This year, the School is launching a revamped teacher evaluation system.

Overseeing the effort is Assistant Head for Academic Affairs Joe Iuliano, who left as Upper School Head last summer to fill the newly created administrative position.

“We are always looking for ways to improve the evaluation system,” says Iuliano. “We had a solid system in place in previous years, but the School is serious about helping teachers become the best they can be to benefit the students.”

The new system calls for pre and post-observation meetings to build a greater sense of what a teacher hopes to accomplish with a certain lesson. Afterward, evaluators complete detailed reports to be archived on FolioCollaborative, an online professional development site that offers teachers and administrators a platform to record progress.

In addition to scheduled observations, Iuliano says, evaluators will also continue to pop in unexpectedly.

Moreover, in the form of questions, Iuliano asked teachers to upload measurable goals for themselves on FolioCollaborative. For example, a teacher might write, “How can I provide more effective feedback on student work?”

To measure progress on this front, a teacher might include benchmarks like “Make use of helpful rubrics,” “Use voice-feedback,” and “Offer examples for students to learn from.” Progress toward these goals would be discussed during end-of-year teacher-evaluator meetings.

Overall, teacher evaluations are based on four major criteria—classroom performance, professionalism, professional development, and community involvement.

“Effectiveness and progress is a hard thing to measure, but that’s the goal,” says Iuliano.