Galloway Community Charter School Applies For Teacher Evaluation Pilot Program

The Galloway Community Charter School is one of 31 school districts and charter schools who have applied to take part in the state Department of Education’s (DOE) teacher-evaluation pilot program. Nine districts will be chosen to take part in the program, and GCCS Director Deborah Nataloni expects to find out if her school will be selected by the middle of August.

The program is known as EE4NJ, or Excellent Educators for New Jersey.

However, even if it isn’t selected by the Department of Education, GCCS is already on the right track.

“Last year, we revised our evaluation method to include informal evaluations,” Nataloni said. “This is a great opportunity to take the initiative and develop that.”

The initiative came about last year because teachers changed the way they were evaluating the students in their school, so the administration decided to alter the way it evaluates its teachers.

In the past, tenured teachers have been evaluated once a year, while non-tenured teachers were evaluated three times. Now, all teachers will be evaluated three times a year.

GCCS already uses one of the five models the DOE is asking the schools to choose from. All of the school’s 24 teachers are participating in the program. The school has 200 students, with about 15 in each class.

The DOE has allocated $1.1 million to help schools implement the program. The schools would submit their individual findings to help guide the state to ultimately achieve its goal of a statewide teacher evaluation program.

The initiative is expected to draw on the New Jersey Educator Effectiveness Task Force that was released in the spring.

The taskforce asked for teacher evaluations that were linked to student achievement, with half consisting of direct measures of student achievement and half consisting of the effects of teacher practices on student achievement.

It also recommended collecting feedback from stakeholders and implementing a pilot program to collect information on a small scale, before moving forward on a larger scale with a program that could affect retention, promotion, and teacher pay on a statewide scale.

The other school districts and charter schools that applied for the program are as follows: Alexandria Township; Bayonne; Bergenfield; Camden City; Cherry Hill; East Hanover; Egg Harbor Township; Elizabeth; Fort Lee; Hainesport; Keyport; Little Egg Harbor Township; Maria L. Varisco-Rogers Charter School; Marlboro Township; Monroe Township; Newark; North Brunswick; Nutley; Ocean City; Pemberton Township; Perth Amboy; Red Bank Borough; Rockaway; Secaucus; Stafford Township; Swedesboro-Woolwich; Upper Township; West Deptford Township; West Windsor-Plainsboro Regional; and Woodstown-Pilesgrove Regional.