ARTICLE 3 TEACHER EVALUATION

South Kingstown School District

A. No teacher shall be disciplined, reprimanded, suspended without pay as a disciplinary measure, reduced in rank or compensation, or deprived of any professional advantage without just cause.

B. Teachers shall be evaluated using the Rhode Island Model Teacher Evaluation and Supp01i System Edition IV, or current edition as it may change from time to time .

C. Support professionals shall be evaluated using the Rhode Island Model Support Professional Evaluation and Support System Edition III, or current edition as it may change from time to time.

D. Any teacher or support professional new to the district shall be evaluated regardless of their evaluation rating in any previous district. Annual evaluations shall continue for the first two years for those teachers who have earned tenure in a previous Rhode Island district and for the first three years for those teachers who did not earn tenure in a previous Rhode Island district. Teachers who work less than 135 days will be evaluated as determined by the DEC.

E. Notwithstanding the provisions above, all non-tenured teachers and non-tenured support professionals shall be evaluated annually.

F. Notwithstanding the provisions above, a teacher or support professional shall be evaluated during their first year teaching under a new teaching ce1iificate regardless of tenure.

G. Areas of the Rhode Island Model Teacher Evaluation and Support System that call for Local Education Agency (LEA) flexibility will be addressed by the District Evaluation Committee including: pre- and post- conferences, complementary evaluators, providing procedural safeguards to ensure the integrity of the system, the length of evaluation conferences, schoolwide approaches to professional growth goals, the scheduling of announced visits, artifact review processes and timelines, and Measures of Student Learning process. Flexibility decisions approved by the District Evaluation Committee, as they may change from time to time, shall be considered an addendum to this contract.

H. A District Evaluation Committee (DEC), will consist of the Superintendent and Association President or his/her designee from the elected executive board. The Superintendent will duly appoint five (5) administration representatives and the President will duly appoint five (5) teacher representatives.

The duties and responsibilities of the DEC shall be as follows:

Identify and plan for necessary training/support to certified district staff and their evaluators who are new to the district each year.
Solicit and review ongoing feedback to consider improvements and implement changes to the district's implementation plans.
Develop and implement an appeals process to ensure the integrity of the evaluation system, as required by RIDE guidelines, but subject, however, to the provisions in paragraph I below.

I. Teachers may challenge their final effectiveness rating through the appeals process dete1mined by the DEC; provided however, that any results of said appeals process are nonbinding on the Superintendent and Committee, and are purely advisory to the Superintendent , who shall have final authority to accept or reject, in whole or in part , all results of the appeals process. Should a teacher be aggrieved by the Superintendent's dete1minations as to their evaluation, then they shall resort to the grievance and arbitration procedures in this Agreement by submitting the grievance at Step 3.