Happy Holidays & Update!

I want to wish everyone a happy holiday season and wishes for a great 2014!

This post will provide a recap of the Supporting All Employees – Classified Advisory Committee Meeting that was held on December 10, 2013.  My previous post provides a link to the agenda and presentation, but you can find them again here – agenda and presentation.

The majority of the meeting was spent discussing the pilot of the Classified Growth & Development Cycle (CGDC), or new classified performance evaluation process.  I provided a timeline, which you can find here, in order to show when various parts of the cycle are to be completed.  While the timeline is already somewhat compressed for the year, I am being flexible with deadlines.  I realize that people are busy and the process can seem cumbersome the first time through.

Slide 3 of the presentation includes a breakdown of the participants in the pilot.  While this does not reflect the makeup of the initial proposal, it comes close and does include quite a number of employees from school sites.  We are actually finding that Principals supervising classified employees are fairly willing to participate in the process.  This is despite the fact that they are also evaluating about half of the teachers at their site.  The reasons for this probably include comfort with an expanded process that adds more value to the employee due to what they are seeing with the new teacher evaluations, and the fact that the classified employee does a majority of the work in the CGDC process, which is unlike what they are experiencing with the new teacher evaluations.

The supervisors of the pilot participants were invited to a half-day training session in October to explain the process and how they can initiate the work.  This training was not mandatory, and about half of the supervisors attended a session.  We plan to have a second half-day session early in 2014.  Employee participants did not receive specific training, but a variety of online resources were made available to them describing the various steps in the process.  Additionally, there are also online resources for the supervisors.  These can be found at:  http://classifiedtraining.lausd.net/employee_resources/jit/educator_growth_development_cycle_egdc.

I also presented a list of some of the feedback that we will capture as part of the pilot.  We plan to survey participants and their supervisors two to three times throughout the year.  The list, found here, includes data that we can capture on the back end of the evaluation tools as well as information that we can obtain through a survey.  The first survey will be sent out early in 2014.

In order to maintain some consistency with the growth and development cycles that we are using for teachers and school leaders, we are considering ways in which to capture stakeholder feedback.  At the meeting, I presented a list of the components that we have included in the CGDC, and highlighted those which seemed to lend themselves to ratings by stakeholders – customers, peers, subordinates, etc.  You can find that list of components here, and I have also included the Classified Performance Framework, which further defines the components and may be helpful, here. I drafted a very preliminary survey for the Advisory Committee to react to.  No decisions were made at the meeting, except to agree that I would come back with information captured from more extensive research on 360 degree feedback.  The types of questions, the rating scales, how to determine the relevant stakeholders, and how to present the resulting data were all discussed at the meeting.

I then discussed a new committee that we gathered to address the CGDC.  A Strategic Working Group (SWG) was created to consider a 5-year plan for the CGDC.  The SWG has met once so far and will meet on a fairly regular basis to discuss a variety of issues related to the CGDC work, and develop a plan to continue this work.  A general list of the issues that the SWG considered is listed in the presentation.

Finally, in order to keep the Advisory Committee informed about the progress of the pilot and results of feedback surveys, etc., we will be meeting on a quarterly basis.  Our next meeting will be in March 2014.  At that time, we will discuss some additional options for stakeholder feedback, and we should have some results from the surveys of pilot participants and their supervisors, as well as a few other topics.  We’ll keep you posted on the date of that meeting.  Please join us if you can.

Time for Another Advisory Committee Meeting

It’s time for another Supporting All Employees – Classified Advisory Committee Meeting.  This one is scheduled for Tuesday, December 10, 2013.  If you would like to attend, please contact me through this blog and I will make the necessary arrangements.  We are in the middle of our first pilot year, and I will be providing an update of where we are so far.  Additionally, we’ll talk about what’s upcoming this year and a couple of other topics.  You can find the agenda here, and the presentation here.  Additional information will be provided following the meeting.  Hope you can join us!

July 2013

It has been a long time since I last posted on this blog.  The school year is over and we are planning for the next one.  The initial implementation phase (IIP), or “pilot,” of the new classified growth and development cycle did not occur due to a variety of unforeseen circumstances.  The good news is that we will be launching an IIP as soon as school starts up again in August.  Here is a recap of activities that took place during the last school year that will support our launch in school year 2013-14.

We identified the classifications that we will include in our no-stakes pilot.  Most of the groups selected are located at schools or work closely with students.  Additionally, they include some of the larger classifications in the District.  While only about 100 employees will be included in the pilot, they represent a range of classifications.  The proposed breakdown of potential classifications can be found here.

