Schools

Chappaqua BOE Roundup: Evaluations, Budget Advisory Committee

Notable items from this week's work session.

Timetable for New Teacher & Principal Evaluation on Track

The district is currently implementing a pilot program for a new evaluation system that will affect teachers.

The pilot is in response to state changes to the existing Annual Professional Performance Review (APPR). District officials have been spending time since January working on how to implement the APPR in the district, according to Eric Byrne, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

Find out what's happening in Chappaqua-Mount Kiscowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

About 30 teachers, plus administrators, are participating in the pilot program, according to Byrne, which offers the district a chance to test out its new process for doing performance evaluations. Officially, the changes don't affect all teachers for another year due to the timeline for the current union contract. For administrators, only a few are officially affected, but more have voluntarily opted to subject themselves.

The district is also trying out a performance rubric (see attached slideshow from the board).

Find out what's happening in Chappaqua-Mount Kiscowith free, real-time updates from Patch.

The APPR change means that teachers will be graded, on a low to high scale of 1-4, based on performance quality. Teachers who only get a 1 or 2 will have to go through an improvement program, according to Superintendent Lyn McKay.

“There’s a lot that’s in place," she said.

 

Budget Advisory Committee Starts off Its Year, Has Closed Meetings

Members of the Budget Advisory Committee held its first meeting recently and plans to hold seven more this year, according to Assistant Superintendent for Business John Chow, who is on the committee.

Chow, who brought up the committee's status in response to an audience question, said that the committee, which answers to the district, includes some members from a data analysis sub group that made up a similar financial committee that met last year, which was responsible to the school board. It also has an empty nester - an older parent who no longer has kids in the schools - and a PTA member.

Chow told the audience that the group has 15 members, including himself. It is charged with looking at the district's financial situation.

Chow acknowledged that the committee, however, will not have open meetings to the public, nor will its members be disclosed.

“It’s really a working committee,” Chow said to Christine Yeres of New Castle NOW, who first raised the question about open meetings and members. He added that they don't publish names other committees with advisory capacity, such as the district's Wellness Committee.

 “I don’t see the need to," Chow continued, at this week's meeting.

 

Good Marks in Tri-States Report

A group of 18 people from the Tri-States Consortium, which represents school districts in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, visited the district earlier this year and gave favorable reviews.

McKay presented the findings at this week's work session, which praised the district for areas such as creative thinking, offering a wide variety of classes, varied classroom instruction and strong support for professional development of staff. Other high marks from Tri-States noted that Chappaqua fosters innovation and aims "well beyond state requirements."

Areas for improvement offered included asking the district to design a more consistent and explicit professional vocabulary, creating local assessments "reflective of critical and creative thinking," and changing report cards so that they show critical thinking.

With the evaluations, Chappaqua found itself on the other side of the process. In early 2010, McKay, who at the time was Deputy Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction, toured the Scarsdale school district with then-Superintendent David Fleishman for the same purpose.

 

Seven Bridges Class Enrollment on Target

Hearing concern from some in the community over the class sizes this year at Seven Bridges Middle School, it was noted that the actual numbers are similar to projections made earlier this year, during the budget planning process.

Byrne described the final numbers as being “a pretty close match."

Average sizes were in the low to mid 20's, versus 19-20 last year, according to McKay. The class sizes are now on par with Robert E. Bell Middle School due to the elimination of an academic team from this year's budget.

 

Board Members Get iPads

The school board, as President Alyson Kiesel described, has gone "semi-paperless" thanks to members getting new iPads to use for their administrative work.

The use of iPads is a big change, as board members recalled during the meeting having to receive large piles of papers at their houses.

“This is a much more streamlined and easier mechanism," said Kiesel.

 

Community Survey Almost Ready

A survey being put together by Penn Schoen Berland, which will gauge what district residents value, is almost ready. According to Kiesel, who had a phone conference with the firm recently, a draft will be ready by this coming week. The survey, made up of random phone calls, should be wrapped up by the end of October.


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