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Principal Jud Haynie writing notes for a classroom observation of a reading teacher.

Tennessee made a promise this year – to make sure every classroom in the state has an effective teacher who challenges students to think. The state’s promise paid off when it won $500 million in the federal Race to the Top competition. Now it’s up to principals to deliver on the state’s vow by spending more time watching teachers work. What’s known as classroom observation is being transformed and multiplied.

It’s a normal, hectic Monday morning. Wright Middle School principal Jud Haynie just found out about a conference call and a visit from a dozen principals. An upset parent is coming in this afternoon. He’s hoping to meet with a group of seventh graders. Oh, and the fire alarm just went off.

“Just another fun day,” Haynie chuckles, as he watches students line up and head outside. An assistant principal told Haynie about the drill a few minutes before. The school has to do one a month and luckily this interruption barely eats into the day.

“It usually takes about two minutes, two and a half minutes,” says Haynie. “And 900 kids are out.”

Observations Pile Up

Once kids shuffle back inside, Haynie zips to his office. On top of his already packed day, he hopes to visit four classrooms. Wright Middle School is testing-out the state’s plan to roughly quadruple the number of teacher observations during a school year. In the past he had a couple dozen.

“I would have somewhere in the nature of forty-five observations. Fifty?” recalls Haynie.

Now he and his two assistant principals have around two hundred as observations are set to double for new teachers. But it’s the tenured teachers who face the biggest spike. They may have four observations a year – up dramatically from the current one every five years.

“That certainly was sending the wrong message to a teacher that was tenured,” says Haynie. “That you must be okay because we only need to…check in on you once every five years says that everything’s going fine. Well? Maybe.”

Principal Haynie at work in his Wright Middle School office.

Greater Clarity For Teachers

For his first observation of the day, Haynie quietly walks into Sharia Kharif’s reading class. She’s in her crucial third year of teaching, the one where she could gain tenure – meaning her position would be safe from elimination unless there’s serious cause for her dismissal. Kharif’s helping a student read one-on-one. All the other kids are clustered into groups. Haynie walks up to one.

“So you’re making a bookmarker just because you’d like to make one?” he asks.

The girl’s eyes shift from her paper, to her principal. “It’s like a bookmarker brochure to tell people how good the book is,” she says.

“Oh, okay. I see,” Haynie nods approvingly. He’s not just making casual conversation.

“I’m trying to find out if they can tell me what her expectations are. So was she clear in what her goals and objectives were?” he says.

Haynie is impressed by what he sees. Still he takes time to draw all 28 desks on a sheet of paper, jotting notes of feedback on student behavior, like the boy whose head has been buried in a book rather than participating.

“I just wonder if he’s ever encouraged to be a part of that,” he whispers as he jots his notes. “And so I’m going to ask her.”

Teachers and administrators say the old observation system was too vague, allowing principals to easily pass certain teachers they like. This new system lists the kinds of questions teachers should be asking, and what lesson plans should include. Kharif appreciates having expectations laid out in black and white.

“I’m looking for this, this, and that,” she says mimicking a principal with a checklist. “This and this are not on there or not in the room than that’s what taking off for.”

After a little more than an hour in Kharif’s class, Haynie glances at his watch and realizes his next observation is coming up.

Too Much Work?

The state knows observations are time-consuming and has suggested that some should only last fifteen minutes. Haynie feels he can’t judge a teacher’s strengths and weaknesses that quickly.

The president of the local teachers union, Eric Huth, isn’t against shorter visits. He questions piling more on.

When far fewer were required, Huth remembers dozens of teachers complaining that they either never happened, or were jammed in all at once. “Evaluations that were conducted three times in one week,” says Huth. And sometimes, “…three observations in a day.”

He says teachers need time to digest a principal’s recommendations and work towards improving skills. “You can’t expect anyone to have growth from first period to sixth period.”

Around fifty schools are testing out this new approach to evaluations, relaying concerns and suggestions before it’s implemented in all Tennessee schools this fall.

The state says its goal is not to clean house, but to find teachers’ rough spots and polish them.

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