Joint Educator Evaluation Committee (JEEC)

Yesterday afternoon was the JEEC meeting.  Paul Noble, Vicki Olsen, Debbie Atwood, and Christy Baker were in attendance.  The UETS-based JPAS pilot was successful and deemed valid and reliable, so those changes will go into effect for all teachers next year.  Changes were made on JPLS with the Educator Effectiveness on the Utah Effective Teaching Standards (UETS) being moved to the Interim.  The Interim was also changed based on feedback from teachers.  Teachers are allowed to keep paper evidence, uploading items on JPLS, or a combination of both.  The UEA Evaluation Toolkit is a great resource for keeping your documentation organized.  Watch for more JEA Evaluation trainings this fall.  My notes from the meeting are below.








Stakeholder input portion will be Utah Education Policy Center version. This is the group the state of Utah has been using.  Decided not to pilot this year. This online survey will be piloted around Spring PTC so parents can use computers at the school if needed. After reviewing survey results, principal meets with teacher to find out what the teacher has done to address concerns.

Student growth for tested subjects and grades will be from SAGE. Non-tested subjects and grades will use Student Learning Objectives (SLO). Jordan decided to make a proposal to the state to do their own SLO model. Jordan pulls in groups of subject matter teachers to write district wide SLOs. Professional development at the beginning utilizes information from the State Office of Education. More PD on how to write a quality assessment. Each group went through this process over two days. Teachers writing were to take the SLO back to their teams to get input, then met with writing team again for another day.  This process has not been easy.

The state expectation is two SLOs per teacher. Second SLO can be shared attribution. Some writing groups completed two, others only completed one. What has been written is excellent!  Modifications are still being made as the teachers see fit. This is two SLOs per teacher, not per subject.

The philosophical question is, do we want to track growth of all students, and if so, that would bring in one SLO per prep. By using Mastery Connect to gather data, it is very easy to compile a report that shows student growth. Teachers are already tracking student performance. An SLO just formalizes what teachers should be doing. We must consider the best interest of students.

JPAS scores have been very consistent for the past 20 years.  Continue to monitor evaluators. Shift next year in Domains IV and V and the Total score based on changes that were found valid and reliable through the pilot in 2013-14.

Pilot had 31 schools total, including schools in other districts that have been using JPAS. 900 teachers were part of the pilot. 86 of those teachers had a second evaluator participate in the interview portion to establish validity and reliability. Scores on Domains IV and V are comparable or slightly better on the pilot than on the original JPAS. Two different statisticians looked at the results and stated the same thing. Past cut scores between levels (highly effective 38.5%, effective 53.9%, minimally effective 5.6%, and not effective 2%) are the same on the pilot as on as the original JPAS, so those will be the cut percentages for the new UETS-based JPAS.

Because the pilot this year was successful and found to be reliable, for 2014-15, all teachers will be using the new UETS-based JPAS. If the school was not a pilot school in 2013-14, that school will be trained at the beginning of school.

The interim is changing. Self-evaluation portion will be done on the interim years, not on full UETS-based JPAS years. PD plan will be two goals, one based on Domain IV or V and one based on one of the UETS. End of year meeting will eventually be to review the student growth and stakeholder input portions, which will be added to JPAS rating from last full JPAS. The reflection portion is for the teacher, but can be discussed with the principal at the final meeting. Principal will decide on a due date.

Domains IV and V allows teachers to choose to document online or on the paper folder.  Both formats are laid out in the same way.

JPAS Results 2012

I attended the Joint Educator Evaluation Committee yesterday where we were given the summary of all JPAS results for the 2011-2012 school year.  I am often asked about principals who score low.  JPAS has a monitoring process, and this year 30 evaluators (principals, vice principals, other administrators) were monitored to verify reliability in results.  There were 5 evaluators outside of the standard deviation on the high end of scores and no evaluators outside of the standard deviation on the low end.  This says that those 5 evaluators were too lenient, and no evaluators were overly negative.

Overall, 1% of those evaluated using the full JPAS observation process were Below Basic, 4% were Basic, 55% were Proficient, and 40% were Superior.

Meeting with Dr. Johnson

My monthly meeting with Superintendent Johnson was this morning.  We discussed the activities at the legislature and the great work that has been done by Senator Osmond on SB64.  We reviewed the Board discussion about where and when to build a new elementary school and the need for a bond to meet the needs of growth in the District.

I talked with Dr. Johnson about JPAS.  When she spoke to the JEA ARs, she mentioned something negative about JPAS, and so I asked her about this.  She said the two problems she sees are that there is no student growth component, and that there is not enough reflection and goal-setting based on results.  The Educator Evaluation workgroup through the State Office of Education is likely to include these elements as part of their recommendations.  JPAS would then need to be modifying to add student growth and individual goal-setting.  JPAS is being used a s basis and model for the statewide recommendations.  I expect JPAS to be enhanced, but not replaced.

Joint Educator Evaluation Committee (JEEC)

The Joint Educator Evaluation Committee met this afternoon.  We reviewed data from IBRIC, the company that compiles all JPAS results and looks for trends.  Overall scores are down two points over the last five years, which is statistically significant.  Managing the Classroom remained stable.  Delivering Instruction and Interacting with Students are trending down.  Some proposed possible reasons were district split, loss of professional development days, and low morale.  These results are from approximately 3000 evaluations done per year with Jordan and Canyons combined.  Jordan alone had about 1700 evaluations done for the last two years with overall scores dropping one point.

When JPAS was piloted in 1995, there were more categories on the bar graph including below basic (10% of pilot), basic (20% of pilot), proficient (50% of pilot), and superior (20% of pilot).  All but below basic were removed.  Utah is going to a teacher effectiveness model, see UEN.org for more information.  The JEEC approved a pilot year (2011-2012) of adding the demarcations to the bar graph and labeling them Ineffective, Minimally Effective, Effective, and Highly Effective.  You will notice this change on your JPAS Feedback Report.  JEEC will be evaluating how these demarcations help improve teacher practice in the classroom.

Due to changes in Utah law, evaluations now must be completed annually on every teacher.  Jordan District is going to keep JPAS for all provisional teachers twice a year and for career teachers every three years. On the interim years when teachers do not have a JPAS evaluation, they will use the Licensed Interim Evaluation.  Teachers will receive information about this new evaluation tool during JPAS training at the beginning of the school year.  There will be a place on the JPAS website where you will log in to your evaluation within the first month of school.  There you will complete a .pdf on what you plan to do to meet indicators in Learning Environment, Instruction, Assessment, and Professionalism.  You will also complete the first part of the Licensed Interim Reflection and Professional Development Plan.  In the last month of school, you will meet with your administrator to review both documents.  The administrator will submit a version of the evaluation that says Yes or No on meeting your stated goals for those areas.  The indicators are similar to and aligned with those in JPAS.  Watch for more information as the new school year begins.  Year round teachers will not have their JPAS training until after the Administrator Conference where the principals will be trained.

Joint Educator Evaluation Committee

I attended my first JEEC meeting today.  There have been some problems with other classifications including counselors, teacher specialists, and library media specialsts.  There is a change being added that will require documentation if "Unacceptable" or "Fair/Below Standard" are marked in any domain.  Jane Martain is making the changes, which should be done by the end of February.  If you fall into one of those categories and have more specific questions about the changes, please e-mail me.