On a different note, the District is moving the processes in the growth and development cycle online.  While there is an existing platform for the teacher evaluation process, there has not been the capacity to move the processes for classified employees onto the platform yet.  However, I was able to develop tools for the classified growth & development cycle by building them into a program that the District has been using for many years as a survey tool.  The online tools are easy to access for employees using their District single sign-on.  In fact, if you have an LAUSD single sign-on, you may access the Self-Assessment tool here, and the Individual Growth Plan (IGP) here.  Feel free to try these out and provide me with feedback.  We strive to make these tools as easy and clear as possible.  The benefits of online tools include not having to follow paper around, and the ability for us to track who has completed the process and when.  This is important as we work to support all employees with these activities.

One thing that you may find is that not all the components of the self-assessment will apply to all classified employees.  We have developed a tool that we are considering for scaling the process.  The format of the tool allows the employee and his/her supervisor to have a discussion regarding the expectations of the position.  Additionally, it results in a list of those components that should be considered in the assessment/evaluation and those that are not necessary for the position.  The scaling tool can be found here.  Please let me know what you think.

I have also been working for the last several months with a training specialist from the Personnel Commission.  He and I have discussed the pilot process (revision 07/19/13 here) and are developing associated training.  This training will be primarily for the supervisors of the employees in the IIP.  This corresponds to the way we conduct training for the teacher evaluation process, with the principals receiving a majority of the training.  We will likely devise a blended training methodology that includes pre-reading, some video/online content, as well as instructor led training.  This will roll out early in the school year.

Finally, a few weeks before the end of this school year, in May, I held a “mini” Advisory Committee meeting.  While everyone was welcome to attend, I did not send out a mass invitation like I have for prior meetings.  I only sent information to the people that have attended all, or nearly all, previous meetings.  I wanted to provide an update and explain the status of the IIP without having to provide a great deal of background information.  You can find the presentation for this meeting here.  Please feel free to contact me if you have any suggestions, questions, etc.  I am always excited to talk about this work.

I hope that everyone has a great summer!

Recap of September 27, 2012 SAE-Classified Advisory Committee Meeting

This meeting covered two main topics (see agenda here) – the proposed initial implementation phase (IIP) of the classified evaluation process and potential additional measures that we might want to incorporate into the process.  The initial implementation will focus on self and supervisor evaluations and growth plan development based on evaluation outcomes.

The IIP will be a no-stakes opportunity for a sample of classified employees and their supervisors to provide feedback on the proposed format.  The process will include

§  an initial meeting with the employee and supervisor to establish expectations,

§  an employee self-assessment against the entire classified performance framework (see the latest version here, and please feel free to submit comments),

§  the development of an Individual Growth Plan (IGP),

§  an evidence collection component where the employee and supervisor will have a chance to collect evidence of performance throughout the year,

§  an end-of-year performance evaluation by the supervisor, and

§  training on the various components of the process.

The initial meeting with the employee and the supervisor should take place at least once for every supervisor/employee pair.  This meeting will help establish the responsibilities of the particular position that the employee is in.  This is more specific than the responsibilities of the classification as outlined in the class description.  Two individuals in the same classification, Office Technician for example, may perform very different activities in their positions, even within the same office.  Sometimes this meeting will require that the employee describe his/her position, and other times it will require the supervisor’s lead on establishing responsibilities.

The employee will evaluate his/her performance against the entire classified framework by selecting a rating (ineffective, developing, effective, highly effective) for each of the areas in the framework.  The Classified Performance Framework is modeled after the Teaching & Learning Framework, which you can find here.  Based on this evaluation, the employee will develop a growth plan for the year, focusing on about two areas of growth.  These areas should be selected from those that the employee has evaluated as developing or ineffective.  If the employee does not have at least two areas with these ratings, s/he can select another area to focus on for the year.  The employee develops the IGP following the instructions built into the form and submits it to his/her supervisor for review and comment.  You can compare the classified IGP with the one for teachers here.  Once the employee and supervisor agree on the necessary growth areas, the employee completes the plan.

Throughout the year, the employee and supervisor will collect examples of evidence for all of the areas that are evaluated.  How this evidence will be cataloged and managed is yet to be determined.  However, at the end of the year, this evidence will be used to support ratings in the various areas that are evaluated.

Finally, there will be an end-of-year evaluation by the supervisor.  The same framework will be used to conduct the evaluation as that used by the employee for self-evaluation.  The steps listed here are strictly for the IIP.  The actual steps of the evaluation process are outlined in the evaluation guidelines that will be included with the process.

