Monday, April 28, 2008

Evaluations

I'm continually impressed by the level of professionalism in my new district. The evaluations that I'm used to are sort of on-the-fly, pop in when the administrator has a minute. Most of the actual evaluation write-ups at my former school seemed like gobbledygook...good for a first year teacher, when the administrator spends a total of 30 minutes observing all year. Bad for the school, though.

Out here, I've had a formal 60-minute lesson, two informal 20-minute observations and countless walkthroughs--where the administrators were looking for a couple specific things. When the principal wrote up my evaluation, she actually knew what she was talking about because she's familiar with my teaching.

This should be how it is done everywhere, for a couple reasons. First, our evaluations actually mean something, and they can be taken seriously. Second, if there is a problem with a teacher's performance, steps can be taken to help that teacher improve. At this school, the administration takes a serious stance that they won't let children fail (that could be a whole other post) and I'm sure that the same policy applies for teachers.

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