Delaware Performance Appraisal System II (DPAS II)
Last updated April 11, 2008
DPAS II Instructional Videos for Teachers and Specialists are now available on the DoE web site
If you are in a DPAS II district, please fill out the survey arriving April 11, 2008
If you teach in one of the six districts that is using the performance evaluation system called DPAS II (which will be implemented in all districts in 08-09), we urge you to fill out the survey that is coming to your Inbox from Secretary of Education Valerie Woodruff.
What you say on this survey will determine what improvements are made BEFORE it is implemented in all districts next year. The deadline is April 25 at 6pm. Please be forthright in your answers and take advantage of the extra comment box at the end.
If you work in Appoquinimink, Caesar Rodney, Colonial, Lake Forest, Laurel, or Sussex Tech and do not receive it on April 11, please check your Junk Mil. If you still don’t find it by Monday, please e-mail DSEA's Vicky Cairns so she can make sure you are sent one.
DSEA thanks everyone in these districts for contributing to the ongoing improvement of the DPAS II process.
The facts about DPAS II
Our members in six districts - Appoquinimink, Caesar Rodney, Colonial, Lake Forest, Laurel, Sussex Tech - along with M.O.T., Providence Creek and the Southern Delaware School of the Arts charter schools - are implementing the new teacher/specialist/administrator evaluation system known as DPAS II. It's not a pilot this year. It's for real.
All other school districts and charter schools will continue to use
DPAS I as their evaluation process for teachers and specialists.
DPAS II is scheduled to be implmented in the remaining 13 districts and charter schools come September 2008. In other words, all teachers, specialists and administrators will be evaluated with this new system next school year.
Training begins this year for everyone, however
The training of the "Frameworks," the theory behind the system, for DPAS II - based on Charlotte Danielson's book of the same name - should be taking place in buildings now. It is being done in either one long session, about half a day, or in shorter segmens.
Training in the actual DPAS II evaluation process should take place either at the very end of this school year or, more likely, during the first days of the next school year. We are encouraging all local association leadership teams to being talking and collaboration with their district administration about the roll-out of the training.
How is it going this year?
Appoquinimink E.A. leaders report that there have been problems with the timing of some post-observation conferences, and situations where there have been concerns about whether an Improvement Plan was implemented properly.
We are communicating to DoE that for the period between observations and post-observation conferences have a specific timeline that allows for the challenge process to take place before the imposition of an improvement plan
Also of note:
Yes, grievances have been filed related to what causes an Improvement Plan;
student test scores going down resulted in an resulting in an Improvement Plan;
More information/training is needed for new teachers so that they are confident knowing when the DPAS II process is or is not bein compromised;
More training needed on appropriate goal-setting
More meaningful training for specialists, with specific information about their rubrics
Training for educators hired after the beginning of the school year.
If you would like someone from DoE or DSEA to come to a building meeting, Rep Council, or to offer certain training, it is available. Just contact
Vicky Cairns,
DSEA's director of instructional advocacy, by e-mail or by phone at 1-866-734-5834.
Such meetings have already taken place in several locals where questions were answered, confusion cleared up. There are now DoE people responsible for the implementation of DPAS II - Pat Guzzo and Jeff Lawson.
Also, the official DPAS II Guides for every teacher and specialist in the six districts and three charter schools have been delivered to each building. The teacher guides are gray; the specialists guides are white.
If you have not received yours, contact Vicky Cairns.