The Transparency Files: Evaluation of Self

Despite the excitement and time crunch as we sit on the beginning of a weekend that will end with edJEWcon 5773.1, the regular business of school surely continues!

And so, with a likely pause next week for an appropriate edJEWcon reflection, I would like to begin my annual series of “Transparency Files” blog posts which begins with my own evaluation, moves to reveal the results of this year’s Parent Survey, follows with a discussion on this year’s standardized testing results and concludes with a conversation about next year’s faculty and schedule.

We are in that “evaluation” time of year!  As Head of the Day School, I have the responsibility for performing the evaluation of staff and faculty each year.  [As Head of Academy, I have the responsibility for performing evaluation of school heads each November.]  Fittingly, they have an opportunity to do the same of me.  Our annual Faculty Survey presents current teachers and staff with the opportunity to provide anonymous feedback of my performance as head of school.  It is sent unedited to the Head Support & Evaluation Committee as part of their data collection for my evaluation.

If you want to see context, I invite you begin with last year’s blog post.  This year’s self-evaluation is based on new goals for this year.  You will not find a complete laundry list of my day to day responsibilities.  Nor will you find my goals as Head of Academy.  (I intend to reflect on my first year as Head of Galinsky Academy in an upcoming post.) Here, then, are selected components from my self-evaluation for the 2012-2013 MJGDS academic year:

Require dedicated science instruction in the lower school of MJGDS.

One of our major accomplishments this year was ensuring our students in the lower school (K-5) had the requisite amount of science instruction according national standards for science education.  Published schedules were created for accountability and a dedicated science instructor for Grades 3-5 was introduced.  While there may be more work to do in terms of curriculum development, program evaluation, etc., I am confident that we are heading in the right direction.

Experiment with software development in middle school.

Our work with Jewish Interactive has already begun!  It will continue into next year and culminate in our production of a new Purim game to be sold commercially next spring. We have blogged about it extensively.  We see this is an exciting new direction which ties together so much of what excites us about education – student ownership of learning, Jewish and General Studies integration, differentiated instruction, gaming theory, etc.

Complete curriculum revision to be published for parents and teachers.

This was simply too big job for one year.  Further visioning for the Academy and MJGDS will be necessary before revising curriculums and publishing them for each school.  I am hopeful we can tackle this in 2014-2015.

Provide continuing education opportunities for all teachers.

I think we have been very successful in encouraging a culture of teachers who see themselves as lifelong learners.  Beyond curriculum-specific training, our faculty ning is a hub for professional development and, of course, we have edJEWcon.  We are blessed at MJGDS to be able to provide coaching and mentoring for our teachers and staff.  A school is only as good as its teachers.  And we believe that our teachers are only as good as their professional development opportunities.

Correct any recommendations from most recent accreditation.

We went through our five-year FCIS reaccreditation last year.  I shared the results in a blog post and indicated what the committee’s recommendations were based on their assessment.  We have successfully corrected and implemented those recommendations.

Create internal assessments for Jewish Studies courses.

There are no standardized tests available for Jewish Studies as there are for General Studies…our goal is to try to create an external (non-curriculur based) assessment we can use to measure ourselves – particular in Hebrew fluency.  This has not yet been accomplished and I hope it is something we can work on next year.

Develop a Parent Ambassador program which can serve as a way of disseminating information, mentoring new parents, guiding tours, etc.

Thanks to Talie Zaifert, our Admissions and Marketing Director, and Claudia Margolis, the Chair of our Marketing Committee, we did begin this project – focusing on social media.  We have invited parents to become “ambassadors” and provided training on how to best serve as such.  This has spilled over to the DuBow Preschool and we hope can filter up and down the entire Academy.  It has had measurable impact in our social media exposure and has given our tours a positive added dimension.

 

I will be sharing the unedited version of my self-evaluation as well as the unedited version of their evaluation of me on our faculty ning.  Hopefully it will spark further opportunities for conversation and growth.

If you are coming to edJEWcon, we can’t wait to greet you!  And if you are not, we hope you find a way through Twitter (#edJEWcon) or the website to participate virtually!