Report of Regents P-12 Education/Higher Education Joint Meeting Committee to The Board of Regents

Your P-12 Education and Higher Education Committees held their scheduled meeting on February 12, 2018.  All members were present, except for Regents Norwood, Cashin, Finn and Mittler, who were excused.

MATTERS NOT REQUIRING BOARD ACTION

APPR Updates [P-12/HE (D) 1] – The Committee was provided with an update on the Annual Professional Performance Reviews (APPR) of teachers and principals since the Board of Regents adopted the APPR Transition regulations in December 2015.  Commissioner Elia discussed the activities underway including the two RFPs that were issued to select a technical assistance provider to help support the work of the Department.  The Evaluation and Assessment Workgroups will examine both the elements of the current system that are working well and should be maintained, as well as the potential changes that are needed to the existing system.  (Both paths will be inclusive of practitioners from the field and representatives from stakeholder groups.)  Also discussed was the work of a technical assistance provider that will work with the Department to conduct Student Learning Objective (SLO) workshops. 

The Committee was also updated on the survey that was released to the field on February 6, 2018 to begin a collaborative conversation with teachers, school leaders, and district administrators on revising New York’s current APPR system.  The survey was designed to collect feedback from educators in the following areas:

• The overall purpose and appropriate use of evaluation to support continuous improvement;
• School-based factors educators believe they have an influence on;
• The inclusion and relative weight of different types of evaluation measures; and
• The frequency and number of instances of each measure.

The results of the Commissioner’s initial APPR survey will be provided to Workgroup members. Workgroups will meet regularly over a year’s time to formulate additional questions that need to be probed with the field. The Department will organize focus groups, electronic surveys, and regional meetings to gather additional information. The Workgroups will then be asked to reflect on all of the field’s feedback and develop initial recommendations that will require further feedback from the field. The Workgroups will assess the work that has been done and the development of the proposed recommendations.