the Vision • The Pleasantville Union Free School District believes that all students are unique and can be educated in a manner consistent with their abilities, learning styles, individual interests and talents. Our purpose is to provide all students with the means to acquire skills, knowledge and values enabling them to be healthy, competent, contributing and responsible members of society. To affect the future in a positive way, we accept the challenge and embrace the responsibility of providing an excellent education so that all students may attain their potential.

36. Dr. James LangloisDistrict SuperintendentPutnam Northern Westchester BOCES

37. What is the Impact of the Lawsuit? Local 20% cannot simply copy the State 20% SED can’t require that 40 of the remaining 60 points must come from multiple classroom observations SED can’t limit the use of professional growth to 5 points SED’s values assigned to scoring bands are invalid. A teacher’s APPR score must be a significant factor in any tenure or dismissal decision. Principal evaluation being treated as “me too”.

38. What Needs to be Negotiated? Process for selecting/creating locally selected assessments The process for assigning points (0-20) in this category The components to be considered under Other Measures The distribution of the 60 points among components under Other Measures The process for selecting teacher and principal practice rubrics under Other Measures.

39. What Doesn’t Have to be (or Can’t be) Negotiated? Use of SED-approved third-party assessments Teacher and principal prohibition from scoring “own students”’ assessments Requirement that teachers be evaluated on all 7 NYS State Teaching Standards annually Use of SED-approved Teacher & Principal Practice Rubrics Minimum-maximum point values for scoring bands (currently in limbo) Training & certification of evaluators Focus negotiations on process not product

40. What is the Best Framework for Negotiating APPR? Separate APPR negotiations from other negotiations Balance the constraints of the legal decision with the possibility that parts may be overturned – stay as close to original regulations as possible Focus on negotiating processes rather than specific assessment tools, etc. Mutually delegate tasks to an APPR steering committee that will bring recommendations to negotiators Prioritize what decisions are needed to get started with the APPR process

41. What Lines of Communication are Important? The priority that all stakeholders need to be engaged has to be balanced with the traditional privacy of negotiations Multiple open conversations with teachers and administrators Framing APPR for the community as a joint commitment of Board, administrators and teachers in pursuit of excellence APPR in the context of dwindling resources Holding fast to the core values of your district and building APPR around that foundation

42. Resources http://usny.nysed.gov/rttt/teachers-leaders/ http://usny.nysed.gov/rttt/teachers-leaders/fieldguidance/ http://engageny.org/

43. On Behalf of All of Our Wonderful Children in Westchester and Putnam Counties, Thank You for Your Kind Attention._____________________Let the Conversation Begin!- Discussion - Questions- Comments- Insights- Recommendations- Ideas- Reflections____________________Please visit us at the Westchester Putnam School Boards Association Web site at www.wpsba.org