The Advisory Team That Is Assisting the SCDE in the Implementation of the Expanded Educator

Instructions to school districts: Please submit this Letter of Intent to by Jan. 30, 2015. The purpose of this Letter of Intent (LOI) is to give SCDE a sense of how close South Carolina School Districts are to having approvable District Choice options. Additionally, we wish to have time for feedback and revisions so that an approvable option can be defined before the end of the school year as teachers will wish to know so that they may prepare for the 2015-16 school year. Thank you for your thoughtful preparation of this document and timely return.

School district:
Date of submission of Letter of Intent:
Name of administrator submitting LOI:
Title/position of administrator submitting the LOI:
Phone number: E-mail address:

The Advisory Team that is assisting the SCDE in the implementation of the Expanded Educator Support and Evaluation System recommends the following timeline be followed for the 2014-15 school year to prepare for the implementation of the District Choice option for 2015-16.

Recommended Deadline / Activity
Prior to Oct. 31, 2014 / Meet with principals and instructional leaders in district to discuss various district choice options
Prior to Dec. 1, 2014 / Make decision about district choice and inform principals and instructional leaders.
Prior to Jan. 30, 2015 / Submit Letter of Intent to SCDE identifying option and providing necessary details and information required below.
Jan. 30, 2015 / Deadline for Letter of Intent Due to SCDE.
Within 30 days of receipt of Letter of Intent / SCDE will provide either approval or feedback on selected option. If feedback is provided, district will convene appropriate staff and make changes.
Within 30 days of receipt of feedback / District will submit revisions to SCDE. This iterative process will continue until approval is reached.
On or before April 15 / Inform and educate teachers regarding the district’s choice so that they may make whatever relevant preparations are necessary for the 2015-16 school year.
On or before June 1 / Submit ADEPT plan to SCDE.

The district will use one or more of following data sources and methodologies to raise student academic success through a district-wide focus for educators (check all that apply). District Choice will comprise 20% of the overall effectiveness score for all classroom teachers in 2015-16.

Criteria for district choice options:

· Type of evidence selected must have demonstrated reliability, validity and be free from bias.

· Must show clear connection to student academic growth

· Must involve all major stakeholders (teachers, administrators and district staff)

· Must be transparent. Aggregate evidence of student growth must be made available to public (no personally identifiable information on students or teachers)

Option
# / Option(s) selected for the 2015-16 school year
1 / District-wide value-add measures provided by state-contracted vendor
2 / School-wide value-add measures provided by state-contracted vendor
3 / Value-add measures based on formative assessments or locally procured assessments and calculated by a vendor contracted by the District
4 / Surveys of parents
5 / Surveys of students
6 / District-wide Student Learning Objective (SLO)
7 / Teacher self-reflection
8 / District-created option*

*Note, it is recommended that a District choose only one option and apply it to all teachers, especially in this first year of implementation, but if a District would like to differentiate based on contract level, school-type, tested vs. non-tested grades and subjects or any other classification, that is allowable. This option would be pursued via option #8 and would require a detailed explanation and rationale for applying different measures to different groups of teachers.

Options 4 – 8 require the following information to be provided.

A. Identify the instrument(s) and/or data source(s) that will be used for the district wide measure:

B. Provide evidence that the instrument(s) and/or data source(s) are psychometrically reliable, valid and free from bias:

C. Explain how the results of the District Choice option will inform decisions and actions in the district and how the impact on student learning will be determined.

D. Explain how teachers, principals and district-level staff will each contribute towards this effort. (roles and responsibilities)

E. Explain how the district will monitor and ensure compliance and integrity of results for all teachers.

F. Describe how aggregate results will be made available to the public (no personally identifiable information should be released).

Options 4 – 8 will also require the district to provide a copy of the scoring rubric that will be used to translate the measured results into a 1 to 5 scale. The scoring rubric should be attached to the LOI when it is submitted. On this 5 point scale, a 3 should result when the district choice option meets a reasonable and desired expectation for change over a school year. A 5 should indicate that results significantly exceeded the desired outcome and a 1 indicates that results fell significantly short of the desired outcome. Be clear on defining the desired outcome. The rubric must also clearly define the performance outcome at each level. The rubric should include a rationale for the expectation.

For example, for a survey of parent satisfaction wherein the goal is to both increase communication with parents regarding the curriculum in ELA and Math as well as increase satisfaction, an acceptable scoring rubric would be:

Level / Response rate Outcome / Satisfaction Outcome
1 / < 20% of surveys are returned and are mostly complete. / <56% of parents report satisfaction
2 / 31%-20% - of surveys are returned and are mostly complete. / 57%-61% of parents report satisfaction.
3 / 32% - 37% of surveys are returned and are mostly complete. / 62%-67% of parents report satisfaction
4 / 38% to 42% of surveys are returned and are mostly complete. / 68%-72% of parents report satisfaction
5 / >43% of surveys are returned and are mostly complete. / > 72% of parents report satisfaction

The rationale would be that based on past year’s response rates of < 30% and an average of 60% of parents satisfied. Note that the desired outcome (score of 3) must be at least slightly aspirational. In the case of this example, the scores for response rate and satisfaction would then be averaged to produce the District Choice score.

The district must receive approval from the South Carolina Department of Education (SCDE) prior to implementing any district choice option.

District Comments (optional)