A routine school budget discussion on March 12 became anything but in light of recently announced proposed changes to state regulations regarding teacher evaluations. Mere days after the state announced that aid would remain flat for a majority of school districts — including WW-P — it proposed regulations that would significantly impact the way teacher evaluations are conducted — and significantly increase the cost.
“This is an unfunded mandate, that the state expects us to implement without providing the resources for us,” said board vice president Robert Johnson.
The new teacher evaluation system would require teachers to be evaluated based on multiple measures and multiple data sources. Assistant superintendent Martin Smith said that teachers will now be rated on both observations and student growth from year to year on the NJASK, a state-wide test given in grades 3 through 8. In addition, teachers would now be granted tenure after their fourth year, rather than after their third year. And tenured teachers who receive a rating of “ineffective” for two years in a row would face possible revocation of tenure.
Smith explained how the new regulations will affect the budget. “Teachers have always been rated based in part on observations done by supervisors. However, now the number of observations will increase. For non-tenured teachers, three observations will still be required, but now two of the three have to be long, or 40 minutes in duration, and one must be short, or 20 minutes, with conferences following each. And since the tenure track is now four years instead of three years, additional observations will be needed for all non-tenured teachers.”
But the biggest change in observations will be for teachers who already have tenure. Now they are required to have three observations instead of one per year. Altogether, these regulations will require an increase of 3,500 observations a year,” Smith said.
“Observations must be conducted by trained and certified personnel, either principals, assistant principals, or central office administrators. Although certified teachers who are supervisors are allowed under the state regulations to perform observations, the local teachers’ union must agree to this, and our local union has indicated that they are not recommending that teachers review other teachers at this time,” Smith said.
“These new regulations will create lots of changes for us, especially with regard to the amount and length of observations we need to conduct and the way we collect and apply data to teacher evaluations. The district budget will need to support these changes,” Smith said.
Board President Hemant Marathe calculated that the District will need six additional full-time administrators, at an average salary of $125,000 per year plus benefits, to comply with these regulations. “We will need a million dollars to comply with this unfunded state mandate,” he said.
Vice President Johnson noted that “anyone who thinks we have too many administrators doesn’t know what they are talking about. The reason we don’t have a system like this already in place is because we don’t have the resources for it. How is the budget going to support this?”
Board member Richard Kaye added that “this raises all kinds of questions about our budget. We will have to talk about this at the budget retreat. We need to help the community understand how these new regs will impact the budget. Perhaps then the community can express their views to Trenton.”
Kaye then spoke directly to West Windsor Township Council member Linda Geevers. “We need multiple voices on this. Perhaps the Council can help us get the message out and also express our concerns to Trenton?”
Geevers agreed to discuss it with the Council and also recommended that the board pass a resolution to send to the state expressing its concern over how to fund this mandated program.
Assistant superintendent of finance Larry Shanok emphasized, “What saves the day, besides the frugality we exercised in expenditures, is the amount that we can squeeze out of our excess. The total tax levy increase will remain at zero for this year. We have committed to that. We may not be able to do that again, so we should celebrate this year. This is an untenable situation. It is very important to the budget discussions; that’s why we included it today. Something will have to give to make progress over the daunting challenges we are facing this year,” Shanok added.
