Districts should use flexibility in teacher evals this year, Chalkbeat readers respond

Earlier this week, we asked our readers: if you were in charge of your school district, would you use the year of flexibility for the use of student data in teacher evaluations? If so, how would you use it? If not, why?

We asked because of an earlier report that found the state’s largest school districts are split on whether to use leeway this year provided by the state legislature.

Chalkbeat readers weren’t so torn. They said districts should use the flexibility.

Here are a few comments from Twitter.

And Gunnison school board member Bill Powell emailed us this:

Boards and administrators need to support teachers as architects of their future, not as victims of mandates. The latest draft of the State’s proposed ‘graduation guidelines’ has the potential of unlishing the creative reconceptuslization of both classroom-level and school-level Unified Improvement Plans (UIPs) as do-overs of the teaching-learning partnership. The ‘longitudinal line of P-12 academic development’ in the graduation guidelines allows for at least 11 learning pathways for divese students who may need a range of pathways in order to demonstrate achieving a standards-based curriculum and meeting future graduation requirements. Additionally, flexibility in implementing SB191 may be necessary in terms of how both school calendar time and wrap-around student-oriented resources might be better and more creatively used by teachers and students to insure each student’s success in citizenship, career and/or college readiness. To make these changes, a public participation curriculum needs to be written and actually taught to community members giving them an ‘authentic insider’s view of how the school system really works’ … and why the aforementioned flexible changes can and will be made in behalf of student success.

As always, we invite you to join the conversation on our website, Facebook page, or on Twitter.