Hello Implementation Team,

We are in the home stretch..

Here is an update on our status and some info for you regarding team call:

1.  Please welcome Stephanie back to our team.  She was having technical difficulties with the site of which we were both unaware and is now caught up to speed and helping us with last minute items.  She will be taking on barrier number 4.  JoLisa has posted some great information on training/support/mentoring.....and so has Teddy Broussard(Tap guy) if you want to check those out for information related to your barrier.

2.  Laura Gutman is taking on barrier #15...which should also cover issues stated in #10.  Laura please make sure we have some type of recommendation related to the need for enhanced staffing to manage additional evaluation requirements such as portfolios.  Again, the stuff Jolisa and Teddy posted may help you also with your barrier.

3.  The rest of our focus should lie in tweeking our own Recs and giving feedback to others.  Please try to add as much as you can to your final template and review others as able, but keep in mind the following:

-DO NOT WORRY about Implementation steps....If you think of some barriers to implementation, please list those instead.

- For the most part we did not have many/any DISCUSSION THREADS with opposing ideas..most people just took on a barrier and did it themeselves..therefore you may not have many discussion threads related to your barrier.  Put them in if you see them, but otherwise don't worry about it.

-Make sure you give a little blurb of BACKGROUND that states the problem in the Recommendation section of your template...this may just be simply rewording the problem that we stated with a few extra words for transition to Recs....

-POLICY SECTION of template:  I think we are all struggling a little on this part....in regards to implementation and policy implications, we are mainly looking at the need for additional funding and accountability to ensure faithfulness to the goal.  Just add a couple of bullet points about that and it should fit for most of your Recs.  The policy team will be making recommendations in a more refined state that should go along with our needs, so not to worry about this section too much.

-HSG will have an advisory committee go over these to help combine like points, reorganize informations, and wordsmith for our audience. Don't worry if some of our Recs are redundant sounding or if you think your wording wasn't its best.  These issues will be taken care of by the advisory committee and HSG.

4.  Our Technical DUE DATE is 9/14, but I am submitting final RECS  to HSG in our team call on Friday, 11th.  Please try to be done by then, If you need extra time over the weekend on something, just let me know, so I can report that in out team call.

Thanks again for all your hard work!!!

-Lisa

Hello Everyone,

A few things,

1.  Please make sure to read the recent discussion threads that I have been particpating in as this is useful information for our recommendations. Laura, I specifically referenced you and your plan in one of these threads.  I would like to spend some of our Tuesday call talking about these topics.

2. I had a great conversation with JoLisa on the phone last night.  She is going to take the lead on writing recommendations for the following barriers/problems:

6. Teacher recruitment, retention, and motivation to be great vs average or even bad in some cases is already a problem in many places because there are no incentives or rewards for excelling in the teaching profession other than staff development/continuing education (which does not correlate with highly effective teachers).  This stands to be an even bigger problem if a more demands are placed on teachers with a more comprehensive evaluation system.

        8. With the implementation of a reliable and valid teacher evaluation system, parents will obviously want to be involved and know which teacher has which rating.  This creates the problem of parents    demanding  the best teachers for their child every year.

Interesting that these two barriers correlated once I got into the recommendations.  Michelle and Stephanie, you are on JoLisa's team, so please provide her with ideas. These are some of our toughest barriers on the list and we need everyone to put their heads together....other people from other teams such as Sherman Dorn and Ross Freshwater will likely be able to provide insight as well as you get some things written, so please ask for their input.

3. Catherine Cullen/Sarah Manes,

I think it would be helpful to JoLisa, Michelle, and Stephanie, if you gathered all of the recommended readings surrounding Denver's pay for performance and anything related to the above problems that have been sent by you, Ross, Doug, etc and link it to this blog so that all the resource links are in one place. I was going to do it myself, but I don;t think I will have time to do it in a timely fashion.

Thanks,

-Lisa

Hi Team,

We had our team lead call last night and received the template for how to write up our recommendations.  I have attached the document to this blog post for your viewing.  We are still in discussion mode, but keep in mind the template, so that you know the kind of information we will need to put together from everyone's ideas.

For this week, we need to focus on everyone adding to discussions for your assigned area and others if you have time.  I would like everyone to add something daily if possible, but I know everyone is busy. If you skip some days then try to add more on another day.

Rachel and I talked a little about the discussion points and how they relate to the template. We will start discussion threads for each question and send with it a simple template to guide your thoughts.  Please do not feel like you have to fill in every part of the template at once....but this allows you to add things later and keeps you thinking about solutions as you talk about teacher evaluation issues.

Rachel and I are doing question #8 , which will eventually have a list of innovative practices which you may want to use as one of your recommendations. Please do not hesitate to add your own ideas to the advantages/disadvantages part.  These discussion threads are for anybody on or off our team to discuss.

Thanks!

-Lisa