As I am working through this TKES/TAPS process to reach my TEM score through the SLO assessments and SUI (surveys of instructional practice), it is somewhat comforting to know that my score impacts the LKES evaluation. Translated: my annual evaluation impacts my administrators and schools evaluation; the better my score, the better their score. It is in their best interest that I do well.
During my pre-evaluation conference, I got the sense that the administrators in charge seemed genuinely concerned that they want me to pass; that was a comforting thought. For the first time, I felt like someone was working with & for me as opposed against me. My coordinator said that she would e-mail my evaluator and upload the information into the GaDOE TLE website - aka, The Platform. After she uploaded her account of my pre-evaluation, e-mailed my evaluator, and he replied, I received a notice that I needed to sign off on the pre-evaluation conference.
I went into The Platform and reviewed the section. In the conference, I expressed things like, "I'm not sure how you would interpret this, but in my setting, this is what I do....," "The interpretation of the word 'orderly' in my room looks like....." She said things like, "You could put a copy in your lesson plan binder" and "You differentiate all the time by the very nature of your performance tasks."
However, in The Platform, I noticed that there were words like, "Dr. Cason had some concerns about data....," "I advised that this data....," and "I advised him to keep a copy in his lesson plan binder....," "We discussed that 'orderly' does not mean 'quiet'," and "We discussed students as self-directed learners and what that looks like...." [emphasis added]. I've been around long enough to know that the warm, fuzzy-discussion-turned-cold-worded advisement is a clue. They're watching their back; I better watch mine. I hope to help you too....
The point: while the pre-evaluation conference was informative and polite, the documentation loaded into The Platform was very official language.
I noticed that at the end, you are supposed to sign off and agree with what was posted. Below the button was something to the effect that once you agreed to it, you would not be allowed to edit it any more. I didn't sign off on it. I was concerned about the wording, so I created a reply in a document. It was a long, 4-paragraph reply addressing each area noted in The Platform. I copy and pasted the reply into the form, then clicked accept or agree or submit.....
