http://timeoutfromtesting.org/nationalresolution/

Kander and Ebb’s CHICAGO was originally conceived as a “musical vaudeville” where the story of the murderesses of the Cook County jail were told through the vehicle of a vaudeville show. This Heights Youth Theatre production abandon’s Bob Fosse’s notion of sexualization and black lingerie, and doesn’t use the 2002 Oscar winning film’s dark realism approach, and instead stays true to the original “musical vaudeville” concept of Kander and Ebbs setting the action squarely in the roaring 1920s on the stage of an upscale Chicago speakeasy. A show within a show, a stage within a stage, this exciting production of Chicago will be appropriate for a PG audience (there are a couple of four-letter words). Join us for a Chicago like you’ve never seen before!

Congratulations to our 2012 Reaching Heights Adult Community Spelling Bee Champions, Phyllis’s Phriends, representing Noble and Oxford school PTAs, and honoring the memory of Phyllis Albert, a longtime and much loved teacher in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights schools.

Complete Bee results are available here.

2012 Reaching Spelling Bee champions, Phyllis's Phriends (Kathy Soltis, Lindy Burt, and Tony Thayer) with the Coveted Plastic Bee Trophy.

Thanks to all who participated in what was widely considered one of the toughest bees in recent memory. “We’re not trying to embarrass the best spellers in the Heights,” said Patrick Mullen, Reaching Heights executive director. “We’re trying to identify them, and in the Phyllis’s Phriends team of Kathy Soltis, Lindy Burt, and Tony Thayer, we did.”

Honored at the Bee was Tom Schmida, recipient of the 2012

2012 Friend of Public Education awardee Tom Schmida, right, with Reaching Heights executive director Patrick Mullen. Bee emcee Steve Presser can be seen in background.

Friend of Public Education Award. Tom is retiring this year after 40 years of great service as a teacher in our district, including 20 years as President of the Cleveland Heights Teachers Union.

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Come on out for the 21st Annual Reaching Heights Adult Community Spelling Bee, Wednesday, March 28, at 7pm, at Cleveland Heights High School. Admission is free for this fun competition among two dozen teams representing our schools, churches, colleges, law firms and cultural organizations. Win great prizes at our raffle, and cheer your favorite team on. Last year’s champions, representing the Cleveland Orchestra, are seeking an unprecedented three-peat. Proceeds from the Bee support Reaching Heights and its programs promoting excellence in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights schools.

You can support a spelling team using CauseVox, our online team donation tool.

Learn more at  http://www.reachingheightsbee.causevox.com/

By Susie Kaeser
A familiar argument in the teacher blame game goes like this: “Public schools have bad teachers because of unions.” The implication of this statement is that unions don’t care about teacher quality, and school districts lack the tools and authority to effectively evaluate teachers and dismiss those who fall short.

A familiar teacher complaint goes like this: evaluation is superficial at best, and subjective or vindictive at worst.

Where is the truth? These questions drove me to learn more about how the Cleveland Heights-University Heights school district approaches teacher evaluation – something that is really important if you care about teacher quality. I am grateful that educators will talk with me about critical issues like this one because researching this story blew apart my perceptions of teacher evaluation.

I learned that school district leaders working in partnership with the Cleveland Heights Teachers Union, have taken an old punitive tool and made it into a valuable resource for developing a shared understanding of effective teaching, building professional respect among teachers and their principals, and motivating teachers to continue to refine their professional expertise. These changes have increased the impact of the evaluation process on teacher quality by promoting growth among all teachers rather than narrowly focusing on weeding out a few bad apples.

This is a far cry from the starting assumptions of my research. When I interviewed Dr. Nylajean McDaniel, the director of human resources for the school district, I thought of evaluation as a police function. The task: find the people who are not doing their jobs and gather the evidence to fire them.

I was pleased to discover a totally different picture.

Everything changed in 2004 when the CH-UH school district adopted a set of standards that clearly defines teacher quality: the essential competencies that make a difference to student learning. They also recognized that expertise is developed over time with experience and coaching. A team of teachers and administrators worked together to redesign the district’s teacher evaluation tools to connect with the standards and to focus more on the development of expertise.

