YOUR Job APPRAiSAL CONFidentiALiTY
Teacher appraisal results are confidential. However, recent legislation makes it mandatory (instead of discretionary) for a school district or open-enrollment charter school to provide a requesting district, open-enrollment charter or private school at which a teacher or administrator has applied for employment a document evaluating the applicant’s performance, and for districts to give TEA these documents for purposes of a TEA investigation. Additionally, recent legislation provides that, for districts opting to implement a new local teacher designation system, in which teachers receive “designations” based on appraisal results (see “incentive pay” on page 12), TEA must collect information necessary to set standards for, evaluate and provide technical assistance for these systems, including information that is otherwise confidential (i.e., appraisal results). However, the new law provides that such information remains confidential (i.e., TEA must keep the appraisal results confidential). defined as a rating of “improvement needed” or its equivalent, on any of the 16 dimensions or the performance of teachers’ students. (A full appraisal must still be conducted at least once every five years under state law, though district policy could stipulate a lesser number of years.) Teachers not receiving an appraisal in a given year must participate in the GSPDP process. A modified end-of-year conference will address their progress on the GSPDP, the performance of their students and the following year’s GSPDP.
Conferences/written summaries
After a teacher’s first year of appraisal under T-TESS in the district, an observation pre-conference must be conducted prior to announced observations. A post-observation conference must occur within 10 working days after an observation and must include a written report of the rating of each dimension observed that is presented to the teacher only after a discussion of the areas for reinforcement and areas for refinement. At the post-observation conference, an appraiser can allow for a revision to an area for reinforcement or refinement based on the post-conference discussion with the teacher. Although additional observations and walk-throughs do not require a post-observation conference, they do require a written summary within 10 days if the data gathered during the additional observation or walk-through will impact the teacher’s summative appraisal ratings. Texas Education Code Sec. 21.352 allows districts to “require that appropriate components of the appraisal process, such as classroom observations and walkthroughs, occur more frequently as necessary to ensure that a teacher receives adequate evaluation and guidance. A school district shall give priority to conducting appropriate components more frequently for inexperienced teachers or experienced
teachers with identified areas of deficiency.”
End-of-year conference
An end-of-year conference between the teacher and appraiser must occur no later than 15 working days before the last day of instruction. A teacher’s written summative annual appraisal report must be provided to the teacher within 10 working days of the conclusion of the end-of-year conference and no later than 15 working days before the last instructional day. The end-of-year conference must include a review of the appraisal data collected throughout the current school year and previous school years, if available; an examination and discussion of the evidence related to the teacher’s performance on the four dimensions of Domain 4, as well as of evidence related to the performance of teachers’ students, when available; and an identification of potential goals and professional development activities for the teacher for the next school year.
Responding to a negative appraisal
A teacher can provide a written response/rebuttal to a written observation summary, written summative annual appraisal report, or any other written documentation associated with his/ her appraisal, as long as the teacher submits the response/ rebuttal within 10 working days of receiving the documentation. However, a teacher is prohibited from submitting a written response to a written summative annual appraisal report for the ratings in Domains 1, 2, and 3, if those ratings are based entirely on observation summaries or written documentation already received by the teacher earlier in the appraisal year. Additionally, a teacher can only respond to Domain 4, and the student growth component, after receiving the written summative annual appraisal report. Teachers who disagree with their appraisal can request a second appraiser, if they do so within 10 working days of receiving a written observation summary or a written summative annual appraisal report. However, a teacher is prohibited from requesting a second appraiser in response to a written summative annual appraisal report for the ratings of dimensions in Domains 1, 2, and 3, if those ratings are based entirely on observation summaries or written documentation already received by the teacher earlier in the appraisal year. Finally, teachers can file a timely grievance per district policy.
Appraiser qualifications
An appraiser must be either a campus administrator or “supervisory staff whose job description includes the appraisal of teachers and who is not a classroom teacher,” who has received training and is certified as an appraiser. Classroom teachers can serve as certified appraisers on the same school campus at which they teach if they are the chair of a department or grade level whose job description includes classroom observation responsibilities. For more information on T-TESS, including a look at the observation instrument, go to www.tcta.org/t-tess. 2019-20 TCTA Survival Guide
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