Annual Professional Performance Reviews

Facilitator’s Guide for Principals and/or District Leaders Sharing Information about APPRs with Teachers

This Facilitator’s Guide provides a resource as you prepare to present the APPR PowerPoint to a group of teachers in your school or district. Please note that this presentation is intended to be district-specific. For that reason, many slides are templates with prompts for you to include district-specific data or information.

The Talking Points below summarize the key points or additional information for each slide. They purposely do NOT re-state what is already included in the slides themselves.

Overarching Objectives of the presentation – Participants will:

  • Understand the purpose of the APPR and what it will mean for them
  • Understandthe multiple measures / components of the APPR as your District is implementing it.
  • Understand how participants’ work will be measured and supported through the APPR in your district during the 2013-14 school year.
  • If applicable, explain what your District will do differently around APPR in 2013-14 than what participants experienced in 2012-13.

High-Level Purpose of this Session

  • Understand the contextand rationale behind the APPR
  • Examine how teachers will be evaluated, supported and developed through the APPR in your District.
  • Share the choices your district made in designing the specific measures and implementing the APPR
  • Reinforce that the APPR is intended to provide valuable feedback and opportunities for more effective coaching and professional development
  • Provide resources for teachers to learn more about teacher evaluation and about how to improve their practice

Related Resources for Principals and District Leaders

  • Principal-to-Teacher APPR Coaching Protocol
  • Principal-to-Teacher Coaching Protocol for Post-Observation

Key Points

  • The APPR was created because teachers are the most important influence on student achievement in a school.
  • Teachers deserve clear, high expectations, and access to feedback, support and development to be successful.
  • The APPR provides multiple measures of teacher effectiveness that are fair, reliable and valid.
  • All teachers will have at least two measures of student learning, and at least one measure of student growth. Student growth is fair because it considers where each student started and compares growth to similar students.
  • The State created the APPR framework. However the district, working in collaboration with the union, designed our APPR components and process.
  • The APPR will lead to meaningful feedback and support for teachers.

Important Notes

  • The PowerPoint is designed for you to customize with local district-specific information.
  • District-specific slides are indicated through an orange text box in the upper right-hand corner.
  • Appendix slides provide additional information. You can insert these into your presentation or leave them in the appendix as you see fit. Note that the appendix includes one slide specific to Danielson and another slide specific to NYSUT’s teacher rubric. If your district does not use one of these rubrics, please delete the appropriate slide(s).
  • We acknowledge that some districts may have reviewed most of this material in 2012-13. In that case, this shorter presentation may be used as a reminder/refresher and an update on anything that is new for the district in 2013-14.

Session Outcomes

What do we want participants to be able to do as a result of this session?

  • Understand the purpose of the APPR and what it will mean for them
  • Understandthe multiple measures / components of the APPR
  • Understand how their work will be measured and supported through the APPR

How will we know that they are able to do this?

  • Participants will be able to explain the subcomponents of the APPR to each other
  • Participants and their colleagues will successfully implement conceptual understanding activities as described in the agenda

Session Overview

Section / Time / Overview / Prepared Resources / Facilitator Preparation
Opening / 0:00-0:05
(5 min) /
  • Frame the session, referencing the agenda
  • Review session objectives
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide
/
  • Review session notes and PowerPoint presentation

College and Career Readiness / 0:05-0:10
(5 min) /
  • Discuss context and rationale behind the APPR
  • Discuss the importance and current state of college and career readiness
  • Identify links between the Common Core and teacher evaluation
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide
  • Any additional district materials as appropriate
/
  • Review session notes and PowerPoint presentation
  • Add district data related to graduation rates, college ready rates, achievement gaps and any other relevant facts as necessary

Teacher Effectiveness Matters / 0:10-0:15
(5 min) /
  • Examine the impact effective teachers make on student academic and life outcomes
  • Identify why previous evaluation system did not work
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide
/
  • Review session notes and PowerPoint presentation

New York State APPR Overview / 0:15-0:20
(5 min) /
  • Explain the benefits of the APPR
  • Walk through the APPR subcomponents
  • Identify the 4 rating categories
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide
/
  • Review session notes and PowerPoint presentation

