S.L.O. and the librarian

SLO and APPR—Your “roster” or lack thereof…  Someone inquired about any “new” information regarding librarian rosters or lack-thereof and APPR regulations. 

This is not an easy answer.   It is a labyrinthine formula that has been questioned, scrutinized, and answered 2 different ways.   However, Courtney has this language below that may help you interpret everything.  If you go to the link she provided, you will find “librarian” in the document 10 times.   Courtney is no longer at WSWHE BOCES, but now she is at  NYSED.  This language below should give you some hope of avoiding the SLO measure. 

Basically,  the teacher review process will come down to a local decision.  All teachers should be evaluated, but this document actually exempts you from the SLO language “growth measure”  required in the APPR RttT  legislation agreement.  Each year, a district has to have their APPR “plan” reviewed and approved by NYSED. They have to state how they are evaluating everyone. 

Many districts have chosen to use the APPR approved tool for librarians as an alternative.  This is listed on the state website at this link:
http://usny.nysed.gov/rttt/teachers-leaders/practicerubrics/#ATPR

http://usny.nysed.gov/rttt/teachers-leaders/practicerubrics/Docs/nyla-rubric.pdf  

Here’s what I was told from a state official:  

From: Jablonski, Courtney
Sent: Friday, March 01, 2013 10:51 AM
To: Jaeger, Paige
Subject: RE: SLO question for you

Hi Paige-

The regulations state that only educators with 40% or more of their time defined as instructional-   teacher of record (i.e. scheduled courses) are mandated to be part of the "new" teacher evaluation.  Therefore many districts are not creating SLOs, local measures, or using observation for those professionals with less than 40% of their time on record as instructional work. Instead those employees would be connected to whatever evaluation plan was in place prior to this regulation unless negotiated differently.

I have attached the link to the APPR Guidance document that this guidance comes from, section B3 (instructional support service reference and librarian reference) and  B12 are sections that can help shed some light on this. Regulations would allow for people with less than 40% of their time dedicated to instruction (coded as "teacher or record") to be exempt from evaluation process. 

Courtney

http://www.engageny.org/resource/guidance-on-new-york-s-annual-professional-performance-review-law-and-regulations/  

Regional Assessment creation has been devouring all our time lately, but we hope to quickly move beyond that bologna to student-centered activities!   Glory Be.   We took into account the feedback we received from our first-year RAD assessments and hopefully librarians using these will find them a bit easier to deliver.   (Creation of these is a task I wouldn’t wish on my enemies.)