Melissa Bailey Photo
“Exemplary” 3rd grade teacher Marilyn Ciarleglio.
(Updated) John C. Daniels School has five “exemplary” teachers. Worthington Hooker has none. Those were among the results as teachers got their first feedback from New Haven’s new teacher-grading system — one that is very much a work in progress.
School officials Monday night announced initial results from new teacher evaluations that for the first time are tied to student performance. The scores are based on three categories: instructional practices, professional values, and student achievement. Read more about the scoring here.
The district’s 1,600 teachers are being scored on a scale of 1 to 5, 1 for “needs improvement” and 5 for “exemplary.”
Teachers won’t get official report cards until June. But after an initial evaluation, teachers who appeared to be a potential 1 or 5 early in the school year were alerted by Nov. 1, so that the school can adjust course accordingly. That may mean adding professional development to get struggling teachers on track before the end of the year. The scores announced Monday are called “pre-ratings”; they may change before the end of the year.
Districtwide, 62 teachers were marked as “needs improvement” and 40 as “exemplary.”
New Haven is among the first districts in the nation to incorporate student performance into teacher evaluations, a move that President Obama has been encouraging through his Race To The Top Initiative.
As part of the new system, the 1s and 5s will be double-checked by a team of auditors the city hired through Area Cooperative Educational Services (ACES). Those auditors will “validate” the pre-ratings through extra classroom observations.
The scores have consequences: If teachers marked as 1s do not improve by the end of the year, they may face termination. Those who end up with scores of 5 may be promoted to be a literacy coach or a team leader for their grade level.
Rather than revealing that one school has better teachers than another school, the initial results may just as much reveal a wide divergence in how different principals are using the new system.
For example, Principal Peggy Moore at Wilbur Cross rated seven teachers “exemplary” and seven “needs improvement.” On the other hand, James Hillhouse High Principal Kermit Carolina placed no teachers in either category.
Carolina was one of 20 principals who did that.
Read a school-by-school breakdown here.
Some other highlights: Brennan/Rogers Principal Karen Lott, who got unprecedented autonomy to hire her own teachers at the turnaround school this year, marked seven teachers “needs improvement” and none as “exemplary.”
At the K‑8 John C. Daniels School in the Hill, Principal Gina Wells marked five teachers “exemplary” and none as “needs improvement.” Worthington Hooker Principal Sheryl Hershonik scored none in either category.
Teacher union President Dave Cicarella cautioned that these results do not mean there are no “exemplary” teachers at Hooker; there could be more teachers in that category when official results come out at the end of the school year. The potential scores released Monday are a first-blush evaluation based on classroom visits. In putting together the final report cards, principals will be able to factor in more information about student growth, including scores on district assessments and whether students met academic goals the teacher set for the class at the beginning of the year.
School reform czar Garth Harries said a variety of factors affect how principals used the system. He noted that principals were asked to grade their teachers just two months into the school year.
At schools where no teachers got 1s or 5s, there may be new principals “still getting used to their staff.” Or principals may be unfamiliar with the process. They may be “waiting to see how it plays out” this year before issuing grades that have consequences.
Harries said behind every set of numbers is “a particular story and solution.” Is a principal taking a “harsh view” of her staff? Or is he looking at them through “rose-tinted glasses”?
Validators from ACES will visit “needs improvement” teachers three times and “exemplary” teachers twice to answer those questions.
“That’s why the validation process is so significant,” Harries said.
Cicarella said the results show principals “are using good discretion” in doling out the scores, keeping in mind that a score of 1 is meant for severe cases of low performance.
Teachers who score a 1 “are folks that we have serious concerns about,” he said. “They may need to be removed from the classroom in a year’s time.”
Assistant Superintendent Imma Canelli said she has already seen improvement among teachers marked as 1s early in the year, because they were given professional development to target areas of weakness. That means those teachers may get a better grade in June, and hold onto their jobs next year.
Overall, 3.5 percent of teachers were marked as potential “needs improvement,” and 2.3 percent were marked “exemplary.”
A Star On Clinton Ave
Marilyn Ciarleglio was part of that 2.3 percent.
