Shearn Elementary SDMC Meeting Notes
May 6, 2013
Minutes taken by Kathleen Garson

Present:
Bill Buck- Principal
Ashley Green- Assistant Principal
Sandra Adair- Teacher Specialist
Sherry Walker- School Nurse
Ruben Gomez- Classroom Teacher
Eric Whitten- Classroom Teacher
Edgar Jimenez- Classroom Teacher
Kathleen Garson- Classroom Teacher

Shared Decision Making Committee (SDMC) Input to Proposed Improvements to the Teacher Appraisal and Development System


Mr. Buck handed out the SDMC handouts for the members to look over and each of the proposed changes was discussed in detail.

1) Suggested Improvement 1: Remove requirement where teachers receive in-person feedback following a 30-minute observation, and instead promote in-person feedback as best practice.
- The committee members discussed that the conferences tend to be repetitive, but that it is still important that teachers can request meetings with their appraiser after an observation or a walk-through.
- It is good to talk out the ratings. As long as there is open communication and meetings can be requested the committee members were in support of the change
- The committee voted “yes”.

2) Suggested Improvement 2: Reduce the required responses on the Walkthrough and Observation forms to align to the practice used with the Progress Conference and the End-of-Year Conference forms.
- The committee discussed the importance of teachers receiving specific written feedback.
- We agree to combine the observation and walkthrough forms. The progress conference and end of year conference forms could be combined as well. However, we believe that having all of these forms combined into one document would require extra work by inputing feedback for each indicator.
- The committee voted “no” on this proposed change.
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3) Suggested Improvement 3: Reduce the required responses on the Walkthrough and Observation forms to align to the practice used with the Progress Conference and the End-of-Year Conference forms.
- The committee does not understand how all four of these forms could be combined.
- We discussed creating a common form for Walkthroughs and Observations and a separate form for Progress Conferences and End of Year Conferences.
- The walkthrough form does not currently require written feedback for each indicator. We support continuing the requirement to provide written feedback for each indicator.
- The committee voted “no” because we could not understand how all of the forms could be combined in a cohesive way.
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4) Suggested Improvement 4: Reduce the maximum number of Students’ Progress measures from 3 to 2.
- The committee discussed the importance of looking at the ESL students, bilingual students, and regular students separately and that alone would create a third category.
- We discussed the importance of equity between the upper grades and lower grades. It is also important that we are looking at multiple subject areas, not just 2 areas. In one class there could be bilingual, ESL, and regular students, which would cause 3 measures for the subject area. We feel ESL is a huge component to gain academic english.
- Lower elementary teachers should be evaluated in reading, writing, and math.
- The committee voted “no”.
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5) Suggested Improvement 5: Standardize the use of pre-approved district assessments.
- The committee discussed the importance of having students in the same grade level take the same assessment. If students are taking different assessments, then the results are not comparable.
- It is necessary to have common assessments distributed so that there is not cheating. The tests should not be posted before the test date so that there is not cheating.
- The committee voted “yes” on the suggested improvement.
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6) Suggested Improvement 6: Centralize the Student Performance measures assignment process by providing appraisers and teachers with pre-populated Measures Worksheets to acknowledge.
- We support this decision, but think that there need to be options as to which measures are going to be used in setting starting points and end of year goals. For instance, if we have 3 measures we would like TELPAS to be one of them.
- The committee voted “yes”

7) Suggested Improvement 7: Change the Look Up tables to Percentage tables/ pie graphs when determining formative and summative ratings.
- The committee said that it would be a more accurate rating for the scores to be percentage ratings.
- Teachers have a higher chance of moving up based on their higher scores in their strengths.
- We believe that changing the look-up tables to percentages will make the scores more accurate.
- The committee voted “yes”.
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Additional Suggestions on the Teacher Appraisal and Development System
- We believe that it is important to consider the instructional practice, professional practice, and student performance should have the same effect. For example, you could have an ineffective teacher receiving a 1 on the instructional and professional expectations who receives lots of additional support so that the students do not fail and as a result could receive a 4 on student performance and an overall 3 on the summative score. This would not be reflective of the teacher's performance. In addition we would like more information about how the student goals are generated. Are these end of year student goals realistic? It would also be a good idea to extend the deadline for end of year conferences because of spring testing dates during April and May. Perhaps by 2 to 3 weeks.