Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/94843
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT The AEA wants to ensure that teachers opportunities and not stripped of their due process and contractual rights. 2. Hold pupils to strict account for disorderly conduct. 3. Take and maintain daily classroom attendance. 4. Make the decision to promote or retain a pupil in grade in a common school or to pass or fail a pupil in a course in high school. Such decisions may be overturned only as provided in section 15-342, paragraph 11. 5. Comply with all rules and policies of the governing board that relate to the duties pre- scribed in this section. Changes in Probationary Status A probationary teacher in their third year who is rated developing or ineffective can be offered a fourth-year contract and remain a probation- ary teacher. Previously probationary teachers had three years to perform satisfactorily or be non-renewed. AEA amended the bill to permit a district to retain a teacher for a fourth year if they are in the bottom two performance clas- sifications. AEA recognizes that some beginning teachers may be given the performance classi- fication of "developing" at the end of their third year, and AEA believes the district should have the option to retain these teachers on staff if professional development can be given to move these teachers from "developing" to "effective" or "highly effective" in the following school year. The AEA wants to ensure that teachers who are struggling are given professional develop- ment opportunities and not stripped of their due process and contractual rights. Accordingly we had language stricken that would have required a person in their fifth year to be deemed a "pro- bationary" teacher if they fell in the bottom two performance classifications. who are struggling are given professional development New Evaluation Policies New evaluation policies must be discussed at a public board meeting and include the following: • Incentives for teachers rated highly effective including multi-year contracts. (A.R.S.§15-538.01, 15-540, 15-541) • Incentives for teachers in the two highest performance classifications to work at schools assigned a letter grade of D or F. (A.R.S.§ 15-241) • Protections for teachers who are transferred to D or F schools. (A.R.S.§ 15-241) • Protections for teachers if the principal is rated in the lowest performance classification. As an incentive, a teacher in the highest per- formance classification may be offered a multi- year contract for up to three years. AEA inserted language to protect a teacher's right to decline a multi-year contract and instead accept a one- year teaching contract in case a teacher did not want to be "locked in" to a longer term offer if they did not want to be. AEA also maintained that a teacher who accepts a multi-year contract cannot be subject to reductions in force or sal- ary reductions during the time of their contract. AEA also had the language added requiring the protections for teachers in the last two bullet points. Continued on page 24 AEA Advocate x Winter 2012/13 17