For the past several months, I have been serving as the school psychology representative on the RIDE Support Professionals Evaluation Workgroup.  One professional from each support field has been selected to sit on this team.  As such, the following support professionals are represented at each meeting: Library/Media Specialists, School Nurses, School Social Workers, Reading Specialists, Guidance/School Counselors, Speech/Language Pathologists, and School Psychologists.

     The workgroup has met since November to provide feedback, suggestions, and recommendations on the future Support Professionals Evaluation Model.  The process has served as a vehicle to advocate for the school psychology profession as well as speak to the manageability and functionality of the evaluation process.  There are several aims of this workgroup.  The primary aim of our work has been to determine if there is a way to align the various Professional Standards of each represented field into an integrated system.  There are both strengths and limitations to this approach.  As part of this process, I have reviewed the standards of all represented fields and shared NASP's 10 Domains of Practice with the workgroup.  The team has evaluated whether there are areas of alignment within all Standards.  After much work and deliberation, we were able to identify 4 broad domains that relate to all fields: Planning & Preparation, Service Delivery, Collaboration & Consultation, and Evaluation & Assessment.  Although these 4 areas have been identified, team members have expressed the importance of addressing the unique responsibilities of each discipline.  The team is now exploring whether there is a way to broadly define Support Professional Standards/Domains while also identifying sub-standards that are specific to each discipline.

     Additional areas that we have been working on include: providing feedback on the professional responsibilities rubric, identifying methods to measure student development, sharing feedback on the observation process, and reviewing the process for Professional Growth Goal setting.  The new Support Professionals Evaluation Process may be modeled after the current Educator Evaluation Process in some structural areas, but not all. RIDE is still determining this.  For example, the following 3 "System Components" will most likely be included:

***Please refer to the RIDE guidebook titled, Guide to Evaluating Building Administrators and Teachers, to learn more about some of the evaluation system components mentioned above.

     Now that the team has provided considerable feedback, materials, resources, and suggestions to the RIDE leaders, the RIDE members will now transfer all of our feedback and information into the creation of the evaluation system.  We will continue to be in contact throughout these next few months and will collaborate through local and distance meetings.  I have also volunteered to meet with RIDE team members over the summer months.  All workgroup members will reconvene again in September/October.  If you have additional information that you would like to offer to RIDE, I strongly encourage you to provide feedback directly to RIDE by sending an email to: edeval@ride.ri.gov.

Another way to provide feedback is by completing a survey specific to school psychologists: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MRTFBYS

After I receive all responses, I will forward the results to RIDE.  Please provide responses before April 5th, after this date the survey will close.

As you may recall, a survey went out last fall regarding the evaluation process.  Your responses were very helpful and they were shared with the RIDE team.  I would like to thank those of you who responded to the previous survey and hope you do the same again with this final survey.

Pilot of Support Professionals Evaluation Model: 
-Winter/Spring 2012-2013 (select schools)
Implementation of Support Professionals Evaluation Model:
-Fall 2013 (all schools)

Thank you in advance for your support,

Andrea Spas