APPR/Evaluation and Support in Our District / 0:20-1:00
(40 min) /
  • Clarify that state provided the APPR framework but the district, in collaboration with its union, designed the local APPR components and implementation
  • Understand and discuss the specific elements of the APPR as designed by the district
  • Examine State-calculated student growth measures and how they are calculated
  • Understand Student Learning Objectives and how growth is measured in subjects without State-calculated growth scores
  • Discuss feedback and support available to teachers based on APPR results
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide
/
  • Review session notes and PowerPoint presentation
  • Add district-specific information on APPR design and implementation – slides include some guiding questions or potential points to include but you must insert information (and potentially additional slides) as appropriate

Closing / 1:00-1:10
(10 min) /
  • Highlight any relevant slides in the appendix for teachers to review later
  • Summarize key points of the session
  • Reflect on next steps and what teachers can expect from the principal
  • Reflect on the principal’s and teachers’ role to support teacher development, and other key support roles available in the school
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide
/
  • Review session notes and PowerPoint presentation

TOTAL TIME / 70min

Session Roadmap

Opening
Time: 0:00-0:05

[5 minutes] In this section, you will… / Materials used include:
  • Frame the session, referencing the agenda
  • Review the session objectives
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Key Talking Points
Slide 1
/
  • I brought you together today to understand Annual Professional Performance Reviews (APPR), why the state and our district have revised our approach to evaluation, and what this means for you.
  • Ultimately, teacher evaluation and support are tools to help all of you, our teachers, do your very best work to prepare our students for college and careers.
  • The revised APPR tool will give you more specific feedback, link to individualized support, and treat educators as the professionals we are.
  • Over the next hour or so, we’ll look at the reasons behind the revised APPR, the different components of the APPR, and the implications for teachers based on APPR results.

Slide 2
/
  • At the end of the day, the APPR was created to help teachers improveyour practice.
  • We know that teachers have the greatest impact on student learning, and we want to create a system that treats teachers respectfully and gives you the information you need to improve your practice.

College and Career Readiness
Time: 0:05-0:10

[5 minutes] In this section, you will… / Materials used include:
  • Discuss context and rationale behind the APPR
  • Discuss the importance and current state of college and career readiness
  • Identify links between the Common Core and teacher evaluation
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide
  • Any additional district materials as needed.

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Key Talking Points
Slide 3 /
  • Ultimately, our goal is to prepare all students for college and careers

Slide 4 /
  • With more education comes:
  • Higher income
  • Lower likelihood of being unemployed
  • A student with a bachelor’s degree earns more than double the income of a student who doesn’t get a high school diploma
  • A student who doesn’t earn a high school diploma is almost 3x more likely to be unemployed than a student with a bachelor’s degree

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Key Talking Points
Slide 5
/
  • Education matters. So our goal – and challenge – is to ensure ALL of our students are prepared for college and careers
(ASK THE GROUP – Facilitate a short conversation taking responses from the group)
What stands out to you on this slide? What do you notice?s
  • NY’s high school graduation rate is 74%
  • But when you look at students scoring at least a 75 on the Regents English exam and 80 on the Math Regents, which is what correlates with success in first-year college courses, the numbers are even worse – only 35% of students are prepared for college and careers.
  • The gaps are staggering and concerning. Only 12.5% of our African American students are graduating college and career ready, compared to 48.5% of our White students. Less than 10% of our English Language Learners and Students with Disabilities are college and career ready.

Slide 6
/
  • Note orange box: Add district’s graduation rates, college ready rates, achievement gap data, and any other priority student achievement data or goals
  • In our district, we must work together to increase graduation rates and college ready rates and reduce the achievement gap in order to ensure that ALL of our students are prepared for success

Slide 7
/
  • The Common Core State Standards shift the way we think about what we teach and how we teach it.
  • New York State is ahead of other states in implementing the Common Core. In addition to fully adopting the standards, we have made progress designing Common Core-aligned curricula, and we have begun to transition to Common Core-aligned assessments.
  • We can no longer ask you, as teachers, to focus on one thing – the new standards – in the classroom and then evaluate you on something totally different. That is why we have worked hard to align our teacher evaluation system with the Common Core and ensure that it provides you with information to gauge how well you’re meeting students’ needs.

