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.

Brief Note on May 17, 2012, Advisory Committee Meeting

Thanks to everyone who attended the May 17th meeting.  We had quite a few new faces, and some good discussion.  I won't be ready to post the notes until some time next week.  Additionally, based on some discussion, we already saw some issues with some areas of the initial performance frameworks.  I will be putting my head down and trying to address those, hopefully before I begin the meetings throughout the District over the next couple weeks.

In order to ensure one more meeting before the school year ends, I will have one more Advisory Committee Meeting during mid-June.  This meeting will be held at the Beaudry Building from 3:30 - 5:00 p.m. on the selected date. Please go the survey and indicate your date preferences.

Thanks for your interest in this work!

Next Advisory Committee Meeting - Thursday, May 17, 2012

Thanks to all of you that provided input that helped us determine the date for this Advisory Committee Meeting.  At this meeting we will be reviewing the initial draft of the classified performance framework.  You can access the document here.  We will be working on clarifying "Effective" and "Developing" in each of the sections.  Feel free to get input from others or prepare your own notes prior to coming to the meeting.  I look forward to working with all those that attend.

The meeting is at Beaudry headquarters on Thursday, May 17, from 3:30 - 5:00 p.m.

May 2012 Advisory Committee Meeting

Wow - April really zoomed by.  I spent quite a bit of time working on developing the structure and defining the framework for classified employee performance based on the work at the last Advisory Committee Meeting.  I will post the materials prior to our next meeting for review and comment, but I'm still playing around with format options and want to try a couple of things out.

In the meantime, I'm looking at Thursday, May 17 or Monday, May 21 as potential dates for our next meeting.  Please respond to this survey to let me know which date works better for you.  I am also opening up this invitation to those individuals who have indicated a willingness and desire to participate as focus group members (we have about 350 people indicating interest).  These are all classified employees throughout the District.  I am looking forward to their input.

See you soon!

Advisory Committee Meeting - March 26, 2012 - Recap

We held a Supporting All Employees - Classified Advisory Committee Meeting on Monday, March 26, at 3:30 p.m. at District headquarters.  Click on these links to find the agenda and presentation materials.  The primary purpose of this meeting was to organize the list of competencies that we have gathered over the course of the last few months.  We had asked various groups (including readers of this blog) to provide input regarding those competencies that all classified employees should possess for successful performance as an LAUSD employee.  We had quite a number of competencies, many of which overlapped or varied only slightly.  The committee worked to organize the list, determine whether the list was complete, and eliminate any competencies that would not be readily understandable by everyone without having to read the definition.  The group organized the competencies by header/title, sub-categories, and terms to use in the definition.  You can find the result in these editable notes.  Please take some time to look at the list and indicate whether you agree or not, and any thoughts or suggestions that you have that clarify the information.

Over the course of the next month, I will begin to define the various parts of these competency lists.  I will work on one of the 7 competency areas at a time and post as I go.  I encourage your involvement in the process.

Next Advisory Committee Meeting

Hi everyone.  I’ve been checking, but I don’t see any comments/suggestions for competencies that we should consider as part of our Classified Framework, except for those that we discussed at our last meeting.  I have had a chance to meet with a few other stakeholder groups in the meantime, and will be incorporating the information captured into an outline that I will present at our next meeting.  In the meantime, I encourage you to go to the notes from the last meeting and add your comments, or list any other competencies that you think are important for all classified employees.  The document can be edited, so your input can be placed directly in the document.  Or you can comment to the blog with your ideas and I can include that information.

Our next meeting will be held the last week of March, or early April.  Please go to this survey and let me know which date works best for you based on the choices provided.  I want to make sure that we have as much involvement at these meetings as possible.

Meeting Notes from February 23, 2012 Advisory Committee Meeting

Our Supporting All Employees – Classified Advisory Committee meeting on February 23 was a good working session.  Our focus was on trying to determine the competencies (COMPETENCY: ability: an ability to do something, especially measured against a standard) that are important for all classified employees.  The agenda and presentation materials are available for review.  However, please note that I added some notes to the presentation materials based on the discussion and for clarity.  Those were not on the slides at the time of the meeting, they are just to provide more information to folks accessing these materials through the blog.

The LAUSD has a framework, or catalog of required competencies, for teachers, and for school leaders.  These are fairly comprehensive and are in a near-final state.  There is also an initial attempt at one for District leaders that still needs a great deal of review if it’s determined that it will be used at all.  You can find the full frameworks at the District’s Supporting All Employees web pages.  The documents that I have included are a simple listing, or summary of the competencies that are covered by those frameworks.  In order to try to create some consistency across the frameworks, at least in the sense of using the same or similar competencies, I made a rough attempt at trying to see where competencies aligned across all the frameworks.  All these documents were made available to the meeting attendees in order to provide some ideas on how to proceed.  We are not required to align, especially if alignment means that the framework for classified staff will not be meaningful.

Finally, we spent quite a bit of time brainstorming what to include in the framework for classified employees.  We talked about some competencies that are more overarching, and include other competencies within them, similar to the way the other frameworks are structured.  We threw in ideas for competencies that might be important, even though we realize that we are not necessarily calling them by the best name.  We will have to refine that work before we start to define our competencies.  We want to make sure that our final product is clear, easy to understand by anyone that reads it (without their having to read the definition), and makes sense for all classifications.  We can probably also include some other competencies that are more specific to some positions in order to provide some customization.  These details will still need to be worked out.  The notes that I have included are simply a listing of the areas we discussed.  This document is editable, so please feel free to provide your comments.  You will also see that I have included some comments based on the discussion that we had.  I’ve also included a list of other names for the competency areas for generating ideas. Whew!  That's a lot of stuff.  Hope it makes sense.  If not, send me a comment through the blog and I'll try to clarify.

