Prince George’s County Public Schools & Prince George’s County Educator Association

1. Prince George’s County Public Schools & Prince George’s County Educator Association Committed to Building Student Success by Supporting Educators MASE TURN: February 18-19, 2012

2. PGCPS FACTS: • 124,000 students-the largest population of low-income students as defined by FARMS participation in the state with over 67,000 students. Home to 165 different languages from 149 countries • 17,000 employees- 8,600 teachers • $1.6 billion dollar budget Five Strategic Goals for Prince George’s County Public Schools GOAL 1 – High Student Achievement* GOAL 2 – Highly-Effective Teaching * GOAL 3 – Safe & Supportive Schools * GOAL 4 – Strong Community Partnerships * GOAL 5 – Effective & Efficient Operations

3. PGCEA Facts: PGCEA is a member driven organization (the Union) that is over 100 years old that has at is core; the Mission to strengthen our organization and the profession of teaching through our advocacy. We represent just over 9,000 employees in the bargaining Unit with about 8,600 of them being teachers. As an organization we not only support good teaching or highly effective teaching we are participating partners in the development of the tools and conditions needed to make that happen. The research is confirming that the most significant indicator of a student’s success is an excellent teacher.

4. What is the Foundation of this Productive Collaboration? • Short video goes here of students talking about great teaching

5. How do we collaborate? Norms of operation • Commitment to frequent, truthful and transparent communication • PGCEA leadership meets with Superintendent twice a month • PGCEA & PGCPS hosting teacher forums with Executive Cabinet • PGCEA leadership members of Superintendent’s Executive Cabinet on a monthly basis • Co leadership on Teacher Evaluation & Compensation Reform Task Forces (Two major efforts) • Establishing year long planning committees that are joint projects of administrators, teachers and principals to plan and develop our work. • Implementing projects in segments or pilots has helped us overcome the difficulty of moving to scale because of the size of the district and the political barriers that we face.

6. Results of collaboration that have enhanced the district • Financial Incentive Rewards for Supervisors & Teachers (FIRST) Teacher Incentive Fund Grant funded initiative ($17.5 million) • Benefits for students and teachers • Implications on future practice • Teacher Evaluation Reform – PGCEA and PGCPS and working jointly on reforming the teacher evaluation process. The parties are working on a robust and comprehensive system for assessing student learning and teacher effectiveness. Funded by a grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation several joint committees of union members and system administrators have been engaged in a multi year process of developing the work.

7. Results of the collaboration that have enhanced the district • National Board Leadership Development Steering Committee—PGCPS and PGCEA partnered to support our current and prospective NBCT candidates who are seeking certification. • Federal School Improvement Grant (SIG) – PGCEA and PGCPS are working closely together in implementing the Turnaround Model approved under the Title 1 SIG grant. The model requires comprehensive instructional reforms, flexible scheduling, increased instructional time and revamping of the school staff to give the identified schools a fresh start in rebuilding the schools reputation and academic performance

8. How do we sustain the collaboration and effective results? • Sustaining Reform – PGCPS & PGCEA is committed to formalizing our process into the organizations and efforts as much as possible. We have to make sure the current path we have taken goes beyond its players and that the reforms and changes are not just identified by the individual faces. We want collaboration to continue so that beyond our administrative teams this way of doing the work will be the norm for our boards and our constituents. We have to make sure resources are in place to sustain the work, and that we are developing our teams along our way of thinking to support the work.

9. Final thoughts…… • This is HARD WORK!!!! • Would we do it differently if we could do it over? NO!! • Both sectors are confronted with issues that often suggest that we slip back into prior practices or fail to reach out and so we constantly have to remind ourselves that we must push the partnership. Most importantly we have to remind our constituents, employees and members why the relationship is important and valued.

10. We do it for them!!!