Fairness is built into the Heights system. In addition to clearly defined procedures and timelines, the system uses a rubric that everyone has access to that guides the way a teacher is rated on 23 components of effective practice. It is interactive, collaborative and evidence based. And the final report goes beyond “yes you can stay” or “no you are fired.” This approach encourages principals and teachers to talk together about their common work: teaching and learning.

It isn’t perfect. It depends on principals having real expertise about teaching, and using the process to be supportive and critical. It depends on teachers welcoming the insights of their supervisors, and wanting to grow. But it attempts to bring people together rather than put them at odds about work that is important to both of them. This collaborative spirit is just what we need to meet the high expectations we have set for our schools.

So here are my conclusions:

School districts have all the authority they need to dismiss teachers. In fact, teacher evaluation is mandated by law.

Expecting the system to be fair is not the same as resisting evaluation or protecting bad teachers.

Teachers want to be effective. Why else would they do this work?

A meaningful evaluation experience should help people get better at what they do. When evaluation focuses on a narrow goal of finding a few slackers to fire, it sets up a “we-they” defensive situation. The dynamic leads to division and resentment among people who need to be as collaborative and supportive of each other as possible.

The Heights method shows that the evaluation process can be an opportunity for teachers and principals to focus together on something that is the priority interest for both of them: quality teaching.

The updated evaluation system in the Heights schools changes the old dynamic. Teachers and administrators run the system together. It has a more ambitious agenda than catching bad teachers. It has an abundance of procedural protections that create a sense of fairness so that the results are rarely questioned. The teacher evaluation system is an opportunity to affect teaching in every classroom – not just a handful. This constructive approach has a lot more promise for creating wonderful schools than the punitive strategies of anti-teacher policy makers.

By Susie Kaeser

“We are about academics and student achievement. That means the first thing we must pay attention to is teacher quality,” says Dr. Nylajean McDaniel, Director of Human Resources for the Cleveland Heights-University Heights School District.

When it comes to teachers, “Our kids deserve the best,” says Dr. McDaniel who is in charge of hiring, mentoring, evaluating and terminating the district’s 600 certificated teachers. Cleveland Heights Teachers Union president Tom Schmida says the best way to serve children “is to have excellent teachers.” He thinks a reliable evaluation system is crucial to this goal. It’s good for kids and good for public confidence in the teaching profession.

While there is little argument that high quality teaching is crucial, determining who is up to snuff is more problematic. What does an effective teacher do? Teaching is complex and individuals develop expertise through experience. What kind of evaluation process can accommodate the developmental aspects of professional competence? What system for evaluating teachers is reliable enough to make fair judgments when the consequences of failure are so significant for both the teacher and the student?

Dr. McDaniel and Mr. Schmida are both members of the Assessment Review Committee (ARC), the team of four teachers and four administrators that was created in 2004 to update the district’s evaluation system for new teachers, and has since transformed the way the district evaluates all staff. The committee oversees the implementation of the evaluation process and interventions with teachers who fall short. Dr. McDaniel facilitates the committee’s collaborative work. She says they agree much more often than they disagree.

Ohio law requires that all untenured teachers are evaluated annually and that tenured teachers are evaluated every three years. As of this year, the Tier I evaluation process created in 2004 is the norm for evaluating the district’s untenured teachers while the 400 tenured teachers have three options: Tier I, a project-based evaluation adopted in 2008 as Tier II, or the old check list that preceded the innovations.

“Evaluation should help each person be the best they can be. It is not a threat. It’s a chance to improve,” says Schmida who has been evaluated dozens of times during his 40 year career as a social studies teacher in the Cleveland Heights-University Heights district. This year he had a Tier I evaluation.

The CH-UH system with its innovative Tier 1 and Tier 2 systems focuses on growing teachers, a significant departure from the old check list system that focused exclusively on gathering evidence to fire low performing teachers.
The school district wants to make great teaching the norm -not something you find in the “gifted few.” The first step in promoting quality teaching is to be able to define what it looks like. In 2004 as part of its new Entry Year program for supporting new teachers, the district adopted a framework for defining quality teaching based on the work of Charlotte Danielson, author of “Teacher Evaluation to Enhance Professional Practice.” Ohio’s teaching standards parallel the Danielson framework.