My next steps are to try to come up with some sort of structure utilizing the information that we gathered.  So, our next meeting will include an outline that we can modify as we see fit.  I’ll keep you posted on the progress of that and will have another survey shortly to determine the best next meeting date.

Meeting Notes from February 8, 2012 Advisory Committee Meeting

The following are my notes from the Supporting All Employees – Classified Advisory Committee meeting we held on Wednesday, February 8, 2012.

From a variety of sources, including our recent survey of classified employees, we have identified a number of potential focus group participants throughout the District.  One of the discussion topics at the meeting was how to engage individuals that indicated an interest in participating in focus groups.  Additionally, how do we find others that would like to be involved but are not yet aware of this initiative?  Because many sites have very few staff available to carry on the work, many individuals are unable to leave their work location during the work day.  Some may be available in the evenings or on weekends, but that does not work for all due to other commitments. 

Advisory Committee participants came up with several ideas on how to engage potential focus group members.  As a result, initially I plan to connect with representatives from the various collective bargaining units (CBUs) that represent classified employees.  Only one CBU was represented throughout the entire meeting on 2/8.  I will share some of the ideas that the group came up with and proceed from there.

How to engage potential members of focus groups

-In-person

-Digital – MyPay-like prompt – survey

-Stipend

-Provide statistics

-Town hall type meeting

-Webinars

-Word of mouth

-SAA meetings

-Incentives

-Phone calls (sample size)

-Union representatives

-TV station (KLCS)

-Kiosk (suggestion e-mail box)

We also asked the participants at the meeting to discuss what we should address with our focus groups.  We started with five recommendations that the Teacher Effectiveness Task Force developed, and which we aligned to the classified service (see presentation from the 11/3/11 Advisory Committee meeting).  We asked participants to address that section, out of the five areas of recommendation, which had the highest priority from their perspective.  Participants broke into groups to discuss the various topics.  Based on the notes, we will go back to the Advisory Group to ask them to prioritize and frame the discussion with focus groups.  These notes are the starting point.  Additionally, many participants agreed that there are many interrelated components within these areas.

Evaluation/Multiple Measures

-Engagement with students, parents, teachers

-Can evaluation be expanded (more categories)?

-Need relevant, update form that encourages feedback

-Mandatory annual evaluations (for real!) (Does the constant churn make all of this less relevant?)

-What would help supervisors provide feedback and utilize the probationary period?

-Can we make the disciplinary process less tedious and lengthy?

Career Pathways/Differentiated Compensation (Recognition)

-Gift cards – merit pay could end up being divisive

Tenure/Probationary Period

-Too long/too short?

-Is it viewed as part of the selection process?

-Only meaningful if administrator takes time to give feedback for performance improvement

Support Mechanisms

-Shadowing

-Training - technical (i.e., computer skills), customer service
-U-Tube-y employee training videos

Legislation

Too early to determine – will wait to see the direction in which we are moving and consider related legislative and policy issues.

Towards the end of the meeting we began discussing competencies and their role in our subsequent classified evaluation, but also their role in the entire classified career cycle.  We are working toward building a list of competencies that are applicable to all classifications within the classified service (currently, there are approximately 1,100 classifications).  We ran out of time before we got beyond an introduction.  The group is very interested in this part of the work.  We will likely work toward creating a framework, similar to those that the District is beginning to use for teachers and school leaders.  This process will probably take several months as we work through various iterations and seek feedback from various stakeholders.

Finally, our proposed next meeting date was Wednesday, March 28.  However, the group is anxious to begin the work on developing our list of competencies.  It is not only important what those competencies are, but also how we communicate them.  We will consider the culture that the District is working to create when defining and communicating competencies.  Therefore, here is a link to a brief survey with some potential meeting dates toward the end of February.  If you plan to participate in the next Advisory Committee meeting, please complete the survey and return it so that I can schedule the next meeting on the most convenient date.  Please keep in mind that this work will probably take place over the next few months.

We had a very productive Advisory Committee Meeting last Wednesday, February 8.  I will post the notes and some other materials and information early next week.  In the meantime, here are the agenda and presentation materials.  We mainly focused on the results of our recent survey of classified staff.  You can find a link to the results document in my prior post (2/7/12).  I will create a brief survey and add a link to it in my next post so that we can determine our next meeting date.  We began a discussion about competencies but ran out of time.  We will actually be spending quite a bit of time exploring this topic over the next several months.

Happy New Year!  Okay, I know it’s already February, and the year isn’t quite so new anymore, so happy new-ish year.  Since my last post, we launched a survey of all 38,000 LAUSD classified employees to find out their experience with/exposure to various support mechanisms.  We had about a 7% response rate – not bad considering we had a fairly short window for response, we didn’t do any pre-notification that the survey was coming, nor did we send any follow-up reminders.  Most employees received the survey in an e-mail.  We did mail it by internal and U.S. Mail for a small group that don’t access the internet with their LAUSD sign-on or are substitutes not located at a specific site.

While most of the survey results are at least somewhat positive, they are not overwhelmingly so.  We will be exploring, at our next Advisory Committee Meeting, how to address some of those issues, including how to communicate the supports we do have.  Our next Advisory Committee Meeting is on Wednesday, February 8, 2012, at 3:30 p.m.  These meetings are open to the public.  If you would like to join us and do not work in the Beaudry building, please comment to this blog so that I can ensure that you have the appropriate access to the meeting.  I will post the meeting presentation materials after the meeting date.