Intern Board of Review Duties

• Governs Intern Program
• Consists of five union representatives and four management representatives
• Rotates the chairmanship annually between the president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers and an assistant superintendent
• Assigns consulting teachers
• Approves applicable inservices
• Manages the budget
• Monitors and scrutinizes the work of each consulting teacher
• Accepts or rejects the evaluation recommendations of the consulting teachers
• Serves as an appeal panel

Composition
We use a nine-member board (four administrators and five teachers). Employment recommendations of consulting teachers in January and April must be confirmed or rejected by six votes. That works well for us. Teachers feel greater ownership, which is important in the early years of a peer review program, and six votes encourage the panel members to work together. Toledo has had one 5-4 vote in the program's 22 years.

Some districts appoint seven members. The important thing is to have someone on the panel who is familiar with elementary, middle school, high school and special education. A human resources administrator should be on the panel because of contractual matters that arise.

Diversity
Appointments to the PAR panel should reflect the diversity of your school district, as should your consulting teachers. Aside from ethical and common-sense considerations, charges of discrimination (age, race, sex, etc. ) are not uncommon among those you will have to discharge for inferior performance. Ignore at your own risk.

Appointments
In Toledo, the president of the Toledo Federation of Teachers and an assistant superintendent (usually in charge of the Office of Human Resources) act as co-chairs. The union president and the superintendent appoint their respective panel members. It is best to communicate about these appointments while retaining appointment authority.

It is key to have two powerful decision-makers run your program, one from the union, one from management.

Meetings
The panel does not have to meet to decide every detail. The co-chairs can manage the day-to-day questions that arise, and if the issue is important, you can send a confidential ballot to the other panel members.

The panel members meet to hear consultants' reports after the first semester before the close of school. Panelists should also schedule a day in the spring to hear appeals from those who which to contest their nonrenewal. You would do that after the evaluation reports are acted on. In our case, a new recommendation is sent to the school board when the panel overturns its prior decision to nonrenew. It doesn't happen often, but it does occasionally.

After your initial first-year experience, you might want to consider Toledo's schedule.

The January and April sessions can last for several days depending on the number of teachers reviewed (hired).

Assignment of Consulting Teachers
This includes posting job availability, employment of consultants and assignment of caseload. We now allow the active consultants to do most of the scheduling within panel guidelines. While it is not prohibited, we try to avoid assigning the consultant's replacement teacher to his/her caseload. Teachers are quite possessive of their own classrooms, and consultants can lose a bit of objectivity in this instance.

Budget
We pay for the program out of local funds. Ohio's Department of Education has only recently supplied a small amount of money that can be used for peer review.

Cost is always as issue. Look at it this way. Districts are investing in a quality teaching staff. That is basic to successful schools. Teachers who fill in for active consultants are new hires and become interns. At the end of the first year, your district will have a teacher who is a desirable employee.

The cost varies from year to year in relation to the number of new teachers hired. The largest item is the salary of the teacher who replaces the active consultant.

Another question to ask is, "How much money does my district spend on effective quality control and enhancement?" Not much, if your district is typical. Most businesses would fold with a comparable budget for quality control. Some say public education is in the process of folding. There could be a direct relationship.

Hear and Act on Consultant Reports
Separate the consultants from panel members at PAR meetings. They can sit in the same room, but not at the same table. Have the consultants present from a podium. Some formality is desirable. Use an overhead projector to show key documents. Some anecdotal commentary is desirable, but focus the report on techniques and strategies used. Some stress in the consultant's life that day from tough, probing questions is not all bad.

It is not necessary for panel members to see consultants' documents prior to this meeting, although written communications from interns should be distributed to panelists stamped "confidential" as they are received. Most will be letters explaining why the intern thinks a personality conflict is the reason for a poor evaluation. We take these letters seriously, but not often do we find the alleged personality clash.

Keep Good Records
One of our failings at the outset was that we did not develop a way to determine the retention rate for successful interns after 1981. We strongly recommend an exit survey when employment ends later in a career.

It is important to have a secretary take minutes of each presentation to the panel. These do not need to be voluminous. A simple record will do, minus references to age, sex and similar information that could provoke legal problems later.

We have a brief description of more than 4,000 reports on file.

Sample Minutes
Ms. Lanzinger is an asset to Toledo Public Schools. She is resourceful, creative, organized, concerned and self-assured. She is excited about being a teacher. Ms. Lanzinger teaches the students lifetime skills. She provides the students with an opportunity to get information on their own and share with the other students. She uses the manuals as guides. Ms. Lanzinger provides good writing activities. She provides a lot of hands-on activities. Ms. Lanzinger is always prepared.

Rules and consequences are posted. Ms. Lanzinger gives clear and concise directions. Transitions are quick and efficient. She has developed an excellent rapport with the students.

Recommendation:
Completed Program/ First Year Contract if Available
YES: 8    No: 0

Mr. Symonds will tell you he is certified, but not qualified. He has improved, but he has a long way to go.

Mr. Symonds is a prompter, not a teacher. He lacks the ability to design lessons that have both appropriate content and effective procedures. The lessons do not achieve the type of learning anticipated. A thorough understanding of how children learn efficiently and effectively is lacking. Long-range goals and performance objectives are not consistently demonstrated. Directions are not always clear and concise. Lessons do not provide a balance of teacher and student interaction.

Classroom rules are set up, but are not always enforced consistently. Mr. Symonds does not always see inappropriate behavior in the back of the classroom while he is working with the students at the board. He has been told that improvement is needed.

Recommended for Semester Two: YES: 8    NO: 0
(One panel member was absent on this day.)

Confidentiality Is Very Important
Each panel meeting day should start with a verbal caution about confidentiality.

Location, Location
Much of the success of a peer review program results from placing the consulting teachers in a single location. By housing them all in one place, training of new consultants is available from those more experienced, and in the process an esprit de corps will develop.

Two observations: When we started in 1981, we did not realize the significance of the consultants' location. We were lucky enough to put consultants together. Consultants who cannot share experiences on a regular basis are missing the most powerful tools of peer review - training and evaluation consistency.

Caution: Do not turn the entire training program over to a college. If you use a college, make sure your experienced consultants play a lead role. At area universities now, some of our former consulting teachers serve as trainers in the regular teacher preparation program, usually as adjunct professors. That collaboration has been long overdue.

Routines
We found that after a few years, many of the program's routine tasks that fell to the panel could be handled by consultants themselves. However, it is good practice to include some panel members and former consultants when consultant applicants are interviewed. Over the years, you can experience program drift if the PAR panel is not vigilant.

Often we are asked, "Who supervised the consultants? Our answer is that if you choose highly motivated people, why would they need a supervisor? Don't forget that you should be building a profession with standards, not reinforcing tradition.

Over time, a consultant can be designated to act as a liaison between the co-chairs and the consultants. That works best for us.