(Members present, FYI – Tom, Sullivan, Priest, Kowalkowski, Hyde, Chow, Bergeson, Grimm, Jarrett, Hunter, Dolan, Hartmann, Anderson)
10:40am-11:10am
Discussion of proposals, continued
- Teacher certification
>>Dr. Hyde wondered about the feasibility of having out-of-district evaluators. Rep. Hunter said they would rather pay people to drive somewhere else in the state than have a potential conflict of interest. Rep. Glenn Anderson said it would also help maintain similar standards across the state. Dr. Laurie Dolan suggested they instead include language preventing conflicts of interest, as some districts are large enough where teachers may never meet and others are small enough that they know teachers in the surrounding districts too. Rep. Hunter said they could insert language specifying that for districts with >X students evaluators can be in-district and for districts with <X students evaluators can be out-of-district.
>>Sup. Kowalkowski asked about the role of principal evaluations. Rep. Hunter said the peer-evaluation system would not supersede principal evaluations and the role those evaluations play (hiring and firing, mainly). Dr. Bergeson asked about the point, then, of the peer-evaluation system. Rep. Hunter said principals are not involved in the peer-evaluation system (which determines compensation increases) to prevent arbitrary award of pay increases. Sup. Kowalkowski likes the proposed evaluation system, with the principal evaluations and the peer evalauations.
[Joke of the morning: Sen. Tom said they would yield Rep. Hunter's minutes to Seattle School Board President Cheryl Chow. Ms. Chow said she didn't plan to talk that long.]
>>Ms. Chow said she sees the “buck stopping” with the principal, or ultimately the superintendent, and doesn’t see the value in removing those individuals from compensation decisions. Rep. Jarrett defended the use of the peer-evaluation system. Dr. Hyde said principals in her district are the instructional leaders at their respective schools, and asked if peer evaluators would share evaluations with each teacher’s principal. Rep. Jarrett said they hadn’t addressed that. He added that he sees value in the peer-evaluation system because most principals do not have time to thoroughly evaluate teachers. Sup. Kowalkowski asked if they should replace the word “evaluation” with “review” in the new system (calling it a peer-review system). Dr. Dolan offered that peer reviews be conducted when teachers want to move from tier to tier, rather than each year. Yearly evaluations of teachers would be conducted by principals.
Back to this topic after a 10 minute break…
