Legal Question Of The Week - 9/27/12

By Attorney Thomas B. Mooney, Neag School of Education, University of Connecticut

The "Legal Question of the Week" is a regular feature of the CAS Weekly NewsBlast. We invite readers to submit short, law-related questions of practical concern to school administrators. Each week, we will select a question and publish an answer. While these answers cannot be considered formal legal advice, they may be of help to you and your colleagues. We may edit your questions, and we will not identify the authors. Please submit your questions to: legalmailbag@casciac.org

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Dear Legal Mailbag:

I was happy to read your response in the June 2012 Legal Mailbag column concerning the new state teacher evaluation guidelines required under Public Act 12-116, An Act Concerning Education Reform. Do I understand you correctly that we have until the 2014-2015 school year to implement a new evaluation program in accordance with these guidelines? Getting the new plan in place and getting both administrators and teachers appropriately trained will be a huge job. Thank goodness for small favors.

Signed,
Taking My Sweet Time


Dear Time:

Not so fast. The position of the State Department of Education is that school districts will be required to implement evaluation programs under the new guidelines next year. To be sure, there is a pilot program during the current year, and the results of that pilot program will be then the subject of a study by the Neag School of Education. That study must be submitted to the State Board of Education by January 1, 2014, after which the State Board of Education must validate the new guidelines, as they may be revised through the pilot. Nonetheless, the statute does not specify that school districts can wait for the validated guidelines to implement a new evaluation program, and the Department is expecting implementation of the new plans next July. The bottom line here is that, while there are uncertainties and some changes are likely, school districts are expected to take good faith action to implement new evaluation programs in accordance with the new guidelines in 2013-2014 based on what is learned through the pilot in 2012-2013.