West Deptford Schools in Teacher Evaluation Pilot Program

West Deptford schools will get a year’s head start on the Excellent Educators for New Jersey (EE4NJ) teacher evaluation program, after the Department of Education announced Thursday the district scored one of the coveted spots in the 2011-12 pilot program.

The district is one of just three in South Jersey, along with Woodstown-Pilesgrove Regional and Ocean City, to be selected to be part of the pilot program, and will get a share of $1.1 million in grant funding from the state.

West Deptford school administrators called it an unprecedented chance to help shape a program that will be mandated statewide in the 2012-13 school year.

“This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity,” said Kristin O’Neil, the district’s director of curriculum and instruction. “It’s something to celebrate.”

O’Neil said this gives the district a chance to be “the voice for South Jersey” in the program and allows West Deptford teachers and administrators to have an active role in pinpointing the successes and challenges of the program, before it launches across the nearly 600 school districts across New Jersey.

“This is going to enable us to do it right, do it now, and do it well,” she said.

Acting Commissioner of Education Christopher Cerf said innovation within the guidelines presented by the Department of Education will be important.

“Rather than simply mandating a new system from Trenton, through this pilot we are asking our teachers to educate us about the successes and challenges of implementing a new evaluation system as we look to roll out an improved system framework statewide in 2012,” Cerf said. “Rethinking how we evaluate teachers is a monumental undertaking, and we are confident that we have the right building blocks in place.”

O’Neil and Superintendent Kevin Kitchenman said that the new evaluation represents a shift in West Deptford’s school culture and mindset, and that change and the newness of the program could be a challenge.

“People can only adapt to so much change,” Kitchenman said.

O’Neil said she sees hurdles to overcome, as well, but that’s part of the process and part of being in the pilot–getting input from teachers on what works and doesn’t work, and sharing that with the Department of Education to improve the program ahead of its wider launch.

The evaluation program will rate teachers on a scale from “ineffective” to “highly effective,” taking into account test scores and classroom performance. It’s a framework designed to support teachers, O’Neil said.

“We know how hard our teachers work,” she said, and said the pilot program will bear that out.

Data from the pilot, which will be processed online using one of several approved programs, will give the district a snapshot of its performance as a whole–a way of identifying strengths and weaknesses.

“It’s like our own little road map,” O’Neil said.

With the school year set to start next week, that road map will get a quick start, as teachers and administrators get their introduction to it early before getting more training later in the fall.

The district had to pull the grant application together in a hurry, as well, involving hours of research and effort and a collaboration between O’Neil, Kitchenman and Assistant Superintendent William Thompson.

After more than a few late nights working on the application, O’Neil ended up having to drive the entire package to Trenton to beat the deadline.

The effort was worth it, though, O’Neil said, as it will shine a spotlight on the entire district for the next year.

“I’m excited people will get to know West Deptford,” she said.

The selected districts include:

District

County

Alexandria Township

Hunterdon

Bergenfield

Bergen

Elizabeth

Union

Monroe Township

Middlesex

Ocean City

Cape May

Pemberton Township

Burlington

Red Bank

Monmouth

Secaucus

Hudson

West Deptford Township

Gloucester

Woodstown-Pilesgrove Regional

Salem

Newark (to be funded through a separate grant)

Essex