Teacher Effectiveness Matters
Time: 0:10-0:15

[5 minutes] In this section, you will… / Materials used include:
  • Examine the impact effective teachers make on student academic and life outcomes
  • Identify why previous evaluation system did not work
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Key Talking Points
Slide 8
/
  • To accomplish our goal to prepare ALL students for success in school and life, we must acknowledge the important role of teachers and support teachers in this critical work

Slide 9
/
  • Teachers deserve development and support
  • Teaching is a challenging and complex profession, and it takes great skill to meet the needs of every student in your classroom
  • We want to treat each of you as the professional you are and give you the information you need about how you’re doing so that you can continue to improve your practice
  • We also want to identify and celebrate teaching successes and support learning from one another

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Key Talking Points
Slide 10
/
  • Effective teaching CAN be measured
  • This graph illustrates the impact one teacher can make
  • For example, the bar on the right shows that a student with a high-performing teacher can learn more than 11 months more than a student with a low-performing teacher – That’s more than one school year of learning gained by a student with an effective teacher

Slide 11
/
  • We all expect teachers to impact student achievement
  • But research now shows that a great teacher – even for just one year – can change the trajectory of a child’s life

Slide 12
/
  • Our previous evaluation system did not provide us with the information or support we needed in order to improve our work.
  • Most teachers were rated at the top of the scale, even though most teachers felt there was at least one poor-performing teacher in each school.
  • Teachers did not receive helpful feedback and we were losing some of our strongest teachers

Take a minute and write down one thing you heard that surprised you in what I’ve shared so far.
Turn and talk with a partner at your table your response.
(Allow 2 minutes for turn and talk, and then facilitate a short discussion)

New York State APPR Overview

Time: 0:15-0:20

[5 minutes] In this section, you will… / Materials used include:
  • Explain the benefits of the APPR
  • Walk through the APPR subcomponents
  • Identify the 4 rating categories
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Script/ Activities directions
Slide 13
/
  • Let’s discuss what the APPR looks like overall
  • Then we will discuss the specifics of our APPR in (X district)

Slide 14
/
  • This is a comprehensive evaluation and support system for teachers that includes:
  • Clear expectations for you as teachers
  • Frequent, actionable, helpful feedback to help you improve
  • Annual evaluations
  • Multiple measures – This makes our evaluation more reliable, rigorous, and valid. It also ensures no one is evaluated on a single test score
  • 4 ratings levels (as opposed to the previous satisfactory/unsatisfactory system)
  • Evaluations will matter – recognition and rewards as well as potential consequences for ineffective teachers

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Script/ Activities directions
Slide 15
/
  • Teachers will receive 1 of 4 ratings – Highly Effective, Effective, Developing, Ineffective
  • Multiple measures help ensure a comprehensive look at teacher effectiveness
  • 3 components:
  • Teacher Practice is largest part – 60% - observations of what you do in the classroom
  • Student Learning makes up 40% and has 2 parts:
  • Student Growth
  • Local Measures
  • Each 20%
  • We will discuss specifics in our district shortly

APPR/Evaluation and Support in Our District
Time: 0:20-1:00

[40 minutes] In this section, you will… / Materials used include:
  • Clarify that state provided the APPR framework but the district, in collaboration with its union, designed the local APPR components and implementation
  • Understand and discuss the specific elements of the APPR as designed by the district
  • Examine State-calculated student growth measures and how they are calculated
  • Understand Student Learning Objectives and how growth is measured in subjects without State-calculated growth scores
  • Discuss feedback and support available to teachers based on APPR results
/
  • Session PowerPoint
  • Facilitator’s Guide

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Script/ Activities directions
Slide 16
/
  • Now let’s discuss what this looks like in practice in our district.

Slide 17
/
  • Note Orange Box: Add information on which teacher practice rubric you use and how you have engaged educators in designing and providing feedback on the evaluation system
  • Although the state provided a guiding framework for the APPR, all design and implementation decisions were made locally by the district in collaboration with our union
  • We will discuss our design choices and what they mean for you in this next section

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Script/ Activities directions
Slide 18
/
  • Note orange box: Add information related to your observation tool (e.g., number of observations, who will observe, other details) and any other measures of teacher practice (e.g., surveys, portfolios, artifacts). If you have multiple teacher practice measures, indicate number of points allocated to each.
  • A majority of points come from teacher practice - not growth measures
  • Observations will be evidence-based
  • All evaluators will be trained and certified
  • If appropriate… our district will also use X as an additional measure of teacher practice. We selected this for Y reason and it will look like Z in practice.

