I. THE EVALUATION OF EDUCATORS

The Hallsville R-IV School District shall evaluate all educators in accordance with applicable district policy and state laws and regulatory guidelines. The Hallsville R-IV School District educator evaluation process shall be aligned with the 7 Essential Components of the ESEA Waiver requirements.  The NEE System exceeds the 7 Essential Components requirement set forth in the ESEA Waiver.

Observation of Teaching/Classroom Instruction

The observation component is intended to gauge the effectiveness of each educator’s instructional and pedagogical strategies; curriculum implementation; teaching critical thinking; maintaining a positive classroom learning environment; demonstrate effective communication; and use of assessment data to improve student learning. All educators shall be observed by their principals, or when necessary, the principal’s designated assistant principal, and/or other observers.

The purpose of an individual observation is to provide an opportunity for the evaluator to observe the educator as he/she engages in classroom instruction and then to evaluate the instructional practices demonstrated by the educator against the observation scoring guides. During the observation event the observer will typically be focused on a few specific indicator scoring guides.  The observer may gather data on other indicators while in the classroom setting. 

Unit of Instruction Analysis

The Unit of Instruction Analysis component is intended to determine the level of instructional planning and organization each educator has in their area of responsibility. The rating inputs for educator Unit of Instruction Analysis include items submitted to the evaluator (or their designee) based on a list of artifacts provided during the evaluator training.

Inputs for the teacher Unit of Instruction Analysis component for the evaluation shall be educator-selected. However, the educator may only select a Unit of Instruction for analysis that is aligned to his/her primary responsibility; and the educator must justify his/her selection by showing how the input accurately measures his/her instructional planning and organization of curriculum-related materials for use in their classroom. The educator must select the input (the specific unit of instruction) no later than the end of the first semester of each school year.

Analysis of Professional Development Plan

The Professional Development Analysis component is intended to determine the level of planning and organization of the educator’s Professional Development Plan, the level of implementation of the plan, and the level of impact the growth plan had on the educator’s students’ learning. The blank template and sample exemplar PD Plans will be provided during evaluator training and are available at http://nee.missouri.edu/ in the resources section.

Student Growth and Achievement Data

The Student Performance data sources shall be selected by the teacher and approved by the supervising administrator. Data sources will be academic in nature and reflective of the instructional content provided by the teacher. At least two comparable data points will be selected to demonstrate student academic growth over a significant interval of time. Data will be collected, monitored, and presented in a manner prescribed by the District. Additional student learning data, including but not limited to summative assessment and state assessment data, may be considered in the evaluation of educators.

Stakeholder (Student) Perceptions

The stakeholder perception component is intended to gather information from students and/or other stakeholders on the educator’s demonstration of teaching, instructional, and/or classroom engagement practices that have been shown by research to positively affect student achievement. The inputs for the student perception component will include information from validated and reliable surveys of students in grades 4-12. Surveys used for the student component of the evaluation shall be validated to ensure that the items included in the survey directly address research-based best practices of teaching and student and classroom engagement.  Educators of the students to be surveyed will be provided with information on the purpose of the surveys used to measure student perceptions.

II. THE EVALUATION PROCESS

The evaluation process shall address the five areas of the State Model of Educator Evaluation: Model Data Measures; Required Training and Certification; Providing Evaluation Information to Teachers; Improving Practice/Seeking Professional Growth Support; and Use of System Data for Improvement of Educators, Programs, Schools, and Districts.

Model Data Measures

As described above, the evaluation data collected may include measures of these five components.

• Observation of Teaching/Classroom Instruction
• Unit of Instruction Analysis
• Analysis of Planned Learning
• Student Growth and Achievement Data and
• Student Perceptions of Instruction

Training

All users of the NEE system must be trained to ensure accurate and reliable data is entered.  Training is also required to make sure all evaluators follow standardized protocols in all aspects of the evaluation process from collaboratively setting building level goals to conducting End of the Year (EOY) conferences.  To make the system effective and meaningful in respect to all stakeholders the system training must address several perspectives.

Providing Evaluation Information to Educators

Pertinent education-related and organizational management research indicates timely and consistent supervisor feedback has the maximum impact on changing adult behaviors.  Consequently, observations will be frequent and focused a small number of indicators and

follow-up will be timely.  The supervisor should meet with the educator within 24 hours to conduct a structured dialogue session where specific factual and evidence-based feedback can be provided. 

The evaluator will meet and conference with each of the educators they are assigned to evaluate at least three times during the school year.

1. A Beginning of Year (BOY) conference where the evaluator and the educator review specific documents to make sure both are clear on the expectations for the year and content-related measureable instructional goals are in writing.For returning educators in the district, the evaluator will review the previous year’s evaluation report with the educator and clearly define area of improvement based on the report.This BOY conference will also include a review and discussion regarding the educator’s Professional Development plan and establish clear expectations on the impact of the plan on the educator’s classroom;
2. The Middle of Year (MOY) conference shall involve a review of student formative assessment data focused on areas related to the measureable instructional goals by the educator and evaluator.The educator will also review their progress toward completing the Professional Development plan and show the evaluator evidence of how the plan has made a positive impact on a majority of their students. If needed, the evaluator may prescribe new and more intense professional growth supports to assist the educator in improving his/her effectiveness.A formative data report from the NEE system will be reviewed by the educator and evaluator and a copy will be provided to the evaluator for their records;
3. The EOY conference will be conducted just prior the contract renewal period.During this session the educator and evaluator will review student formative assessment data and determine whether the instructional goals were met and what impact the Educator Professional Development plan had on the majority of students in the educator’s class.A summative report based on data in the Educator Professional Growth evaluation system and other data sources available to the educator will be reviewed with the educator during the EOY conference.