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THE STANDARDS
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Summary of the Standards
Propriety Standards Intended to ensure that a personnel evaluation will be conducted legally, ethically, and with due regard for the welfare of the evaluatee and those involved in the evaluation.
P1 Service Orientation Personnel evaluations should promote sound education of all students, fulfillment of institutional missions, and effective performance of job responsibilities of educators.
P2 Appropriate Policies and Procedures Guidelines for personnel evaluations should be recorded and provided to the evaluatee in policy statements, negotiated agreements, or personnel evaluation manuals.
P3 Access to Evaluation Information To maintain confidentiality, access to evaluation information should be limited to the people with established, legitimate permission to review and use the information.
P4 Interactions With Evaluatees The evaluator should respect human dignity and act in a professional, considerate, and courteous manner.
P5 Comprehensive Evaluation Personnel evaluations should identify strengths and areas for growth.
P6 Conflict of Interest Existing and potential conflicts of interest should be identified and dealt with openly and honestly.
P7 Legal Viability Personnel evaluations should meet the requirements of applicable laws, contracts, collective bargaining agreements, affirmative action policies, and local board or institutional policies.
P1 Service Orientation
STANDARD Personnel evaluations should promote sound education of all students, fulfillment of institutional missions, and effective performance of job responsibilities of educators.
Explanation. Students and the community have the right to receive sound educational services, which should be supported by a sound system of personnel evaluation. The primary purpose of personnel evaluation in education is to guide and support educators in delivering high quality services in whatever role they serve: pre-Kā12 teacher, university professor, instructor, or administrator. Personnel evaluations should help ensure that educators understand and pursue their organizationās mission and goals. To support this, responsibilities should be specified, promised services delivered, and professional capabilities advanced to meet the needs of students.
Personnel evaluation must reflect an organizationās goals. The institutionās staff and constituents should be informed that the results of a personnel evaluation will be used to recognize and encourage excellent service, motivate and assist evaluatees to improve, and, when needed, document just cause for dismissing evaluatees who are performing in an unacceptable manner (see U6, Follow-Up and Professional Development; P7, Legal Viability).
Rationale. Education institutions exist to meet the needs of students, the community, and society. Personnel evaluations should be directed toward achieving that purpose. To encourage the beneficial aspects and avoid the detrimental aspects of personnel evaluations, evaluators should employ practices that provide useful information about the performance of the evaluatee. With this information, teachers, instructors, administrators, and others who work with students are better able to provide superior, pertinent services to their students and to maintain and encourage their own professional development.
A. Determine purposes and uses of the evaluation that reflect the needs of the students and community and the roles and responsibilities of the evaluatee, then plan and conduct the evaluation to serve those needs (see U2, Defined Uses; A2, Defined Expectations).
B. Ensure that evaluations serve to protect the rights of students for adequate instruction, service, and equal educational opportunity.
C. Include all potential stakeholders, such as faculty, administrators, board members, students, and union officials, when determining the purpose(s) and procedures of an evaluation, and check their level of understanding.
D. Inform the institutionās staff and constituents that personnel evaluation will be directed to encourage excellent service, motivate and assist all personnel to improve and, if needed, document just cause for dismissing those whose performance is unacceptable (see U6, Follow-Up and Professional Development; P7, Legal Viability).
E. Set and maintain high standards for granting tenure, making sure that the standards are responsive to the needs of stakeholders and understood by the evaluatee.
F. Implement a thorough screening process at the time of hiring, followed by one to three years of comprehensive evaluation to assure sound decisions regarding retention of personnel. Ensure that appropriate professional development opportunities are available when needed (see U6, Follow-Up and Professional Development).
G. Subject all personnel in the institution to a consistent and procedurally fair process of evaluation aligned with organizational goals.
H. Inform the public periodically about how personnel evaluation is promoting the best interests of the students and the community (e.g., describe and discuss the system at meetings of the school board and the parent-teacher organization, provide information in school newsletters to parents; see U5, Functional Reporting.)
A. Failing to base criteria and performance standards on job roles and responsibilities and on legal requirements (see P7, Legal Viability; U4, Explicit Criteria).
B. Failing to align evaluation criteria with institutional goals and mission (see U4, Explicit Criteria).
C. Failing to invest adequate resources in the development and implementation of evaluation procedures, including the training of evaluators (see F3, Fiscal Viability).
D. Failing to recognize and encourage excellent performance.
E. Seeking to remove an evaluatee whose performance was judged unacceptable before attempting to improve that personās performance.
F. Failing to appropriately address unsatisfactory performance in a timely manner.
G. Failing to invest in and to provide employee development plans and professional growth opportunities while expecting improvement in performance.
