The Pennsylvania Department of Education (PDE) invites all school districts, charter schools, intermediate units and career and technical centers to join them in Phase III of the continued development and implementation of a new principal effectiveness system in the 2013-14 school year.  Please note that schools receiving School Improvement Grants (SIG) using the Transformation model are required to participate in Phase III unless these schools have developed an instrument which has been approved by PDE. In addition, all Local Educational Agencies (LEAs) receiving Race to the Top (RTTT) funding are required to participate in Phase III.

The major elements of this project include:

• A detailed practice rubric based on feedback from Phase II and research collected from multiple practice models;

• On-going study and refinement of measurable evidence and its correlation with the Principal practice rubric;

• Detailed guidance on the effectiveness process, its components and the evidence to be considered for evaluation;

• The refinement of a formula for determining the summative evaluation rating;

• Participation in a training network;

• External evaluators to analyze the second phase of the project; and

• Utilization of an online evaluator training system to address inter-rater reliability.

Phase III implementation sites will have the opportunity to provide recommendations, based upon their experience, into the final design of the new principal effectiveness form and rubric. In addition, Phase III implementation sites will be able to offer recommendations for the evaluation guidelines that will include local flexibility, practice components and evidence recommendations.

Phase III implementation sites will also have the opportunity to receive ongoing assistance at no cost, as well as priority registration for the PDE Institute, which will be held in December 2013.  

Please join PDE in this very important endeavor.  PDE needs a broad representation of the education community across Pennsylvania to develop a strong system. You may select individual building principals (with the exception of SIG & RTTT Schools) for Phase III rather than the entire LEA.  This will be one of the last opportunities to have input before PDE finalizes the rubric and components of the system.

If you know you are ready to participate in Phase III, you can indicate your commitment by visiting the following URL and providing the requested information. The deadline for registering to participate in Phase III of the implementation process is June 14, 2013. The URL is http://webapps.pattan.net/tes/PE3/pecontactandlea.asp