Frontline Blog

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

I remember struggling through my college statistics class. Just the term “data analysis” made me cringe. After all, I was going to be a teacher, not a scientist! Now that I’ve spent years collecting and analyzing data I’ve learned, I don’t need to be a statistician to do professional development program evaluation.

When I became principal for a specialized school with various sites throughout a borough in New York City, one of my first priorities was to develop a plan of action to better support my special education staff.

In the previous article in this series on evaluating teacher professional development, I shared that evaluation questions drive data collection and asked, “How would we know what data to collect, and from whom, if we haven’t settled on the questions we’re asking?” Once we have settled on a small set (about 1-3) of evaluation questions, we set our sights on how to collect data to answer them.

Dr. Jim Knight is widely known in the world of instructional coaching. He is president of the Instructional Coaching Group, and author of such books as The Impact Cycle: What Instructional Coaches Should Do to Foster Powerful Improvements in Teaching and High-Impact Instruction: A Framework for Great Teaching.

Evaluation questions form the cornerstone of professional development program evaluation. They both frame and focus the work, pointing us in the right direction for data collection. After all, how would we know what data to collect, and from whom, if we haven’t settled on the questions we’re asking? Crafting the right questions for a particular evaluation project is critical to an effective evaluation effort.

It’s estimated that up to almost 50 percent of a special education teacher’s time is spent completing paperwork. Yet, as a teacher, you want to spend your school days teaching. You want to work hard in ensuring that every student — no matter their ability — gets a fair shot at success. In short, you chose to become a special education teacher because you care. Because it’s a hard job and somebody has to do it; why shouldn’t that somebody be as qualified and invested as you?

There’s nothing wrong with mandating a certain amount of professional learning for teachers throughout the year. But when meeting a minimum hourly requirement becomes the goal in itself, rather than the means to improving practice, the effectiveness of PD plummets.

At, Greece Central School District in Rochester, NY, we hired certified trainers to facilitate the 8-day Cognitive Coaching® seminar for all of our teacher leaders. We followed up with monthly collegial circle meetings for them to reflect on their learning, share how coaching sessions were going and practice scenarios with one another to refine their skills. We invited the trainers back for yearly refresher sessions. This program was designed to influence changes in teacher practice and ultimately impact student learning.