Laura Laird

Sherine Smith
EDA 610
Supervision of Instruction

Supervision of Instruction

I am currently working at a one school charter and everyone on staff is on an at-will

contract not a collective bargained agreement. Our school is currently going through

unionization and negotiating for a collective bargaining agreement.

The process we use for evaluation has several parts. The first part are informal

observations. This is dropping into a classroom observing and providing feedback for coaching.

Some of our newer teachers, Ed Specialists, and paraprofessionals and those that would benefit

from more improvement receive more of this than those working at a higher level.

At the mid-year we have evaluations that may not be based on formal observations. They

are usually about the growth seen up to that point and adherence to HR policies, procedures,

informal observations, professional development and conversations from one to one meetings.

At the end of the year we have or formal observations. Each department leader schedules

the formal observation with the teachers. The teachers must submit a lesson on our lesson

template. The evaluator observes takes notes based on evaluation plan that is given to the

teachers at the beginning of the year. After the lesson which is scheduled at the same time as the

lesson there is a debrief which goes over areas of strengths and areas to continue to grow on.

If you have had two to three very successful evaluations you may be asked to perform

your own state of learning instead of the observation but not the evaluation. It is a short video in

which the teacher celebrates the areas of growth made with evidence and areas that the teacher

would like to grow professionally. Then a meeting is held immediately to discuss the state of

learning and evaluation.

 As a teacher at the school and the history department lead I have participated on both

ends of each of these. I really enjoyed the state of learning because of its reflective nature and

having a teacher be able to show case their work and where they want to grow next. The history

department was a small department when I was the lead so it wasn’t too difficult to meet the

demands of building rapport, being seen as a coach and evaluator, scheduling everything out and

documentation.

Now I am a program specialist for the special education department. I have the largest

department on campus, I am the LEA attend all IEPs, have students in an NPS, started the school

year short six ed specialists and 2 paraprofessionals. I am still looking for 1 Ed specialist. I

replaced a TOSA that supported the Assistant Director in running the department. The TOSA

was well liked and respected by her peers. She started out 8 years out as a paraprofessional in my

classroom for three years. I am currently filling both positions and it’s my first year in special

education full time with a general education background. I have challenges right there. I have

been trying to get a department rebuild up and running, doing professional development and

working seven days a week to try to keep up. We are also unionizing and in bargaining so many

of the more personal touches I am used to doing is no longer appropriate. In addition, there is the

sheer number of people to observe and evaluate: nine Ed Specialists, one Speech Language

Pathologist, one School Psychologist, and twenty-one support staff. I will need to build rapport,

schedule times in classrooms, block out time department meets and one to one for each member

of the department.