CLIFTON PARK, NY - A day after Governor Andrew Cuomo and state education leaders announced a deal on new teacher evaluations, local school districts are left putting the framework in place.
With more than 700 teachers in the Schenendehowa Central School District, Superintendent Dr. Oliver Robinson said implementing the system will be challenging.
"Anyone can pass a mandate. The question is how can we implement it at the ground level," Superintendent Dr. Oliver Robinson said.
After two years of negotiations, Governor Cuomo and state education leaders reached an agreement. The new system relies on points, 60% based on classroom observations and the other 40% on both state and local testing. Dr. Robinson is most critical of the testing component.
"We're creating test taking soldiers versus having kids that are engaged in schools and focused on inquiry, excited about learning. That's a huge issue," Dr. Robinson said.
The new tougher evaluations will also place an additional burden on school principals and administrators who will be in charge of doing the reviews. Greg Pace, the Principal of the Tesago Elementary School said he already had teachers come to him concerned.
"The teacher evaluations are going to take a great deal of time. Its all about trying to create a paper trail and its just a lot more paper and a lot more time out of our schedule that we would be spending maybe talking about curricular issues specifically," Principal Pace said.
NEWS10 ABC