Danielson’s framework breaks down quality into 23 specific behaviors that research indicates are most clearly tied to student learning. The behaviors are grouped into four domains: planning and preparation, classroom environment, instruction, and professional responsibilities. The school district went a step farther and created a four page matrix that describes the observable behavior that demonstrates four different levels of teacher effectiveness from unsatisfactory to advanced for each teacher behavior. The framework which can be found in the “For Staff” section of the district’s website, is now the language that is used to talk about and promote quality teaching, and is the basis for the Tier I and II evaluations.

“When people lose their job it is very upsetting,” says Dr. McDaniel. While her goal is to guarantee that children are served by quality teachers, she insists that the evaluation system which determines if a person can stay in their profession must be fair.

Dr. McDaniel thinks the district’s evaluation tools that use the Danielson framework has made the system less subjective and much more useful for giving teachers feedback on how to improve. The mystery is gone. Everyone knows what excellent looks like.

Each evaluation is based on evidence that the principal collects from the teacher through written submissions, classroom observation, and conferences that focus on the core unit of teacher practice: a lesson. Each bit of evidence is used to assess which components of teaching the teacher is good at and where they fall short. Evidence- based evaluations focused on a specific set of behaviors makes the process more objective and fair.

“We’ve got good tools. The system works,” says Mr. Schmida who thinks the Tier 1 system with its detailed feedback and support is a big improvement over the old fashioned check list (which is still an option for tenured teachers) with its “satisfactory – unsatisfactory” ratings and limited focus on whether or not the teacher keeps their job.

Accomplished teachers consistently provide effective instruction. It takes time to grow the expertise that results in consistent quality. Each teacher’s evaluation report with its detailed feedback on each competency gives the teacher a roadmap for growth. All Teachers, not just those who do not meet district expectations, are expected to develop and pursue plans to advance their skills based on the evaluation.

A negative evaluation, one that concludes that the teachers is “at risk” of nonrenewal, triggers an intervention plan with support from a coach, and time and resources for other growth opportunities. If this process fails to bring about adequate improvement by the spring evaluation cycle termination is the likely outcome.

Dr. McDaniel says the intervention process really pays off. It means principals are much more likely to be critical knowing help will follow. In addition, the intervention usually produces growth. Last year only one of the six teachers put on an intervention plan lost their job. This year six more of the 182 untenured teachers have intervention plans.

Principals are the key players in implementing the system. They need to know a lot about good teaching, how to evaluate what they see, and how to help teachers improve their skills. That’s why McDaniel also works closely with principals to guarantee consistency and effective use of the evaluation process.

One of Mr. Schmida’s responsibilities as union president is to represent teachers who disagree with their evaluation. This means he investigates if the evaluation process was followed, and helps teachers see if they have a legitimate complaint.

“I spend a lot more time helping people depart with dignity than challenging the decision,” says Mr. Schmida. In fact, while tenured teachers are guaranteed an appeal process no one in his 20 years as president has used it.

Change is coming. The Ohio legislature has recently mandated that every public school teacher must be evaluated every year using standards comparable to the Heights system and their students’ achievement data. It’s possible the state will permit outside contractors to perform evaluations.
ARC has its work cut out. Can the effectiveness of the current evaluation system, built on strong tools, shared values, collaboration, relationship building, and a focus on improvement survive state mandates built into the state budget?

