Evaluation Appeals Bill Signed
Governor Pritzker signed, in August, a bill requiring the development of an appeals process for Unsatisfactory evaluation ratings, to wit:
Beginning with the first school year following the effective date [August 27, 2019], each school district shall, in good faith cooperation with its teachers or, if applicable, through good faith bargaining with the exclusive bargaining representative of its teachers, develop and implement an appeals process for "unsatisfactory" ratings under Section 24A-5 that includes, but is not limited to, an assessment of the original rating by a panel of qualified evaluators agreed to by the joint committee referred to in subsection (b) of Section 24A-4 that has the power to revoke the "unsatisfactory" rating it deems to be erroneous. The joint committee shall determine the criteria for successful appeals; however, the issuance of a rating to replace an "unsatisfactory" rating must be determined through bargaining between the exclusive bargaining representative, if any, and the school district.
Public Act 101-591 (emphasis added). The law is not limited to evaluations for tenured teachers, and therefore applies both to teachers facing a remediation plan as well as nontenured teachers (presumably facing nonrenewal at the end of the school term).
Schools will have to grapple with a myriad number of unanswered questions created by the legislation, such as:
1) What is a "panel" in a District with a single administrator who conducts evaluations?
2) Can a teacher who has evaluation credentials sit on the panel? (why not?)
3) Will the panel be comprised of named persons or positions? (positions, ideally)
4) Can a District cooperate with other Districts to form a panel? (If the unions will agree there is nothing in the law that prevents it, but why would a District want another's administrators, over whom a District has no control, to review its own evaluations?)
5) What is the authority of the panel? (Why would you agree to extend that authority beyond what the statute requires?)
Although a "one-size fits all" approach probably does not work for all schools, good solutions provide schools latitude to make decisions that are best for their students but protect the procedural requirements of the law and due process it intends to provide teachers affected.
The law is a reminder that dismissing a tenured teacher is a lengthy process which ends with a remediation plan - it does not begin with one. Schools contemplating a dismissal of a tenured teacher for performance reasons should be aware that preparation is a long process that begins long before the evaluation which will ultimately begin the dismissal process.
For nontenured teachers, schools are well-advised to support evaluations with more than a "check box" identifying outcome. The best defense is always predicated upon strong evaluation directives with written documentation of noncompliance. The outcome of any evaluation (even for a nontenured teacher) is easier to defend when there is good reasoning in the evaluation to support the dismissal decision.