EVALUATION = Creating a conversation with teachers that fosters and develops new skills and growth so that more students learn every day in every class.

We have come a long way from teachers being evaluated by how well the students behave, how orderly the classroom looks and feels and whether or not they can write in cursive.

Teacher evaluation in the 21st Century involves looking at dozens of small parts of teacher actions that, when used in a systematic, coordinated fashion, enhance teacher effectiveness and improve student learning.

Please read below for a history of our work in this area, and feel free to browse our documents:
Teacher evaluation tool
Administrator evaluation tool
Administrative tool kit

*The use of different thinking, problem solving and questioning techniques in differentiated lessons that are designed to reach every kind of learner takes thought and planning.
*Assessing students needs to look at more than multiple choice and fill in the blank. Teachers consistently have to look at how to determine what has been learned and how to help each student reach the next level of learning.
*Lifelong learning, critical thinking and problem solving skills, career and college readiness, and civic preparedness are equal partners with reading, writing and arithmetic in the new graduation requirements.

How do evaluate teachers for these kinds of things? That is the challenge.

In Lebanon we use a Charlotte Danielson based rubric that describes teaching in the form of 16 standards with performance targets in each area. Teachers are rated in the standards via the rubrics that differentiate four distinct levels of ability in each standard. Teachers and administrators are asked to use the rubrics as conversation starters and discussion tools in their professional development to improve and enhance their practice.

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Our Professional Growth and Accountability Program.... Supervision and Evaluation Program for Licensed Teachers The development and implementation of the Lebanon Community School District’s Professional Growth and Accountability Program (PG&A) has taken place in the context of continual improvement and refinement. It is considered a “living document” that will never be completed, only improved by thoughtful practitioners of instruction and instructional supervision. Following is a brief history to date of the program development. In the fall of 1997, a joint committee of administrators and teachers was formed by Lebanon Community School District. This committee was faced with the task of reviewing and revising the District’s eight year old teacher evaluation program. A lot had changed in the prior eight years, and the committee was eager to apply the current knowledge, research, and best thinking in the field of teaching and learning, as well as a renewed state emphasis on education, reflected in the 21st Century Schools Act (HB 2991) and the Accountability for Schools for the 21st Century Law (SB 880). The program would need to strongly promote continual professional growth while at the same time providing a set of standards against which professional skill could be judged. The committee expressed a strong desire to “do it right” and decided that the development of a quality program would take time. Research and development took place throughout the 1997-98 year. The initial overview and training for administrators, task force members, selected teacher association members, and ESD facilitators & mentors took place in May, 1998. Additional staff development for administrators and teachers took place from September, 1998 through February, 1999, after which the program was implemented for a pilot year beginning on March 1, 1999. An August 1, 2000 edition contained revisions to the acceptable level of performance. The March 1, 2001 final version included updates of the Performance Standards and the extended definitions. During the 2005-06 year, a second joint committee made fairly extensive revisions to the program while also maintaining the overall core philosophy. Primary changes included a synthesis of the Standards and enhancement of the data collection procedures as well as a Level III component. During the 2009-2010 school year the PG&A was reviewed in the light of the work with the CLASS Project committee in aligning staff development, evaluation, career paths and compensation opportunities and underwent another transformation. The most significant change was the addition of the professional domain (Domain 4). The current document reflects the original work, yet provides a new focus for the use of the evaluation tool. While still used for evaluation, it now also determines targeted staff development activities in the form of “performance targets” based on individual evaluations, with the expectation that evaluation be truly “differentiated” instruction for the instructors.  The most recent 2011 revision was based upon aligning our system with the requirements of the TIF grant we received in 2010. The core of the District’s supervision and evaluation program is the sixteen Performance Standards, the District’s operational definition of effective teaching. The committee’s resource from the beginning has been Enhancing Professional Practice-A Framework for Teaching by Charlotte Danielson. This framework provides the basis from which the committee crafted the District’s performance standards as contained in this manual. The framework is of great assistance, providing a comprehensive model which includes research-based descriptions of levels of performance of teaching. TAKE A LOOK AT THE PROGRAM