Slide 19
/
  • 40% of your overall rating will be based on student learning
  • There are 2 components here – each worth 20%

Slide 20
/
  • Before sharing this presentation, determine whether you want to change the slide’s headline to the alternative headline in the orange box in upper right-hand corner. .
  • All teachers will have at least one measure of student growth
  • Help teachers understand that this applies to everyone, not just teachers who receive a State-calculated growth score.
  • Measuring student growth is a more accurate and fair way of identifying teacher contributions to student learning

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Script/ Activities directions
Slide 21
/
  • Growth measures student performance from one year to the next
  • Then students are compared to similar students (who had the same test score the previous year)
  • This helps us understand one student’s growth relative to similar students
  • We can then assign a Student Growth Percentile score which indicates that a student performed better than X% of his/her peers

Slide 22
/
  • Let’s walk through an example…
  • Within a single class, students enter at different achievement levels
  • Let’s look at one student – Tanisha
  • Based on this information, what can you say about Tanisha’s 1) level of proficiency and 2) growth as compared to other students?
Turn and talk with a partner at your table your response.
(Allow 2 minutes for turn and talk, and then facilitate a short discussion)
  • Ensure the following comes out during the discussion:
  • Tanisha was not proficient in either year
  • We do not yet have enough information to tell whether her growth is high, low, or typical compared to similar students
  • Note: Although some will want to subtract her two scores to come up with a growth score, NY tests do not work that way since tests and scale scores are not always consistent from year to year. The NY model takes these realities into account and creates a fair growth score regardless.

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Script/ Activities directions
Slide 23
/
  • Tanisha scored 600 in 2011-12 (red dot on the left)
  • She is compared to similar students who also scored 600 in 2011-12
  • Tanisha scored 640 in 2012-13 (red dot on the left)
  • Other students had a range of scores in 2012-13 (blue dots on the left)
  • When all of these students are compared, Tanisha scored above 60% of her similar peers

Slide 24
/
  • We do not measure growth compared to similar students alone
  • We recognize that a variety of factors affect students, and the state growth model takes these factors into account
  • Factors include characteristics related to previous academic history, special needs/disabilities, English Language Learners, and poverty
  • This ensures that all educators can demonstrate effectiveness regardless of the composition of his/her classroom

Slide 25
/
  • We also take student enrollment and attendance into account by weighting each student’s SGP accordingly
  • Educators receive a Mean Student Growth Percentile (MGP) based on the SGPs of students in their classrooms

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Script/ Activities directions
Slide 26
/
  • We expect 2012-13 rating distribution to be similar to this past year
  • Majority of teachers (84%) were rated Highly Effective or Effective in this component

Slide 27
/
  • Note the orange box: Add specifics about SLOs and local measures for each group of teachers (grades 4-8 ELA and math, teachers in other subjects/grades with state tests)
  • Our growth and local measures are DIFFERENT – we are not double-counting the same measure in two places
  • Teachers of grade 4-8 ELA and math will receive a state-calculated growth score PLUS X local measures
  • Teachers in other subjects/grades that have state tests will set SLOs based on those state tests PLUS X local measures

Slide 28
/
  • Note the orange box: Add specifics about which assessments are used for the growth and local measures. For local measures, note whether the measure is based on growth or achievement/proficiency.
  • All teachers will be measured on student growth. In grades and subjects without state assessments (“non-tested grades and subjects”), we will use the following measures
  • These measures look like X in practice and Y is the reason we selected these measures and assessments.

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Script/ Activities directions
Slide 29
/
  • Evaluation and development are an ongoing cycle – this is not evaluation in isolation or a gotcha approach
  • Specific evidence will help us identify each teacher’s strengths and growth areas, share specific feedback based on evidence, and differentiate support based on individual needs
  • Together, these steps will help teachers reflect on your practice and identify ways to improve your craft to increase student learning

Slide 30
/
  • Include any district-specific aspects of Teacher Improvement Plans
  • Teacher Improvement Plans (TIPs) will help ensure that struggling teachers receive support to improve
  • TIPS must include specific components in order to provide a focused, clear plan of action for improvement

Slide 31
/
  • Note the orange box: Add specifics about district appeals process, implications for Ineffective ratings, and other important aspects of your APPR

Time / Slide #/ Pic of Slide / Script/ Activities directions
Slide 32
/
  • Note orange box: Review the current bullets – edit or delete as appropriate. Add other specifics as appropriate.
  • We had many successes and learned many lessons from our APPR process in 2012-13
  • For 2013-14, we are taking additional steps to make the APPR even more helpful to you as teachers

Slide 33
/
  • Note orange box: Add specifics about where teachers can access more information – the slide lists some potential categories of resources to include
  • I encourage you to learn more about our APPR system in our district. You can learn more by…

Closing
Time: 1:00-1:15