Ciarleglio, who’s 46, is a single mom raising two kids in Branford. Following the footsteps of her father, who still teaches in New Haven Public Schools, Ciarleglio started teaching at the Clinton Avenue School 10 years ago and never left. Right now she’s a classroom teacher for 22 kids in the third grade. She stays after school to teach at the 21st Century after-school program and attends night classes to get her masters in reading.
On Monday, she showed up to the Board of Education with a bouquet of flowers. She was there to accept an honor as one of three runners-up for the district’s Teacher of the Year. Before her daughter snapped her photo accepting a plaque, Ciarleglio recounted how she came to gain another kind of recognition — one that came quietly, and has been spread only around her school.
Ciarleglio was one of three teachers at Clinton Avenue to be marked “exemplary” this year.
As part of the new teacher evaluation process, she sat down with her assistant principal and laid out goals for the year. Her goal is to “let the kids do more learning on their own, rather than depend on me.” That means more student-led activities.
When Ciarleglio got word that she was up for observation, she let her kids know there would be visitors. And she took some extra time to plan a special lesson.
Her principal, assistant principal and an evaluator walked in the door to observe. She sat the kids down for lesson in the art of story-telling. She wrote out sentences from a story and asked the kids why the author chose specific words. Was it to show a feeling? To paint a picture in the reader’s mind?
The kids broke up in groups for discussion.
Ciarleglio said the lesson went very well. She said though she did spend extra time preparing a special lesson for the visitors, there were some clear signals of the work she does every day: Her students showed that they are used to talking to each other and working in groups. They understood the lesson. They were “engaged in the activity.”
That’s what her observers concluded before giving her a 5 on the evaluation.
“She did well on everything,” said Sandy Kaliszewski, assistant principal at Clinton Avenue School and Ciarleglio’s instructional supervisor.
Ciarleglio has boosted her test scores over the years, with some kids gaining a year and a half on the Connecticut Mastery Test, Kaliszewski said. Last year, 90 percent of her students scored proficient in math, and 50 percent on reading. Their gains helped Clinton Avenue make “safe harbor,” a measure of progress off a federal watchlist for failing schools.
Kaliszewski said besides those hard numbers, Ciarleglio mentors other teachers, devotes lots of time to her job, and creates a “family environment” in her class.
“She really believes in her kids. She makes sure the kids also believe in themselves.” Ciarleglio also does well at planning classes for different abilities, she said.
The kids in Ciarleglio’s class ranged from 7 to 10 years old. It’s a “tough class,” Ciarleglio said, one that needs a lot of redirection. “I have to stay on top of them.”
Ciarleglio will now have two more visits from an A.C.E.S. auditor, one announced and one unannounced. If the auditor upholds her “exemplary” score, she could stand to rise to a leadership position.
Ciarleglio said school leadership already tried to promote her out of the classroom at the beginning of the year.
“I didn’t want to give it up,” she said. “I love being with the kids.”
“Seminal Moment”
Teacher union President Cicarella said even in cases less “exemplary” than Ciarleglio’s, the process has gone smoothly.
Cicarella said the most valuable part has been the goal-setting. He said the union mediated in a few cases where the two parties did not agree on a goal; for the most part teachers found the conversations valuable.
Mayor John DeStefano Jr., who appoints the school board, called Monday’s announcement a “seminal moment” for the district. “This was years to get to, and this was done in what seems to be a transparent, fair and accepted way.”
“Not many school districts have gotten where” New Haven’s leadership “has gotten us today,” DeStefano said.
Looking over the school-by-school results, board member Alex Johnston asked whether the district expects to see the teacher evaluations reflect where schools fall in the tiering process, where schools are graded into three categories based largely on improvement on test scores.
For example, if a struggling school jumps up a tier based on kids’ gains on state tests, or the kids’ performance stays flat, teachers evaluations should reflect that.
“We would expect it,” replied Harries, “but it’ll be fascinating to see.”
Principals are also being graded along the same timeline as teachers, with a similar grading system. However, they don’t have the system for early warning and validation of “needs improvement” and “exemplary” scores. The first official scores for principals will come out at the end of the year.
The school board is still putting together a method for grading the superintendent based on student performance.