As I came home exhausted from a 12 hour workday getting ready to meet my new kiddos tomorrow (!!!!!), I was excited to see that this blog hit 100,000 hits today.
Thanks for the support. Ya'll are great!
When I catch my breath I'm going to try to do a full post on registration day stuff... This week has been c-r-a-z-y!
Anybody else effected by this new evaluation* stuff this year?
*In Tennessee we bought into Obama's Race to the Top
I'll have to be evaluated SIX times this year, and two of those are unannounced full lessons (aka principal randomly pops in and stays for an hour). All the nagging "what if's" keep popping into my head. This also has my team a little concerned (there are SEVEN first grade teachers, btw!) so it looks like we'll be doing more meeting and sharing next year, which is fantastic in my book. I guess some good things do come out of evals. :)
I'm excited about meeting my new students tomorrow. I'm looking forward to this year with the full support of all you amazing bloggers collaborating and sharing wonderful ideas!
4 weeks ago
11 comments:
Good luck meeting your new babies tomorrow! :) Is the new evaluation system just in your state or is it everywhere? I hadn't heard anything about it.
Adventures in Teaching
Goodluck tomorrow! We also have evals but they occur every 3 years unless you accept a new position.
http://ericashep.blogspot.com
I am in Tennessee too and I am completely overwhelmed by the observations. I am tenured so I only have 4 observations but even that seems like a ton. It seems like everything has completely changed. Good luck with your children tomorrow!
Swimming into Second
Wishing you a fabulous school year :)
I,too,teach in TN, and this year is gonna be a huge change...K-2 is beginning to follow the core curriculum...Should be interesting to say the least! Our students came today for an abbreviated day...first full day on Friday!
If it makes you feel better, think about the administrators...all that time for all those visits and all those write ups!?!?! This too shall pass, I am sure, because the admins will never be able to do anything else the school needs due to all the extra work involved with all the visits! Also, the admins can't make all the visits be bad evaluations because then it means that they are not doing their job training and supporting the staff!
Love your blog!
~Fern
Fern Smith’s Classroom Ideas!
Ash, I teach in TN as well and this would've been my year to get tenure if we would've stayed on the same eval schedule. I'm overwhelmed as well but I don't think it is realistic. It was hard for our principal and assistant principal to get all the evals in last year and they didn't have near as much as what are expected of them this year. What gets me fired up is all the silly and worthless paperwork that is required. By the way, Where do you teach in TN?
I'm in Michigan and in my district at least, they are saying the principals have to evaluate EVERYONE at least twice but preferably three times a year. Right. My first observation last year (new school to me) was under 10 minutes. It's supposed to be 45. My last one, she waited until the very LAST week to do it and then complained the kids weren't engaged. They pull our principals out for so many meetings too -- I don't know how they expect anyone to do all those evaluations. It's insane.
Good luck meeting your new class :) Hope you have the best year ever!
I'm in TN too, and these new evaluations have me so nervous! Especially the unannounced formal lesson!
I teach in TX. Last year we were supposed to have 8-10 walk-throughs (15 min. unannounced) and one formal observation of 45 min. I only recieved 3 walk-throughs & then everyone has a formal no matter how long you have taught. Our staff goes back on the 11th and I heard there are some changes coming. I haven't heard what they are yet....
2nd Grade Ponderings
I'm in Fl and we are changing our whole eval system too! I agree with some of the previous posters, it sounds like a whole lot that probably won't get done cause the admin just won't have the time.
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