In addition to the self and supervisor evaluations, there will most likely be additional measures.  What these additional measures will be has yet to be determined.  What is currently used for teachers is a stakeholder feedback survey, and assessment of the teacher’s contribution to the school community, and contribution to student learning.  We will likely develop similar types of measures for classified, but what those will look like is still unclear.

Additional and more definitive information regarding the initial implementation of the classified evaluation process will follow.  The materials are still under review, as is the process that will actually be piloted.  The materials and steps of the process that I presented at the Advisory Committee Meeting were my draft proposal.  Please feel free to submit comments to this blog or e-mail me directly at heidi.hrowal@lausd.net.

Welcome to School Year 2012-13

Welcome to a new school year here at LAUSD.  I hope that everyone had a relaxing summer and enjoyed some time off.  I spent quite a bit of my time this summer at a District middle school supporting training on the observation process that is being used as part of the teacher evaluation.  It was great to be out at a school site (even if kids weren’t there) and to make contact with so many teachers and administrators.

I also spent some time this summer streamlining the Classified Performance Framework some more and thinking through the performance evaluation process that we will implement this school year on a trial basis.  I worked on linking the professional development offered by our Personnel Commission to the proposed framework, so that once an evaluation is completed, staff can identify District training that might be useful for growth and development.  I have also been working on the tool that employees will use to plan their growth activities for the year.

I will present this information at our next Advisory Committee Meeting, which I have scheduled for Thursday, September 27, 2012.  I also want to discuss other potential measures that we can incorporate into the process.  This will include an overview of what is being used for teachers and how we could potentially incorporate the same or different measures.

Hope you can join us!

June 21, 2012 Advisory Committee Meeting Notes

We held our last Advisory Committee Meeting for the 2012 School Year on June 21, 2012.  We spent nearly the entire meeting reviewing the proposed Classified Performance Framework.  The Classified Performance Framework is the foundation for supporting all classified employees.  From this, we will build evaluation tools, align professional development, etc.

 I loaded a great deal of extra language into the framework from a variety of sources.  At the meeting, we tried to eliminate redundancies; streamline language; ensure a consistent thread through Ineffective, Developing, Effective, and Highly Effective rating categories; etc.  We only got about half way through the document, but I could see the direction the group was taking.  With that in mind, I continued on my own to streamline and consolidate.  You can find the redline document here (so that you can see what we changed).  I’ve also added a clean copy, so that you can see a more final version without the confusion of multiple edits.  If you prefer a Word or PDF version of either of the documents (the links to the sections of the framework, as shown on the first page of the document, are live in the Word and PDF versions – for some reason they disappear when converting to a Google doc format), please send me an e-mail requesting that to:  heidi.hrowal@lausd.net.

PLEASE REVIEW AND PROVIDE ME WITH ANY COMMENTS BY THE END OF JULY 2012.  I invite your feedback regarding these documents.  Please review and look for:

• redundancies that we can eliminate or consolidate,
• any clarifications that we can include to make it more understandable,
• consistent threads of content through the various rating categories,
• applicability to all workers types (office-based, technical/professional, classroom-based, field, and supervisor/manager) in the LAUSD classified service,
• ways to simplify or streamline the language.

Send your comments directly to me at heidi.hrowal@lausd.net rather than posting them to the blog.  Feel free to post discussions to the blog, but I prefer that you send me your notes on the document directly.

Starting in August, I will present our “final” to District senior management and the classified bargaining units (although I welcome their feedback now).  We will also begin to link professional development to the various parts of the framework, and begin building evaluation tools.

Recap of May 17, 2012, Advisory Committee Meeting

Our meeting of May 17 was very exciting because we had quite a few new faces.  Welcome to everyone that newly joined us.  We spent most of the time at the meeting going over a very rough draft of the classified performance framework.  Admittedly, the initial draft was inconsistent and not comprehensive.  The intent was to spark discussion and get people’s ideas on paper.

The language for “Developing” and “Effective” for each of the 7 areas of the framework was posted around the room.  Participants were asked to work on whichever area was of greatest interest to them.  We asked them to revise the language to make it clearer and to ensure that there is a clear difference between developing and effective.  This is an important dividing line in the framework and the language must be clear and understandable.

The revisions to the language that were identified at that meeting can be found here for Developing and here for Effective.  Anything crossed out was removed and wording highlighted in blue was added.  Feel free to comment on the changes you see, make additional recommendations, etc.  You can comment to this blog, or send an e-mail. 

I am continuing to work on revising these by meeting with people throughout the District, at various meetings scheduled over the next few weeks.  Additionally, the Advisory Committee will continue to work on this throughout the summer.