Mineola Schools Detail Principal Evaluation Plans

“This year is different,” Mineola School Superintendent Dr. Michael Nagler said. “It’s different that what we’ve done in the past.”

This school year students are not the only ones who are being assessed on their performance; school principals are also being evaluated with an in-depth look at their interactions with teachers at increasing student achievement and how to quantify that effect.

“How can a principal demonstrate their influence on what’s going on?” Dr. Nagler summed up at the December 1 meeting of the .

The 2011-12 school year is the first year principals will have an annual professional performance review (APPR), the same review which currently evaluates performances of teachers and administrators. Also for the first time the Mineola School District will include student performance in the  grades (K-9) because of the test’s classification as a growth model with exams taken in fall, winter and spring.

“The whole idea behind this exam is did your child make progress, did they grow,” Dr. Nagler said.

State assessments and other exams given at end of the year are known as “summative” tests, leaving no room for improvement. 

“There’s not much you can do once you get the results back from a state exam; it is what it is,” the superintendent said.

One of the most difficult aspects of the evaluations is that while principals are instructional leaders and ultimately responsible for student achievement in their buildings, they are not in classrooms teaching.

“There has to be a way that we can gauge the principal’s influence on student achievement,” Dr. Nagler said. “I think the whole premise of this has to be what are we doing to ensure individual kids are doing well? And the challenge the principals is how do I monitor that and more importantly, what’s my influence on that? Most of the principals’ work is professional development – it’s helping teachers become better at what they do.”

Part of that includes the creation of SMART goals, which stands for “Strategic, Measurable, Attainable, Results oriented, Time bound” and which are in line with student learning objectives (SLO), a state initiative.

“It’s basically teachers are required to set up goals for themselves and for their students and then you measure whether or not the teacher met their goal by whether or not the student met their goal,” Dr. Nagler said. “The whole region’s action plan is about data-driven instruction, expectations for kids and accountability for adults; if you sum it in a nutshell, that’s what it is.”

The most pressing questions for principals are how to hold teachers accountable, monitoring student progress to make decisions on how to use resources and determining who or what methods are effective or not.

In order to demonstrate “influence” in the buildings, the new SMART goal format is focused on action plans that look for “artifacts,” which could include a calendar of meetings and agendas of discussions held with teachers, so “we have evidence of the work that you did,” Dr. Nagler explained. “What are you demonstrating as your influence in the building.”

The superintendent presented what he stressed was a “sampling” of English language arts (ELA) and reading scores on the recent NWEA exams taken in each grade because “we .” Math plans were also available to the board but were not detailed at the meeting.  and their action plans, the details of which can be found here. Due to the larger size of the , a separate presentation was given at the December 19 meeting.

“We need to demonstrate the hard work we do in terms of student achievement; period,” Dr. Nagler said. “We need to do it district-wide; the  is on the hot seat for the . That has to happen and if it doesn’t happen, people need to be accountable for that. Period. Including me. From me all the way down.”