AS AMENDED:

          This bill would amend Chapter 2 of the O.C.G.A. to revise evaluation procedures for educators. 

1.      A renewable certificate would be not issued for an educator who received any combination of two unsatisfactory, ineffective, or needs development annual performance evaluations.

2.      All systems and charter schools would report such ratings for certified personnel to the PSC, who would be prohibited from releasing any data that are personally identifiable.

3.      It would eliminate current requirements for PDP’s for professional personnel with deficiencies with other options noted.

4.      It would change the SBOE’s responsibility to provide a model annual evaluation instrument  for each classification of professional personnel from “shall provide” to “may provide,” and goes on to specifically require an instrument developed primarily by the DOE for certain personnel.

5.      It would remove all the previously required components of an annual evaluation.

6.      By 2014-2015 an evaluation systems adopted and defined by the State Board would be required of all elementary and secondary school teachers of record, assistant principals, and principals.

a.       Stakeholders such as teachers and principals would participate in the development of the instrument.

b.      It would use multiple measures, prioritizing growth in student achievement.

7.      It would require use of multiple, rigorous, and transparent measures that had been sent to all educators affected.

8.      The measures would have to include the following elements:

a.       Teachers of courses that are subject to state tests and their principals would be held responsible for the identified growth requirements as 50% of the evaluation.

b.      Other teachers would have growth of student achievement assessed through locally development measures approved by the DOE; and when enough data is available to the DOE, growth measures would count for 50% of their evaluations.

c.       Multiple classroom observations by trained and credentialed evaluators would be required, along with student perception data and documentation of practice.

d.      Assistant principals’ and principals’ evaluations would also include multiple additional measures aligned with impact on achievement to include multiple school observations by credentialed evaluators. When data is sufficient, the following abilities would be elements:

                                                              i.      Attracting and retaining highly effective teachers;

                                                            ii.      Managing the school effectively;

                                                          iii.      Establishing a positive school climate for learning; and

                                                          iv.      Other measures aligned with achievement for all subgroups of students.

e.       The ratings for each educator would be “Exemplary,” “Proficient,” “Needs Development,” or “Ineffective.” A rating of “ineffective” would constitute evidence of incompetency for purposes of non-renewal.

9.      The DOE would be responsible for:

a.       Determining the teacher of record for establishing responsibility for student achievement scores;

b.      Establishing processes for roster verification and student teacher linkages to assign student scores to the appropriate teacher;

c.       Establishing minimum training and credentialing requirements for the evaluators; and

d.      Providing data systems to support professional growth.

10. LBOE’s would retain all hiring, dismissal, RIF, and placement decisions, but those decisions would have to be made primarily on the results of the evaluations. Professional growth opportunities based on the evaluations would be the responsibility of the LBOE.

11. All evaluations would be confidential, but performance data would be submitted to the DOE and could be publically released without identifying information.

12. Individuals could sign releases of the information to third parties.

13. Individual data may be shared with the OSA, but they could not release it.

14. It would eliminate the possible required annual performance evaluation of principals and assistant principals by teachers of the school, other than as a part of the procedure defined earlier in the bill.

15. It would remove the paragraph that requires a teacher to have a PDP if he/she has more than two students returned to the class after he/she has requested they be removed.

16. It makes May 15 the new deadline for tendering new contracts.

17. Teachers would not receive credit on the salary schedule for any year in which the teacher received an unsatisfactory or ineffective performance evaluation, or for the second year in which the teacher received two consecutive needs improvement ratings.

18. Teachers would not be able to file complaints regarding personnel evaluations, PDP’s, and job performance. This already applies to termination, nonrenewal, demotion, suspension or reprimand of any employee.