Before beginning observations for the current school year, evaluators should have summative conferences with all educators to review their evaluation results from the previous school year. Oftentimes summative conferences occur at the end of the school year, but some may not be completed until the beginning of the following school year.
In addition to discussing scores from the previous year, summative conferences should incorporate the main components of a coaching conversation to help facilitate a productive conversation.
Required Components:
- Discussion of Professionalism scores
- Share final qualitative (observation) data scores
- Share final 15% quantitative data (if measure is available)
- Let the teacher know when and how the overall score will be calculated
Other Components:
- Commend places of progress
- Focus on the places in need of continued refinement.
Saving Time:
- Ensure teachers view their data prior to the meeting
- Incorporate this meeting with existing end of year wrap-up meetings or beginning of year initial coaching conversations
- There is no required form for the summative conference. Any documentation required is at the district’s discretion.
Coaching Conversation Guidance:
- Begin the coaching conversation by communicating the purpose and goals of the meeting to help reduce teacher anxiety.
- Emphasize the need for teacher growth and improvement through changing and refining strategies instead of stating the need to “bring up scores from this year”.
- Use formative and summative data from the previous year to discuss patterns in teaching practices related to student growth.
- Provide specific strategies, based on your analysis of the teacher’s areas for growth, including timelines for regular check-ins.