SIDEBAR:
Case In Point: Evaluation at Roxboro Middle School
Growing teachers is a priority for Patrick McNichols, principal of Roxboro Middle School in Cleveland Heights. It’s the most direct way he can support student learning.
Mr. McNichols makes a point of spending a good chunk of every day walking through classrooms. “I see a lot of awesome instruction,” says the proud principal and former teacher. This is his second year at Roxboro and 10th year evaluating teachers in Cleveland, Lakewood and Cleveland Heights.
During his daily informal visits he doles out feedback on what he observes, an effective strategy for improving teaching. These daily observations also give him insight into each teacher’s strengths and weaknesses. They are a way to build a professional connection around what teachers do: teach!
Evaluating Roxboro’s teachers is also principal McNichols’ responsibility, a crucial tool for strengthening his team’s ability to succeed with students. All untenured teachers must be evaluated yearly while tenured staff are on a three year cycle. There are 21 untenured teachers at Roxboro and 23 tenured. This year Mr. McNichols must evaluate 28 teachers. The CH-UH district has unique evaluation tools. The system is evidence-based, exhaustive, interactive, and includes an intervention-support plan for teachers who fall short. (See Evaluation: a Tool for Building Effective Teachers)
According to Mr. McNichols, who likens his work to coaching, the teaching “team” of any school can cover the waterfront in experience and skills. As he describes it, there are rookies “who are in the midst of experience-based growth; players with a lot of experience who need minimal guidance; and a range who need everything in between.” Occasionally there are teachers who even with coaching and support don’t improve. In those rare cases, they need to be ‘cut from the team.’ The evaluation system helps him work with people wherever they fall on this spectrum. He values that the evaluation process gives teachers support to improve, often staving off termination.
“If I’m going to be a teacher and spend all of my waking hours in this classroom, I need to enjoy it. That means being the best teacher I can be. The evaluation system helps me be that,” says Mario Clopton an enthusiastic second year music teacher at Roxboro Middle School who has now been evaluated for two years by Mr. McNichols. “He sees things I can’t see about myself,” says Mr. Clopton.
The evaluation includes written submissions from the teacher, two conferences and a classroom observation by the principal all focused on gathering evidence of how the teacher measures up on the district’s framework that defines accomplished teaching. This process must be completed by December 1st and then repeated by April 1st when the report includes a recommendation for future employment. Each evaluation takes Mr. McNichols about three hours to complete. He has a lot of homework.
“I really like that the system is evidence-based,” says Mr.Clopton. It makes it fair and constructive, and “It creates a professional relationship with my administrator around teaching. I know he is a master teacher who I can learn from. It gives me a chance to ask for help.” While the evaluation process could feel threatening, for Mr. Clopton, it just the opposite.
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In her remarks, Ravitch argued that school reform efforts built around the themes of choice, testing, and accountability are no longer the coming wave; they are the status quo, and one that she says isn’t working. Ravitch assailed “corporate school reform” efforts that seek to shift public education from a community institution to a publicly funded private-sector business. The full speech can be viewed on YouTube here.

The Heights High softball field project will include improved infield dirt and outfield grass, new canvas-top dugouts and portable home run fence, new backstop fencing, new grandstand with concrete path, and a new scoreboard.

Together with the Heights athletic department and school district, the Heights Softball Booster Club is raising money for a new softball field at the corner of Washington and Goodnor at Cleveland Heights High School.

The softball team has never had its own field. The team has played their home games at Forest Hill Park and was bussed there – an additional expense to the Heights High Athletics program. As a result, very few fans came to their games and the team has never enjoyed the “home field advantage.” The Heights High baseball team has a wonderful field off of Cedar Road on the Heights High campus. Fastpitch softball cannot be played on a traditional baseball field since the distances between bases and the configuration of the pitching circle/mound are different.

The project is to include upgrades to the infield dirt and outfield grass, addition of canvas top dugouts and a portable home run fence (current field has neither), new backstop fencing, new grandstand with concrete path, and a new scoreboard. A brochure with more images of the project is available here.

The cost of the project is approximately $30,000. The softball boosters need to raise at least half of these funds. Please consider supporting this worthy project.

DONATIONS: Make checks payable to Reaching Heights (put Softball Field in memo line). Send to me at 2981 Lincoln Blvd. Or you can donate right through the reaching heights website @ http://www.reachingheights.org/how-you-can-help/donate/. Check the “Softball Field Improvement Fund” under Purpose of Gift.

Screen printed floor mat by Jeanne Regan.

printmaking, painting, collage and assemblage. Workshops for teens and adults in clay, screen printing, book arts, painting and more are offered on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. Please visit the classes page at www.heightsarts.org for a full listing of courses or call 216.371.3457.

A full listing of courses and times is available here.