Illustrative Case 1: Inheriting an Underperforming Principal
Description
As one of her first tasks, Dr. Ferguson, the new superintendent in a small school district, reviewed the personnel files of the three elementary school principals and found that one principal had been performing poorly for years. The information in his file included data from teachersā surveys over the years in which teachers tended to view his leadership unfavorably. It also contained several memoranda to him from previous superintendents āreminding him of the need to be on campus before the students arrived.ā Several parent complaints appeared unresolved. Dr. Ferguson noted that on several visits to the school, she always found this principal in his office. During one recent walk-through of the school, in which she was accompanied by the principal, several students recognized and spoke to her, but did not know their principal. Information in his file also showed that the majority of teachers in this school were seasoned veterans who tended to function independently.
There was evidence of only perfunctory compliance with district initiatives, such as the new reading program. Dr. Ferguson thought this lack of leadership resulted in lower accountability for teachersā performance. As a consequence of poor implementation of the reading program, the students in this school were steadily underperforming their peers in other schools in reading. She feared this decline in scores would adversely affect these students even more as they moved forward to middle school and high school.
Many parents were aware of the situation and routinely requested that their children be placed in other schools. Complaints by parents and teachers to the school board had apparently fallen on deaf ears, perhaps because the principal was a close friend of several board members and the brother of the mayor. Board members were appointed in this district, not elected.
This principal had been in the school district for more than 20 years. Rather than build a case and fire him, the previous superintendents had chosen not to make waves, opting instead for damage control by letting experienced teachers cover many of the principalās responsibilities. Dr. Ferguson knew she would have a difficult task removing this principal. As a new superintendent, she would most likely follow the lead of her predecessors. She desperately hoped the principal would retire soon.
Illustrative Case 1: Inheriting an Underperforming Principal
Analysis
Dr. Ferguson, the new superintendent, recognized that the principal was not performing in accordance with his defined job responsibilities. While she had documentation of his inadequate performance across several superintendents and her own observations, there was no plan for improvement or any indication of attempts at the district level to address or remediate his inadequacies. It appeared that the previous superintendents and board members found their own self-interests in job security more important than service to the students and the interests of their parents.
No sound evaluation system was in place before Dr. Fergusonās arrival, a deficiency for which the entire school and community paid. The attempts at damage control, along with unprincipled and uncritical loyalty to senior employees and avoidance of controversy, are unacceptable practices when student welfare and the public good are at stake.
Dr. Ferguson failed to serve the students of her district by accepting less than adequate performance from the principal and teachers at this elementary school. She recognized that lack of leadership resulted in poor implementation of effective teaching strategies, which led to long-term negative consequences for students. Perhaps she feared the perceived political connections of the principal or lack of support for her position, but she became part of the continued dysfunction of the school when she did not attempt to remedy the situation through sound personnel evaluation.
Fair and accurate personnel evaluation, coupled with appropriate actions based on the evaluation results, serve a school superintendent well in building staff morale, increasing student learning, and establishing credibility with the parents and the community. The absence of such a system or its misuse invariably harms all of a schoolās constituencies.
Illustrative Case 2: Dismissing an Unsatisfactory Instructor
Description
Dr. Alverez, a newly hired department chair in a large university, found herself in the uncomfortable position of being required to respond to several student complaints regarding an instructor on her staff. The class in question was a third-year class with 384 students. The students alleged that the lecturer could not maintain appropriate classroom control. They also charged that he was not prepared adequately for each class, indicating that he often got lost while he was lecturing and at times contradicted himself from one class session to the next.
Dr. Alverez reviewed the instructorās file and found detailed evidence of previous similar shortcomings. She confirmed these deficiencies by observing him several times, informed him in writing of her concerns about his teaching competency, and finally awarded him a zero merit increment for the year. She next informed him in writing that, as outlined in the university faculty agreement, instructors are evaluated only on teaching. Therefore, should he receive a zero merit increment the following year, she would have to recommend his dismissal to the dean. At the same time, she advised him to seek assistance with his teaching and directed him to the teaching services on campus.
In accordance with the university faculty agreement, Dr. Alverez and three other faculty members observed the instructor periodically during the following year. They met to compare their findings and found that they all agreed that the instructorās performance was unsatisfactory, citing a lack of classroom control, apparent lack of understanding of subject matter, and confused classroom presentations.
Based on these findings, the department chair awarded a zero merit increment for the second time and recommended to the dean that this instructor be released. The dean accepted the recommendation, and the Faculty Evaluation Committee (FEC) upheld the action. The FEC noted that the department chair had provided adequate notice of deficiency as well as the opportunity to correct it and assistance to do so and that the four evaluators, observing separately, all had found that the instructorās teaching performance was unsatisfactory. The instructor did not appeal the case, recognizing that due process had been followed.
Illustrative Case 2: Dismissing an Unsatisfactory Instructor
Analysis
Dr. Alverez considered the studentsā complaints as worthy of ...
