3/4/16 Notes

The Effective Instruction (EI) Committee met on March 4, 2016 to review likely changes under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) of 2015 and plan for the 2016-17 school year. Questions regarding the following information may be directed to the facilitator of the EI Committee, Dr. Christine Ermold, or any member of the committee.

• The EI Process survey was reviewed and updated. The survey will be administered using Survey Monkey in mid-May. Survey invitations will be sent out to all principals and PD Liaisons for dissemination. An additional survey will be developed for anyone who used the Rediker software to manage the paperwork and evidence related to the evaluation process. Based on the recommendation from those using it, the EI Committee agreed the use of Rediker will remain in pilot for one more year before districtwide implementation occurs.
• The SGM process was reviewed, and the form was simplified. The decision was made to use the SGM as one of two options for tenured teachers on the Alternate Pathway Evaluation. The other option will be the Teacher Enrichment Pathway (TEP) that had been discontinued under the previous regulations. An ongoing project of the EI Committee will be to pursue development of an auto-filling Excel spreadsheet that can pull information out of PowerSchool to decrease the effort spent on data entry and increase the time available to focus on actions and reflections related to the data.
• The evaluation summary documents were updated. Specifically, Component 3D is now explicitly evaluated within Domain 3 for both general and special education teachers. Domain 4 on the special education summary evaluation was also updated to condense some of the elements specific to special education to make room for some of the elements that are explicitly addressed on the general education rubric.
• The EI Committee will meet again on May 20, 2016, to review the EI Process and Rediker survey results and make other adjustments in preparation for the 2016-17 school year. It is expected that they may need to meet again prior to the start of the school year if the Alaska State Board of Education adopts regulations that must be reconciled with the EI Evaluation Process.