Fact: Pencader was notified in Spring that is was non-compliant in the utilization of DPAS-II, the states mandated teacher evaluation system. No digs on teachers, this was a failure of administration.
At the heart of the issue - the administration scheduled a meeting with the DPAS-II Department of Education Team to occur over spring break 2012. When the team arrived at Pencader, the school was closed. The Team scheduled a second meeting and arrived at the school to find the school leader off-campus and unavailable. Key staff members were unaware of the scheduled visit and were unable to provide necessary documentation. The administration then missed a reporting deadline with DOE on March 3rd.
Following these three strikes, the DOE notified the School Leader of it's status of non-compliance. In another email regarding the concerns, the school leaders writes:
"I wanted to let you know that we are in compliance and after our response to the State, we fully expect a letter stating so."
Early this week, I emailed the PIO officer for DOE, Alison Kepner, to request a status update on this concern. Today, I was notified that the DPAS-II issue with the school "has not been resolved" and the department "will be scheduling Pencader for a fall edition of DPAS-II Monitoring in November to follow-up."
Guess the letter, like the March 3rd report, got lost in the mail?
Pencader has some excellent teachers who have executed exceptional performance driving academic achievement, all in good faith. All the while, unbeknownst to many of them, these teachers been used as pawns, manipulated in a game of emotional warfare meant to protect the now dismissed school leader. To point - last month, school's auditors informed the board that six Pencader staff members were paid over/under scale. My question - Who was paid under so that someone else could be paid over? Who authorized it? And then, further, has Pencader's Board authorized the raise and potential back pay due to their hard-working, self-sacrificing teachers. If Pencader's charter states that its teacher's will earn 90% of Christina School District's Scale, (and it does), then the PCHS teachers are due a raise and retroactive pay as CSD finally resolved its union negotiations last school year and brought its teachers' local share to scale.
We've heard the cries of parents and the frustration of students. We've seen the support of vendors for the school leader reported by the News Journal last June. We've witnessed a minor uproar of athletic parents when their students were told there would be no football if the school leader was discharged. The state-wide education community looks at Pencader with little respect. And that DOE and SBE have even offered their opinion - Formal Review.
Where are Pencader's teachers? Why are their voices so silent? Do they realize that they have been victimized? Do they even know their DPAS-II evaluations were non-compliant. What does that non-compliance mean? Probably very little. But, in a day when teachers are sweating Componant V and the influence of student testing data on their ultimate evaluation, school leadership has every obligation to make sure DPAS-II evals are performed with fidelity. Someday, their pay or even their jobs may depend on it!
1 comments:
On May 15 I received notification from DOE that Pencader was being placed in Non-Compliance "with regard to the implementation and monitoring of DPAS II,as required by 14 De.C., Section 1270." Reasons given were as stated here by C&E and "a lack of evidence of DPAS II implementation."
I immediately contacted Mrs. Lewis to get the story on this because, as per usual, the Board had heard nothing about it and it seems that both Mrs. Lewis and Mrs. Fraser had to have been aware from as early as March 16. Mrs. Lewis responded to me, "...but it any case, it is not an issue."
With the implementation of Component V it sure IS an issue for the teachers at Pencader.
Like you, C&E, I am confounded as to why the teachers sit back and do not question any of the stuff swirling around their school. What has hit the media has not,let me emphasize that, NOT, been lies. The Formal Review they just got slapped with is huge, just huge, probably too huge to crawl out from under this time. The other Delaware Charters want no association with Pencader. It is impacting them, and will surely impact their future when they are out on the road hunting for a new job. Time to lay off the Kool-Aid.
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