Frequency of Evaluations : South Carolina

Analysis of South Carolina's policies

Regrettably, South Carolina does not ensure that all teachers are evaluated annually.

South Carolina policy leaves the frequency of a formal evaluation for nonprobationary, "continuing contract" teachers to the discretion of the local school district. A district may opt to conduct a formal evaluation or a "goals-based evaluation," which is a more minimal assessment that allows for review of a teacher's progress in meeting three professional development goals related to student learning. The goals-based evaluation cycle is a maximum of at least five years, to be timed with the validity period of a teacher's professional certificate.

New teachers in South Carolina must be formally evaluated twice a year. The formal evaluation period consists of two evaluation cycles. The first (preliminary) cycle occurs during the first semester of the school year; all or at least a portion of the second must occur during the second semester. "Any performance weaknesses that are identified during the preliminary evaluation cycle must be included in educators' professional growth and development plans at the time of the preliminary evaluation conference."

Citation

ADEPT System Guidelines, South Carolina Department of Education http://www.scteachers.org/adept/evalpdf/adept_guidelines.pdf

Recommendations for South Carolina

Require annual formal evaluations for all teachers.
All teachers in South Carolina should be evaluated annually. Rather than treated as mere formalities, these teacher evaluations should serve as important tools for rewarding good teachers, helping average teachers improve and holding weak teachers accountable for poor performance.  

Base evaluations on multiple observations.
To guarantee that annual evaluations are based on an adequate collection of information, South Carolina should require multiple observations for all teachers, even those who have nonprobationary status. Further, as evaluation instruments become more data driven, it may not be feasible to issue multiple formal evaluation ratings during a single year. Applicable student data will likely not be available to support multiple ratings.  

State response to our analysis

South Carolina asserted that all teachers must receive evaluations every year. "Evaluations are not formalities, but are used to make decisions concerning employment, professional development and the level of evaluation for the following year."  

Last word

Although conducted annually, the state's goals-based evaluation is merely a review of professional development goals.