November 13, 2018 3 min read
Redesigning Teacher Evaluation at Macris School
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Macris School in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, serves approximately 1,000 students in pre-school through twelfth grades. The school follows both the American and Honduran academic programs and students graduate with both a Honduran Diploma and a U.S. High School Diploma. In late 2017, high school principal Michael Peabody was exploring options to move their teacher evaluation and professional development tracking from a paper-based system to an online platform for the school’s 80 teachers.
As part of their selection process, Peabody and his team reviewed several online programs and ultimately chose the TeachPoint Educator Evaluation Solution because of the comprehension nature of the platform, the integration with the TeachPoint PD Tracking Solution, and the opportunities to customize the solution to meet their specific needs.
A Phased Implementation
Macris School was in the midst of restructuring their evaluation system for teachers when they initially implemented TeachPoint and opted to roll out the system in phases so they could customize the evaluation processes and forms to align with their new system. They ended the 2017-2018 school year by having teachers complete a reflection form in TeachPoint, and then over the summer implemented their goal setting form, classroom walkthrough checklist, and summative evaluation form. Next the school will be rolling out their formal observation forms in TeachPoint. According to principal Peabody, ”The system is very powerful. While the onboarding and basic configuration is very fast, it has worked best for us to implement all the forms and processes in phases so as not to overwhelm our teachers.”
Making Evaluations More Efficient and Effective
Still in the first full year of implementation, TeachPoint is already adding value for the educators at Macris School. Teachers have found the system to be user-friendly and helpful for organizing data. Principal Peabody reports that TeachPoint is helping the school systemize their processes and has also made classroom walkthroughs more efficient and effective. As they expand the use of TeachPoint this school year, he expects to see better growth in teacher learning and greater administrator support for the teaching and learning process.
”TeachPoint is helping us connect our philosophy with our summative evaluation and then work our way backward to connect goal-setting and daily observations. The integrated PD Tracking Solution is helping us motivate teachers to participate in PD events outside of school and gives us an organized way to track those activities. We are extremely happy with the TeachPoint platform and have found the personalized customer service to be very helpful.”
Michael Peabody, High School Principal
