Mid-cycle Conference and Performance Ratings

Q: A local superintendent asks, "If the mid-cycle conference between evaluator and educator is to be truly formative, no performance ratings should be conferred. Are evaluators required to arrive at ratings at the mid-cycle meeting?"

A: Your local superintendent asks an important question. Yes—the mid-cycle conference is “formative” and intended to be a point where evaluators and educators touch base, check progress on goals, and make any mid-course adjustments to a plan if necessary. That said, there’s an important technical distinction between the formative assessment and the formative evaluation that relates to ratings:

-A formative assessment occurs mid-way through the cycle for educators on plans that are one year or less in length. No ratings are required for a formative assessment.

-A formative evaluation occurs mid-way through the cycle for educators on 2-year plans, so presumably, this would take place in May or June. Ratings are required for a formative evaluation, but they default to the educator’s prior Summative Rating unless there is evidence suggesting a significant change in practice by the educator (in which case an evaluator could actually issue new performance ratings and change the educator’s plan). The default rating is designed to alleviate the burden on evaluators from having derive a rating for every educator on a yearly basis. (The reason behind the rating requirement for formative evaluations is that in order to meet the federal RTTT parameters, states had to commit to yearly educator evaluations.) Let me know if you have any more questions about this distinction between the formative assessment and formative evaluation.

-Claire Abbott, DESE