The Clarke County Board of Education passed this year's budget and adopted a revised teacher evaluation policy.
Board of education members unanimously approved the $171 million budget for the 2022 fiscal year as well as a millage rate of 20 mills--same as last year. A point of contention, however, was the revision of the district's teacher evaluation policy, which needed to be passed by the end of the month to comply with a new state law that takes effect on July 1st.
While the policy did pass, is was not without opposition from some members. The policy includes an external reviewer option as well as a third level of appeal, which allows board members to appoint a body or committee to deal with appeals.
Both items were incorporated after the initial proposal was met with criticism from teachers. Here is Chief of Human Resources Selena Blankenship. "We believe this is a very reasonable way forward to incorporate the public feedback that was given and to provide for that third level of appeal to address the board's desire to have a part in that appeal process."
District three's Linda Davis opposed the policy and suggested the implementation of a peer review system in lieu of the board's involvement. "Several calls on this one, but the one that I think was very exciting to me was from the manufacturing industry and they suggested that rather than involve the school board and a third level of appeal, that that would become a peer review. And again, because the peers are already intimately involved with the work and the workers, they felt like that would be a more just way to address that third level if necessary."
Patricia Yager from district four said the policy language allows for the possibility of a peer-review process, but Davis said she does not support the proposal as written.