Certificated school employees: evaluation and assessment.

(1) Existing law provides that when developing and adopting objective evaluation and assessment guidelines for certificated employees, a school district may, by mutual agreement between the exclusive representative of the certificated employees of the school district and the governing board of the school district, include certain standards. This bill would encourage these evaluation and assessment guidelines to include specific information relating to current best teaching practices in all subject areas, as well as information relating to objectively training evaluators on current best teaching practices in all subject areas. (2) Existing law requires the governing board of a school district to evaluate and assess the performance of certificated employees as it reasonably relates to the progress of pupils towards the standards of expected pupil achievement established by the governing board, the instructional techniques and strategies used by the employee, the employee's adherence to curricular objectives, and the establishment of a suitable learning environment. This bill would authorize school districts to incorporate additional criteria into the evaluation of certificated employees, including: (A) pupil progress during a school year or, as applicable, during multiple school years, toward statewide academic content standards or common core academic standards in language arts and mathematics, comprising no more than 25% of the evaluation; and (B) pupil and parent or guardian input, comprising no more than 5% of the evaluation. The bill would authorize a school district, prior to issuing a final evaluation, to conduct multiple observations by trained evaluators and peers with the opportunity for constructive feedback and professional development.