Worcester Public Schools

Press Release Thursday, November 21, 2013 For public release at 10:30 am Contacts: Melinda Boone, Superintendent, 508-799-3115 Stacey DeBoise Luster, Manager of Human Resources, 508-799-3020 David Perda, Chief Research & Accountability Officer, 508-799-3060
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The Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) released educator evaluation data today for the first time under the revised Massachusetts educator evaluation regulations. In the Worcester Public Schools, the evaluation data show that nearly 94 percent of educators were rated as Proficient or Exemplary during the 2012-13 school year. The new regulations, which were adopted by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in 2011, apply to teachers, principals, superintendents, and other staff holding positions that require a state-issued license. Under the new system, educators performance is rated as Exemplary, Proficient, Needs Improvement or Unsatisfactory.1 In Massachusetts, the DESE required that school districts receiving funds from the U.S. Department of Educations Race to the Top initiative adopt and implement the new educator evaluation system for the 2012-13 school year with at least 50 percent of educators district-wide. In 201314, all school districts will be required to participate. In the Worcester Public Schools, 1825 educators were evaluated under the new system, representing 98.2 percent of eligible educators. The evaluations are based on reviews of employee performance during the 2012-13 school year. Of those evaluated, 6.2 percent were Exemplary, 87.7 percent were rated as Proficient, 5.6 percent were classified as Needs Improvement, and 0.4 percent were rated as Unsatisfactory. School-level distributions of educator evaluation ratings can be found in the appendix of this release.. I am pleased with the implementation of our new educational evaluation system thus far, said Melinda Boone, Superintendent of Worcester Public Schools. By working collaboratively with leadership of the Educational Association of Worcester, I feel that we have created a fair and responsive evaluation system that will foster a climate of professional growth among educators in our district as we work to continually increase our preparedness and effectiveness in working with students. A survey of teachers in the Worcester Public Schools from Spring 2013 showed that a majority of teachers (54 percent) reported feeling that the new teacher evaluation system will help to improve their teaching. These data suggest that our system for evaluation has the support of many but we still clearly have much work to do, said Superintendent Boone. We have an obligation to continue to improve the

Definitions for the different performance levels can be found in Table 1.

(2) evaluation process and it is critical that we seek input from teacher and school leadership throughout the district on how to get there. In the future, it is expected that the educator evaluation system will include evidence of student growth on state and district-based assessments. In addition, the system will eventually incorporate feedback from students and staff into the educator evaluation process.

Table 1: Educator evaluation performance level definitions:

Performance Level Exemplary Definition The educator's performance consistently and significantly exceeds the requirements of a standard or overall

Proficient

The educator's performance fully and consistently meets the requirements of a standard or overall.

Needs improvement

The educator's performance on a standard or overall is below the requirements of a standard or overall, but is not considered to be unsatisfactory at this time. Improvement is necessary and expected. The educator's performance on a standard or overall has not significantly improved following a rating of needs improvement, or the educator's performance is consistently below the requirements of a standard or overall and is considered inadequate, or both.

Unsatisfactory

Appendix: Distribution of Educator Evaluation Ratings, by School, 2012-13 Total Educators Evaluated 1825 38 67 86 24 31 30 37 38 44 26 28 109 41 30 76 23 48 44 24 26 24 31 23 23 24 22 35 40 94 51 30 48 105 83 35 24 35 24 36 22 31 34 28 56 124 % Needs Improvement 5.6 2.6 *** 8.1 12.5 0.0 6.7 0.0 0.0 9.1 0.0 *** 3.7 4.9 *** 9.2 0.0 8.3 4.5 16.7 *** *** 6.5 26.1 4.3 *** 18.2 *** 7.5 *** 0.0 *** 0.0 6.7 *** 8.6 4.2 2.9 *** 13.9 *** *** 0.0 0.0 19.6 0.0

School Worcester Public Schools Belmont Street Community Burncoat Middle School Burncoat Senior High Burncoat Street Canterbury Chandler Elementary Community Chandler Magnet City View Claremont Academy Clark St Community Columbus Park Doherty Memorial High Elm Park Community Flagg Street Forest Grove Middle Francis J McGrath Elementary Gates Lane Goddard School/Science Technical Grafton Street Head Start Heard Street Jacob Hiatt Magnet Lake View Lincoln Street May Street Midland Street Nelson Place Norrback Avenue North High Quinsigamond Rice Square Roosevelt South High Community Sullivan Middle Tatnuck Thorndyke Road Union Hill School University Pk Campus School Vernon Hill School Wawecus Road School West Tatnuck Woodland Academy Worcester Arts Magnet School Worcester East Middle Worcester Technical High

% Evaluated 98.2 97.4 100.0 100.0 92.3 93.9 96.8 94.9 97.4 100.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 97.6 93.8 100.0 92.0 98.0 95.7 82.8 100.0 100.0 96.9 100.0 95.8 100.0 88.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 98.1 96.8 96.0 100.0 100.0 100.0 92.3 97.2 100.0 94.7 100.0 100.0 97.1 96.6 96.6 87.3

% Exemplary 6.2 15.8 *** 0.0 16.7 9.7 20.0 5.4 15.8 4.5 15.4 *** 3.7 4.9 *** 2.6 8.7 10.4 13.6 0.0 *** *** 9.7 8.7 4.3 *** 4.5 *** 30.0 *** 21.6 *** 6.3 12.4 *** 8.6 20.8 8.6 *** 11.1 *** *** 11.8 17.9 7.1 0.8

% Proficient 87.7 81.6 *** 91.9 70.8 90.3 73.3 94.6 84.2 86.4 84.6 *** 90.8 90.2 *** 88.2 91.3 81.3 81.8 79.2 *** *** 83.9 65.2 91.3 *** 77.3 *** 62.5 *** 78.4 *** 93.8 79.0 *** 82.9 75.0 88.6 *** 75.0 *** *** 88.2 82.1 71.4 99.2

% Unsatisfactory 0.4 0.0 *** 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 *** 1.8 0.0 *** 0.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 4.2 *** *** 0.0 0.0 0.0 *** 0.0 *** 0.0 *** 0.0 *** 0.0 1.9 *** 0.0 0.0 0.0 *** 0.0 *** *** 0.0 0.0 1.8 0.0

*** Denotes suppressed data as all staff evaluated in the school received the same rating or all educators were evaluated and a single educator had a rating different from all other educators