PSS draws up plan for performance appraisal

In a move to make a comprehensive evaluation on the quality of school administrators and teachers in the Public School System Education, Commissioner Rita H. Inos is devising a plan to create a schoolwide performance appraisal assessment for teachers and principals.

The evaluation will allow both teachers and administrators to evaluate themselves and their colleagues for the first time in the history of PSS.

Lacking the appropriate personnel to oversee the responsibility, the commissioner’s office is currently tapping resources to be able to produce the staff that would administer the evaluation process.

Dr. Inos also said she has yet to hold dialogues with school teachers and principals before initiating the plan.

The selected team targeted to conduct the assessment will consist of parents and principals who will confer on improvement performance of teachers and administrators.

The team will be tasked to determine main areas of concern with regard to enhancing the quality of classroom teachers and principals.
PSS is also looking at improving teacher and principal quality by monitoring absences of the faculty and staff in schools.

Of all 16 schools, Gregorio T. Camacho and Rota Elementary Schools have the highest record of absences by administrators and teachers collectively.

Meanwhile, PSS is also intent in building a strong support for student learning by increasing its teacher quality standards, to include both school counselors and administators.

Dr. Inos said that by implementing such standards, schools would be able to know and make projections on what teachers are capable of doing based on their teaching performances.

Conducting yearly assessments is all under PSS’ systemic standards-based reform which has been applied by the whole system during the past five years.

During the first year of the reform, educators and members of the school community reached a consensus on what students should know and be able to do in English Language Arts.

Once complete, the new English Language Arts Content and Performance Standards went to content specialists who created the scope and sequence in English Language Arts.

The last step in the process was to develop classroom assessments that measure the standards and benchmarks and an accountability plan that measures student learning accurately, enabling teachers, principals, and PSS to be successful in creating environments where all student meet or exceed standards.

The impact of these reforms to PSS has resulted in active involvement among community members.