Frontline Blog

Questions on our Employee Evaluation tool formerly known as MyLearningPlan OASYS? You’ve come to the right place!

What Robla School District learned by upending their teacher evaluations and empowering teacher leaders.

Each morning, thousands of students step out of cars or bounce off buses into their classrooms at a suburban school district not far from Rochester, New York. With 17 schools and over 3,500 teachers and staff, the team that facilitates professional learning has an incredible opportunity to make a lasting impact on the education each student receives.  

One day Alan*, a high school student in my special education English class, exclaimed in frustration, “All we ever do in here is read and write!” It was a proud moment for me. A huge compliment. That statement validated for me that I was doing it right, not wasting precious instructional time with frivolous activities.

Every administrator — and every teacher — wants the best possible learning environment for students. There’s been a lot of talk about teacher evaluations as a tool for educator growth, and much written about how far we have yet to go.

The whirlwind 18 months since the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) became law have brought no small amount of buzz. Much of it concerns teacher evaluations — specifically because with ESSA, the federal government handed a fair amount of power back to the states in determining how to conduct them.  

Dr. James Stronge on the Gates Foundation’s Intensive Partnerships for Effective Teaching initiative.

Imagine a world without feedback. No, seriously — try to picture an entire workday when no one receives any information about how things are going. Chefs wouldn’t be able to taste their dishes as they cooked. Pilots wouldn’t receive course corrections from air traffic controllers. You wouldn’t want to get a haircut that day. Feedback is important in all spheres of life, including — and perhaps especially — in education. But not all feedback is created equal. What does it look like to provide meaningful, actionable feedback that supports educator growth? It would be nearly impossible to make an exhaustive list of qualities feedback should have, but this is a start. Effective, actionable feedback should:

Education is constantly changing, giving us new opportunities to discover, create and adapt. That goes for all of us: the teachers referring to real world situations and current events to deepen student learning, the Curriculum & Instruction specialists seeking ways to further uphold and implement best practices in evaluations and professional learning, and the administrators who must prepare for and comply with new regulations and expectations.